The case against devilinspired

 Hello! this is honestly my 'spiciest' blog and for a good reason, as mentioned in my shops to avoid blog devilinspired has gained a pretty bad rep in the lolita community, and I'm often asked for why not to shop there, so here it is! At the end of the day, I am not here to tell you how to spend your money, this is advice, however its best to approach things as informed as possible in my mind! As a note first, all $ are referencing USD, Chinese yuan I am using RMB for, and secondly, I am aware things like international shipping times, item sizing, and individual item quality are not devilinspired fault, however I am not in the business of altering other peoples reviews other than for a shortened overview.

Almost all of these reviews and information has been taken from public spaces such as r/lolita or trust pilot, any screenshots or images have been provided with consent from community members mainly on discord. Where possible i have linked sources

There are more testimonies in Facebook groups such. as rufflechat and big sisters of lolita fashion, however without the original posters consent and these groups not being public, I do not feel comfortable including them here!

Edit 1: I am also adding in that since publishing this blog I have had people contact me to say they can't delete their account, or remove their address from the site.

Edit 2: as a recent update, Devilinspired have stopped listing the names of taobao brands on their item listing, which is a hallmark of the majority of resellers who upcharge, and hugely disrespectful to the original brands.

Overpriced?

An argument I often see in favour of DevilInspired is that you pay for the convenience, which, ok I get that, sometimes you don't want to search too deep, but I would argue that for a lot of items you're paying more for the inconvenience (further discussed later in customer service issues) but are DevilInspired really the best option? lets look in to it!

As mentioned in Rosequartzroyalty's blog they charge the most out of the resellers, I have personally seen them charge up to ten times an items original cost

There is also this image provided by a member the lolita mentoring server comparing with direct from taobao, clobba online, my lolita dress, and devilinspired 

the prices read at follows:
taobao: 558RMB (approx US$86)

clobbaonline: $94.95

my lolita dress: $114.99
devilinspired: $152.00
that extra $66 could MORE THAN pay for your shopping service fees, or even a lot of the rest of the coord!

and this is a minor irritation of my own

I own these socks, i paid hardly anything for them, and while the retail of RMB 16.80 (US$2.60) to DI's price of US $5.99 isn't that great a difference, it all adds up!

In the interests of fairness i did attempt to compare with my lolita dress and clobba online, however MLD don't stock this sock from roji roji, and clobba have no roji roji products whatsoever

I recently made a rather significant sock order with 42agent, all from roji roji

which according to my PayPal came to a total of $86.69, for the items, service fee, and shipping (one pair was out of stock, the price of which came out of my shipping, i chose EMS shipping from 42agent)

yet when i add almost the same sock order to my DevilInspired cart (the ankle socks i bought they didn't have, so i opted for a different pair), the total with the cheaper shipping is $102.78 or $111.83 with express, while this isn't the most significantly huge difference of around $15-20, i didn't have to wait for DI's 1-2 week processing time (they got to 42Agent with around 3 days!) had consistent and good updates on my order and photos when they arrived at the service! devilinspired also seem to say the socks that i ordered and were out of stock (and still are on roji roji's store) are somehow in stock, so that seems like anyone who orders them will be stuck with an even longer wait for their items!

Here is another testimony from a discord friend

Text reads: I ordered once and it took as long as using a taobao agent and ended up selling most of what I ordered bc it didn't fit right

I honestly didn't know how bad the price mark-up was at the time and I've bought the same stuff in the right sizes for 1/2 to 1/3 the price of DI directly from the taobao seller using shopping services

Like a tiny garden blouse on devilinspired is 17.90USD & from taobao it's 9.80 usd including the 42agebt commission

The blouse mentioned: 

RMB52 - approx $8

And the DI price of $17.90

Breach of GDPR (global data protection ruling)

I am going to talk specifically from a European data protection stance here as outlined by the EU 

The GDPR applies to:

1. a company or entity which processes personal data as part of the activities of one of its branches established in the EU, regardless of where the data is processed; or
2. a company established outside the EU and is offering goods/services (paid or for free) or is monitoring the behaviour of individuals in the EU.

And since devilinspired ship globally this is relevant here while china doesnt have one single universal and comprehensive data protection law (although this has now been proposed) Devilinspired have to abide by international laws when handling international personal data.

The context as to why I'm saying all this:

Text reads: just a reminder to not buy off DevilInspired, not only because they're scalpers and massively overprice their stock but also because they're a little shady with people's personal info. when I received someone else's order I emailed them to ask if it came from them. they gave me a stranger's personal info, including address, full name and phone number, and had me ship it on their behalf to the person who was supposed to receive it. I was reimbursed for the shipping cost but i didn't get any incentive, which means it was just a waste of time for both me and the actual customer, as well as a safety hazard for the customer.

Text reads: Dear Hello
Could you help send these items to the below address?

I am so sorry that out warehouse make a mistake of delivery address. Please help use local postal office, not FedEx or DHL. And leave a low value on the package like USD15.
After shipping, please send me tracking number and invoice. I will apply the refund of freight for you. Thanks so much

then below is the address, and item listing 

they also mention it in the comments of Lanie in wonderland's review (which i talk more about further down) the text of the comment reads "DevilInspired sent me someone else's order and then when i contacted them they gave me all of that person's personal info, i wouldn't recommend shopping from them lol" Which is a GDPR breach, according to the GDPR info website "The data subjects are identifiable if they can be directly or indirectly identified ...(CUT)... In practice, these also include all data which are or can be assigned to a person in any kind of way. For example, the telephone, credit card or personnel number of a person, account data, number plate, appearance, customer number or address are all personal data." personal data, by law, must be kept protected and not given out without the consent of the person it belongs to.

Bad customer service

Devilinspired customer service reviews often break down overall in to a few consistent categories, these being; lack of communication, items not being in stock, long shipping and processing times and being sent the wrong item.

Update as of 10/06/2021, thanks to classiccupcake on instagram, here is their experience with Devilinspired's customer service, lack of communication, and slow processing

classiccupcake also spoke to me via voice message and informed me that devilinspired appear to be using multiple paypal accounts and email addresses, however i do not have any screenshotted evidence of this as of yet.

Text reads "Kayla wilson: Good afternoon, Please provide a status inquiry on the order (NUMBER)
I was informed in late april that the dress would be ready in mere weeks, and it is now June.
If the order is prepared to ship, I will be happy to pay the additional fee to deliver (Custom size available Rose Lover Elegant Lolita Dress JSK by NSG Lolita NSG-019)
If the order is prepared to ship, I will be happy to pay the additional fee. If the dress has not been completed, please refund the amount of the dress back to my paypal.
The order estimation was 2-6 weeks, and it has been nearly 5 months.
Thank you,
Kayla wilson

there is then a second email from Kayla which simply reads "when can i expect this refund?" - this is responded to below, however the fits in the chain between the left and right half of the first image

Dear Hello
I'm Sorry
Due to some reason, the item may be lost and we can't find it in our warehouse.
We plan to make refund the item $33.9 for you
Sorry for inconvenience caused

Adding to which, the dresses actual cost is $39.99, i tried to add a screenshot myself however i cant access the devilinspired website at the time of update due to an abysmal internet connection

the third email (right hand of first image) is a response from devilinspired

Hi
Thanks again for shopping with us, and sorry for the inconvenience, and i will arrange the refund for you ASAP. And for the refund, we can refund you through paypal to where you pay your order, and it will be finished within 2 weeks, and an email will be sent automatically to inform you that the refund has been successfully arranged.
Thanks so much for your patience

Here are some publicly available testimonies:

this reddit post on r/lolita is a comment section of testaments to their customer service being below par, including, long shipping/processing times with no communication, making mistakes and then expecting the customer to pay more to fix them.
 their trustpilot scores have them at 43% of revies being 1 star (however there are only 7 reviews) with complaints ranging from the usual "they took my money and i never got my items" and "i haven't had a sight of my refund" to "this took 5 months to even ship"
reviews on sitejabber also comment on customer service frequently with a lot of people talking about receiving little to no communication throughout the whole process, being sent wrong items, and in one case being asked to destroy an item for a refund because they were sent the wrong one!

Paying for positivity

Now this is a bit of a touchy one, but a lot of positive reviews of devilinspired have been coming from their paid sponsorship, this 2018 lolita tips post mentions how in the past DI used to be known as a scam site and had a ton of negative reviews, but had recently been paying/gifting for review, this 2015 review for a general gothic item on their site adds to this background. in fact in searching for reviews to link a good 80% of the posts about DI had words like "reached out to me" and "sent me this" somewhere in them, leading to some biased reviews (and i realise here i am shooting myself completely in the foot re any sponsorships ever, but its worth it)

An honest review

Lanie in wonderland "bought from devilinspired so we don't have to", I recommend watching this video as its one of the few reviews I've been able to find that hasn't been sponsored at all, they discuss early on the the many red flags of devilinspired BEFORE ordering, including 2-3 months for processing, the 3 day return window, and how usually the shipping is exorbitant. During the review one of the items they buy is stained. it is a generally positive review however the comments have a real variation of opinions, including a comment detailing that DI sent their parcel to the wrong address and expected the recipient to fix it. My real takeaway from Lanie's video is the excessively long processing time for little reason, when other resellers do it faster and cheaper
there is also a related r/lolita thread

SO i hear you ask, how DO i get these items? with devilinspired being a reseller, the one useful service it provides is brand names, sizing, item names, and stock photos, with these you can be armed to go off in to the wild to search taobao (or just message chinese lolita updates on facebook who are one of my favourite shopping services, i recommend them second to 42 agent, who are a little more involved but a little cheaper) I also recommend Bhiner and spreenow for ease of use (spreenow is GREAT, you can search in English, and they buy from taobao and use links from the second-hand app xianyu!)

here are some handy dandy guides to get you started!

Taobao Specific Info, this information has been provided by the lolita mentoring discord

How to Taobao and use 42Agent Part 1 Part 2

How to buy from Taobao directly

Buying from Xianyu with 42Agent

A lolitas guide to xianyu

Two part list of Taobao Shops Part 1 Part 2

Taobao Guide for Plus Size

Taobao Shop list for Plus Size

Weibo List of Chinese Indie Shop Blogs

Taobao Shoe Shops that go above Size 40

and remember, even though taobao shipping can be expensive but its more that likely...

(meme by Goffmother on discord)