If you follow PNP then you know about the fiasco that has been Shop Disney’s Minnie Mouse: The Main Attraction releases. March had some issues, but April said “Hold my Dole Whip!” From the site issues, to multiple credit card charges for people (myself included,) to now a statement that the April release will not be coming to stores when they reopen, it’s been quite the point of contention for many.

What happened?

Minnie Mouse: The Main Attraction happened. This is a monthly series from Shop Disney and was being released in the online store, Disney parks, and Disney Stores around the country. Then everything shut down.

As a result purchasing online has become a bit of a nightmare for many. It seems that there are some trying to use bots to procure more items than the limit of one per guest allow. Yes, they are ending up in the resale marketplace.

When April’s series themed after ‘It’s a Small World’ launched I was there and the site was fine until about 9:59 AM EDT and then it was insane. IF you could get items into your cart and get to check-out you would have to re-login again. I had to input my saved credit card information repeatedly. When the order was processing you would be kicked out and have your card emptied or it would spin indefinitely and not complete, so many thought. Apparently it did complete, but people did not get confirmation numbers or e-mails. When they checked their credit card statements the charges are listed as pending.

I have only one pending charge, but one person had over $1,300 in charges!

Eventually the website did return more to normal, with those paying with Paypal having the most success in getting completed payment. Items did pop back up as being available hours after they were ‘sold out.”  A lot of people think that’s when the ‘bots’ stopped trying to purchase.

Luckily I was able to score the items I wanted. Like last month, I had to do order items separately and got charged extra for shipping (which should have been free based on the total price.) Good news is that if you call Shop Disney they are refunding shipping overages.

Can’t You Just Buy Them At The Disney Store Later?

A lot of people were disappointed they couldn’t get through, but figured “I’ll just try to get them at the Disney Store later.” People who had asked about the releases after the closure of the parks and stores were told the items would come to those locations at a later date. Then people started getting this e-mail:

It says: “Dear Valued Guest,  In light of recent events, and with the newly announced closures of our Disney Parks and Disney Store retail locations, we had heavier than normal site traffic for Saturday’s release which caused instant sellouts for most of the items in the “Minnie Mouse- The Main Attraction” collection. Regrettably, we do not anticipate that April’s “Small World” collection will be available within our retail stores upon their reopening. 
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this may have caused. your email is vital in our continued guest satisfaction efforts for shopDisney. Disney prides itself in providing quality entertainment and merchandise for all and we will continue to make every effort towards achieving that goal.

It is possible that there is a miscommunication somewhere, but several people are getting the email stating the April release won’t come to stores later.

Those who shop in the stores have previously complained about the extremely limited stock each store gets. These aren’t like numbered dolls so you know how many there are for all the stores. People stand in line for hours and the store might only have eight ears in stock. One individual had even reported fights breaking out.

Now some of those who had been collecting are now selling their previously purchased items because they are done with buying this collection. Too many issues. I think the multiple credit card charges was just too much.

When Disney knows that these releases cause the issues they do, why they don’t fix the site is beyond me. I do understand the potential bot issue is something beyond their control, but the site has been having issues for a long time, in many collections before this one, and they knew it was going to be worse due to store closures. Now people are having extra charges to their cards.

I’m part of the group and boards dealing with the credit card issues. Stay tuned for updates.

Source: Minnie Mouse: The Main Attraction Monthly Collection Buy/Sell/Trade Facebook board and my own personal experience.