I stopped buying from Newcl0ver last year after I saw first hand how greedy they have become. (I use plural pronouns because I refuse to believe Chr1stina is one person.) I had an order in on this bust stand that was per my recollection 3-4 months production time on the product page when I first purchased it. They delete the product pages after preorders so I don't remember. Anyhow, it took way longer than that, I asked them about the order multiple times since I saw people on IG get theirs, and they just kept saying "soon, soon". At 8 months I said I want to cancel. They said that it's ok, but they can only refund me 75% of the price because they will make a loss since they cannot cancel the order to the store and have to resell my order at loss. I agreed if only to be out of it, because I thought it's fair that we share the loss.
Well, a few months later I saw *my* bust stand listed in their "in stock -30% off" category, with my exact order options, and they were asking MORE than I paid during my initial order. I was still able to access my order notes through my profile and check. So I guess that's why they remove the original listings before people get their goods, huh? -30% off? Compared to what? Not the price I paid. I felt like they just scammed me out of 25% of my payment using the pity card and then cashed in some extra on someone else, too.
Their Taobao fees have skyrocketed. A couple years ago, it used to be the price in CNY x 0,19, but now it's already price in CNY x 0,22. One CNY is 0,14 USD so for every dollar you spend in their store, 36 cents go directly into their pocket for just receiving your box and sending it forward. And it's true that the fee includes free standard international shipping to most countries, but still, it's quite a big fee to pay for sending them a ready list of Taobao links and having your stuff drop-shipped to you. The difference in past and current service fees is even more gross considering they used to send monthly 10-15 usd off or 5% off coupons with their newsletters, but no longer do. When I asked them last year why the fees have risen and discounts stopped, they said it's due to the bad exchange rate of CNY to USD. I googled it and while it's true that the rate momentarily fluctuated in 2021-2022, for the past 6 months the exchange rate of CNY-USD has been at the same level as in 2020, so their excuse seems lacking.
I have had several missing items from each of my six large Taobao orders, but I was patient with reminding them about the items because I thought my orders are painfully big (100+ items). But, if you get paid the price you named for your service, is it really on the customer to feel like a burden when you eff up? It was often the expensive items that I had to chase after, too. Like, once when I ordered 30 bags of beads ranging from 1 to 20 dollars, it was the freshwater pearls that cost 20 dollars that were missing. She did always refund me or send the missing items, but it took me a lot of time to check and report, and I had to pay extra customs fees for the after-deliveries.
I used to be a loyal fan of Newcl0ver but I've removed all the messages in my socials where I nudged people towards ordering from them to avoid M00nlightbjdh0use's scammy high agent fees. Now I place Newcl0ver at the same low level as M00n. I'm gonna have to find myself a new doll dealer, since the two big USA dealers don't match my criteria, either. I have heard good things of Magus' agent services, but have yet to try them. Christina is not an official agent of most the artists they claim to represent, anyway, so it's the same to straight out go to someone who is open about not being an official dealer and prices accordingly.
