To anyone considering purchasing #cosplay or #costuming items from the high-end #costume & prop company #Anovos Productions, LLC, we strongly recommend that you do NOT purchase from them. Issuing such a #warning is not something that “Costuming, Cosplay & Costume Clubs 101” takes lightly, but we also cannot stand by and continue to watch Anovos operate in a very #dubious and possibly #unethical manner as demonstrated by its ever-increasing number of unsatisfied customers.
Customer dissatisfaction with Anovos Productions, LLC is often due to one (or more) of following issues:
- Failure to deliver purchased items within a reasonable amount of them. (Some costumers have waited for more than a year for ordered items to be delivered.)
- Failure to deliver purchased items at all. (Some customers have waited at least 3 years for ordered items and are still waiting.)
- Items touted by the company as being “high-quality” are often found by many customers after delivery as not living up to those claims.
- Poor communication with customers after purchase.
Unlike private costume & prop makers that typically aren’t licensed to reproduce items and typically don’t have registered businesses, Anovos Productions, LLC is a registered “limited liability company” that has been licensed by multiple copyright owners to reproduce a wide variety of copyrighted costumes & props.
You’d think that an actual business would operate ethically, but that’s not always the case, and that has certainly not been the case with Anovos Productions, LLC:
- Since 2016, 146 complaints against Anovos Productions, LLC have been filed with the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Of those 146 complaints the company only resolved 5. The other 141 remain unanswered and unresolved. Also, the number of complaints filed each year has been rising. Thus, Anovos has more than demonstrated that it does NOT have a genuine interest in ensuring customer satisfaction. Consequently, Anovos has earned an “F” rating from the BBB based upon the BBB’s point system that it applies to all businesses.
- On June 3, 2019, a lawsuit was filed against Anovos Productions, LLC by a plaintiff who ordered over $40,000 worth of merchandise from the company over a period of 3 years and subsequently never received any of the items. The lawsuit has been setup to potentially become a “class action” lawsuit if more individuals who have had similar experience with the company also decide to sue. If the plaintiff wins the lawsuit, damages have been projected to go as high as $5-million.
- On April 11, 2019, Anovos Productions, LLC instituted a new “all sales are final” policy for all merchandise sold by the company. When a retail business institutes a no refund policy, it’s usually limited to items that are on clearance, have a sale price or on items that have been customized in some way making them unwanted by anyone other than the buyer who wanted the customization. When a retail company institutes a no refund policy for all sales, this is potentially an indication of a business that may be on the verge of failing. It’s also a further indication of the total lack of regard that Anovos management has for its own operating practices, as well as their lack of regard and respect for their customers. In other words, establishing their “all sales final” policy not only shows that Anovos management has no intention of addressing existing customer complaints, it shows that no future complaints will be addressed either. It may also be an indication that they may be planning to sell lesser-quality items. (Many of the the complaints with the BBB and on social media are with regard to low quality items being delivered by Anovos.)
If you do decide to purchase items from Anovos Productions, LLC, you do so at your own risk. There are other costume & prop makers supplying similar, probably less expensive and sometimes better quality items than Anovos. We strongly recommend that you research the items that you want before choosing Anovos. We also strongly recommend that you read the articles referenced by this article, especially considering Anovos’ own “all sales are final” policy instituted in April, 2019.
Costuming, Cosplay & Costume Clubs 101 