A tale of lies, deceit, and fabulous shoes!
(Hey I drew to keep up with my one-drawing-a-day-for-a-week resolution and I get to rant. Whoo)
Ugh, I am quite upset but I suppose I should have known better. Last month I was "window shopping" on eBay looking at Monster High doll shoes. Usually one will find lots of accessories sold for (what I think) a relatively high price. I'm sorry but I don't see how one pair of shoes cost $10 when the fully accessorized doll costs $15 or $20. I have found shoes on sale but they're rare and most of time I don't even buy them because I'm honestly not in a position to do so. I have only bought two pairs, one for the Draculaura custom on sale and another pair for a personal custom I really want. So when I stumbled upon a lot offering 15 random pairs of Monster High doll shoes for $13 I was elated! That would be less than a dollar per pair! Sure there was the possibility of receiving duplicates but it was a risk I was willing to take. I then noticed that they were from China. A red flag went up in the back of mind but I ignored it because so far the things I have bought from Chinese eBay sellers have been smooth transactions. I paid for my lot and waited.
I went to the mailbox this evening to find a yellow bubble mailer addressed to me. I squealed in excitement and proceeded to tear open the package. Shoes! So many shoes! As I sprawled them across the bed I noticed that I now had four pairs of those twirly wrap around Dance Class line shoes. In different colors. "Hmm," I thought, "I could have sworn only Lagoona has a pair of those shoes." I stopped and stared wide eyed at my shoe pile. Did - did I just buy recasts? Upon further inspection I saw that all four pairs were too different in style to and detailed to be cheap recasts. I also noticed a funny looking "X" indentation on the sole of the shoes. I moved those aside and proceeded to inspect the rest of the lot. I finally grabbed hold of a Monster doll, Clawdeen to be exact, and began trying them all on. I know Monster shoes are a notoriously tight fit most of the time, but this was different. When I finally managed to nudge her foot in her toes protruded way beyond the edge of the shoe. This happened on all the shoes. I didn't understand. These were Monster High shoes, right? But why were they so small and ill-fitted? Could they be little sister shoes for Howleen or Twyla? No, there's only one Twyla and three Howleens how could there be such a variety of pretty . . . normal looking shoes? "These aren't Monster High shoes are they ya doofus?" I asked.
"I don't think they are ya dum-dum," I replied.
"To the internet!" I exclaimed. I began by googling up the Dance Class line and just as I had first suspected Lagoona was the only one with pink twirly lace shoes. In fact, these shoes in my hand weren't even close to Lagoona's shoes! So what the heck were these orange, blue, green, and pink shoes? I remembered reading some blogs where they offered a list of different doll brands whose shoes were a close fit for Monsters. I found the list and began my search. Lo and behold the third on the list showed me exactly what I held in my hand.
WINX!
What I ordered were indeed not Monster High doll shoes, but Winx doll shoes. No wonder they barely fit! Also, no wonder none of the shoes had any funky monstery design element incorporated! Ugh, I felt like such a fool.
After much debate I finally decided to contact the seller and ask for a refund. Yes, the shoes are fine and they are similar to the photo of in the description, but they are not what they are labeled as and that was Monster High shoes. They seem pretty afraid of negative feedback so hopefully I get my refund and we can put this mess behind us.
EDIT: Aaaand problem resolved.