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Anyone heard of (or dealt with) lol.travel? - Bargain Travel Forum

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Anyone heard of (or dealt with) lol.travel?

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I ask because they seem to be so new that I can find no questions/reviews/comments on their service at all online. Booking a room for our chosen hotel in Mexico in 2018 works out at around £800 cheaper than anywhere else I can find so you will see the reason for my interest!

Thanks for any input

230 replies to this topic

I am trying to wrap my head around the idea of sending a 14 year old unaccompanied on an international flight with a connection. Am I naive?

https://www.flysaa.com/manage-fly/before-flying/unaccompanied-minors?inheritRedirect=true

Here's what LOL travel says https://www.lol.travel/us/terms-of-use - and you can't really blame them.

>>Lol.travel, as the intermediary, is not responsible for the partial or total cancellatoin of journeys, stays or other products and/or services which are part of the contract concluded between the passenger and the supplier of the relevant products and/or services. Clients declare and guarantee to indemnify Lol.travel, as well as subjects linked to and controlled by it, its representatives, employees, collaborators as well as its partners from any claims for damages, including legal costs, that may arise against them in relation to the use of products and/or services acquired in this section of the site. <<

Real bad experience, a waste of time and money and finally I couldn`t fly.

Why couldn't you fly, Paco? Was it something LOL did or did your plans change?

Sorry you had a bad trip, Man.

Please give us some details, Paco. It will help others. It might even help you to learn how to not end up in the same position again.

There was no indication on Lol that resort fees would be payable when we arrived. We paid in full for the accomodation only to find out we needed to pay a further $360 once we arrived -an additional 50%. Lol was the only booking agency that did not have the additional fees and, although they were more expensive than booking directly with the hotel for the the room, Lol had no additional resort fees indicated that would be payable. Directly booking would have been $5 more expensive per night including the resort fees. Lol told us to check out and show the receipt, show them the receipt of the new hotel and then they would refund our stay minus the first day. The manger of the hotel agreed that this would be OK. We moved hotels as we could not afford the extra fees and found cheaper accomodation. Now Lol are refusing to give the refund, stating that in the fine print it is indicated that there may be extra fees when you arrive and that they never give refunds. As a result of following their instructions, now we must pay for 2 lots of accomodation. This web site is misleading, do not use.

Tripadvisor staff removed this post at the original author's request.

Mark V, you say “ although they were more expensive than booking directly with the hotel for the the room”

So why didn’t you book directly with the hotel?

I'm sorry you got burned. I have a question. If you knew that it would be cheaper to book direct, did you mistakenly believe that lol would pay the resort fees for you?

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Lol.travel has a rating of 1.3 stars from 24 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about Lol.travel most frequently mention customer service problems. Lol.travel ranks 59th among Discount Travel sites.

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Booked a flight this morning and 2 hours later it was already visible in my american airlines app! Very good functioning website and competitive price

“Bait and Switch with Horrible Customer Service”

We booked a hotel room studio suite. The sales cart took us to the payment with no place to confirm the room type. When we paid, the confirmation was for a standard size room at the studio rate. When we called to correct, we were told that it was our fault for not confirming the room before payment. Therefore, we booked the standard room. We then asked to cancel the reservation and they hung up on us. Use at your own risk.

Reviews (24)

• Follow Eugene Terungwa A.

Basically this company need to be short down. It's an organized criminal syndicate stealing from people. First they have the worst customer service and secondly they just steal directly from customers. I called them severely to change my booking and all they could do it to tell me that the FLEX I bought could not be changed 72 hours prior to departure. The reality is they purposely delayed my request just to tell me when it's less than 72 hours they can't change it. I am requesting for their address to sue them and put them out and. End their criminal company.

Products used: Travel ticket

• Follow Sophia K.

Absolute worst customer service I've ever experienced. Wont refund my money. I had to do his job for him. We had free cancellation and yet that still won't give us our money back. I booked a couple of different hotels and every single place has successfully given me my refund except this stupid company. Furthermore, when I called in regards to my refund the Operator begins to raise his voice. Every time I call he says ‘I can't do anything to help'. I had to call the hotel myself and get them to write an email stating that they're willing to give us a full refund and even with their support this pathetic excuse of a company won't give us our money back the greedy pieces of $#*!. There is a reason why so many people have given them the worst reviews. Please beware. I now have to take things to fair trade to see if they can help retrieve my money.

Tip for consumers: Don’t use this site

• Follow Haytham E.

I book my flight and they refused to cancel it or even to change it to other duration or even to refund my money back or even to show any kind of help.i don't advice anyone to book here

• Follow Burkhard R.

• Follow Anna S.

Absolutely STAY AWAY! From this travel company! They do not answer their phone line, and they refused to assist in any way via email. They are impossible to contact, and Absolutely useless as a travel agency I needed to change my flight and they would not even look up possible new flights for me. They told me to look them up, and then they refused any of my suggestions. Then the airlines told me the date switch was free, and lol.travel wanted to charge me the full cost of another flight, even though it didn't cost them a cent! In the end it was cheaper for me to book an entirely new ticket through another agency, and trash my ticket with lol.travel DO NOT BOOK YOUR TICKETS THROUGH lol.travel! Worst company I have ever dealt with. If I could give them a lower rating, I would. STAY AWAY!

Tip for consumers: Do not use this site!

Products used: I bought a round trip flight from Spain to Cape town

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Reviews 2.4.

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I tried to contact them for days because I needed info for my flight but anyone answered on the call center neither by emails. I still waiting for assistance in this moment after 2 weeks of continuing attempts to have attention

Date of experience : February 09, 2024

Reply from lol.travel

Dear Giulia, we are sorry for your evaluation, we work everyday to ensure our customers the better experience possible. We see only one request opened today and one of our colleagues has already replied to your question. We remain at your complete disposal, thank you lol.travel

Don't buy with them

Their form in the website doesn't work. The telephone always says "all of our agents are busy" and then they hung up. Also, they will never give you back the money in case of illness.

Date of experience : March 25, 2024

Dear Sergio, we apologise for the technical inconvenience at this time, we are aware of it and our technicians are working to solve the problem in the reserved area. In the meantime, I suggest you open a ticket from the form on the contact page: https://www.lol.travel/it/assistenza. If you have opened it and would like to give us a reference we could check your request and understand what type of issue you faced. We are at your complete disposal, lol.travel

Scam on the rate used for booking ?

I just booked an hotel for 2 weeks with zenhotels. At the end of the booking process, I received a voucher with the terms and conditions with this hotel. It mentioned that the rate is applicable only for honeymooners, otherwise I will have to pay the full rate. During the reservation process, no information has been displayed on this condition. It's a scam

Date of experience : January 01, 2024

Dear customer, we are lol.travel. With reference to your request we inform you that all terms and conditions are displayed during booking process. At your disposal, thank you lol.travel

Impossible de ne pas mettre d’étoile

Impossible de ne pas mettre d’étoile. Annule mon séjour au lieu d’une nuit. Pas d’hébergement donc. Obligé de rentrer à 120 km pour revenir au mariage de mon fils et ma belle fille Pas de propositions de remboursement ni d’indemnisation. À oublier pour voyager. Impossible not to put a star. Cancel my stay instead of one night. No accommodation therefore. Forced to go back 120 km away to return to the wedding of my son and daughter-in-law No proposals for reimbursement or compensation. To forget to travel

Date of experience : July 15, 2022

Avoid this site at all cost

We use kayak which is the main host for travel bargains hunting. We were directed to loltravel and bought 4 tickets to osaka. To our horror, the reference PNR is not able to check in. We have to make a trip to the airport to do a manual check in a day before the travel. The pnone number provided only get a computer response and always busy with no one available to answer any query thus wasted our overseas call. Wrote an email and worse, replied was in some funny language that we don’t understand. Our opinion is avoid this site at all costs

Date of experience : December 24, 2023

Dear customer, we are sorry about your evaluation. As our colleague said to you it is possible to do check in online 24 hrs before departure, directly on the airline's website with the airline reference booking number. Otherwise it is possibile to do check in directly in airport without additional cost. At your disposal, thank you lol.travel

Avoid at all cost or it will cost you!

Avoid at all cost or it will cost you!! Was due to travel to Turkey on Sunday three weeks ago, flight was cancelled on Saturday due to adverse weather conditions. Contacted lol travel to change my tickets. They told me my new tickets had been emailed to me(still waiting for them to this day) and charged me 55€ for that "favour". Tried to contact them by phone and email, couldn't get through to anyone. Eventually heard back from them on Monday afternoon when my rebooked flight was on Monday morning. They're now saying I'm only eligible for a 25% refund, and they'd charge me another 55€ handling fee. Those people are crooks, clowns, not there to help their customers. Disgusting!!!!

Date of experience : November 18, 2023

I'm still waiting on my booking details…

My original review: I'm still waiting on my booking details from you. For some reasons, beside this rating email, I received nothing yet. Unfortunately I didn't write down the PNR. My name James Sa, just booked ihg hotel in Page AZ from 3/26-3/29 My updated review: I got the lol.travel response in email in few hours, I got my travel details now. Thanks for the quick response.

Date of experience : February 13, 2023

Dear James, Thanks for contacting us. We will provide a sollecit your request and you will receive a feedback from us as soon as possible. In the meantime, we suggest you to open a ticket through our reserved area and get in touch with our costumer service. In order to proceed, we need to know your booking details. We remain at your disposal. Thanks. lol.travel

I booked the Central Park West Hostel…

I booked the Central Park West Hostel just because of the very low price and was very surprised about some negative comments. Price/value relationship is excellent. Of course you should not expect luxury for $40!! I had everything I needed, the room was clean, my bathroom did not have a sink, but right next to my room I could use another bathroom. It suited perfectly to my needs. The staff were awesome and extremely helpful, the location with a few Metro lines around the corner, supermarkets very close, a few Restaurants, bus stops ver near. What else would you expect?

Date of experience : February 20, 2023

Dear Pedro, thank you for your positive review! We are glad to hear that your experience with us was pleasant. Your feedback is very important to us, we work costantly to ensure our customers the best experience possible. We look forward to seeing you soon on a new journey on lol.travel! Thank you, lol.travel

Total disaster

Very lousy service! After booking tickets in value of 2080 Euro I was expecting confirmation email. Never received, later it turned out it went into spam, but the content was - I shall pay by 300 Euro more! Without knowing I have the mail I tried to contact via their web page twice, via chat at least 3 times and tried to call on phone - no way to get a comprehensive answer. Just the same "you have in your email". After 9 days now I found out the tickets are not booked. Never again... such a stress. Good, at least the money was returned.

Date of experience : February 12, 2024

Dear customer, we are sorry for your evaluation. With reference to the confirmation mail we inform you that as written on our site if you don't find the e-mail you have to look first in the spam box beacuse it can occur that the e-mail end there. With reference to your flight it have been cancelled by the vector and we wrote to you many times to propose an alternative but as we did not receveive any feedback it could not been possible to proceed therefore reservation expired and we proceed with the refund. We remain at your disposal, thank you lol.travel

I booked a ticket from Singapore to…

I booked a ticket from Singapore to Korea with LOL, it was suspicious as the website did not ask for a code pin when I made payment. Still decided to go thru with it (BIG MISTAKE)!! After that, I received an email in Italian ( is English not an universal language) trying to deduct more money!! Called my bank immediately to block all transactions! HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT!

Date of experience : July 26, 2023

Dear Vanessa, thank you for contacting us. We are sorry for what you are reporting, we would like to investigate the issue you mentioned. We have made a check and we are active a reservation in your name with the references you provided. Please give us more information about your report. We remain at your complete disposal, thank you lol.travel

TO BE FULLY HONEST WITH YOU I SHOULD…

TO BE FULLY HONEST WITH YOU I SHOULD GIVE ZERO STARS FOR YOUR COMPANY, BECAUSE I HAD CANCELLED THE TWO TICKETS FOR MY FRIENDS MORE THAN ONE MONTH BEFORE THE ACTUAL FLIGHTS AND YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO REFUND THE MONEY (SEE YOUR FILE REFERENCE NUMBER 1101352166 OF YOUR E-MAIL OF JUNE THE 5TH 2023) TO THE VISA CARD FROM WHERE THE PAYMENT WAS DONE, BUT NOTHING HAS HAPPENED TILL NOW. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO REFUND EURO 2,330.50. PLEASE PROSEED WITH THE REFUND, AS I WAS PLANNING TO PUBLISH TO THE SOCIAL MEDIA YOUR BEHAVIOR.

Date of experience : June 05, 2023

Dear customer, we are sorry that your had not a positive experience. We are costantly working to ensure our customers the better experience possible. With reference to your specif case we were waiting for the refund authorization from the airline, we inform you that it has been authorized so we have proceed with it. The refund will be again available in the same card used for the purchase according to the bank transfer timings and according to the agreements of the circuit used. Feel free to contact us for further information, we remain at your complete disposal. Thank you lol.travel

Error for the hotel location in website

The hotel selected was indicated in the website as near to Sestriere (we were going there); in real this hotel Italia is in Valle D’Aosta far more than two hours by car. Thanks for your reply below, but when I have tried to have support from your side, the answer was that they accept room’s reservation erasing but the whole amount paid is the penalty. It means that due your error I am going to lose all money spent (only 30 minutes before).

Date of experience : December 25, 2022

Dear Pietro, We are sorry to know that your experience has been negative. Any feedback is important to us in order to always improve our service. Our customer service team tries to solve at best every issue but sometimes unforseen situations can occur, and they not always depend on us. We hope in the future that we will have a chance to change your mind. lol.travel

I booked a trip to Cairo (two transits)…

I booked a trip to Cairo (two transits) with this website. First flight, Air Canada, was delayed by 4 hours and the next flight would be missed. They tried to scam me by asking to pay 300 USD to give alternative flights. Air Canada did it all for me and gave a meal voucher on top.

Date of experience : March 11, 2024

Dear customer, we are sorry for your evaluation. Without a booking reference we are not able to identify your specific case and have a deeper look into it, if you give us a reference then we can check what occured. We remain at your complete disposal. Thank you lol.travel

Great price

Great price for hotel room, booking voucher received promptly. Have not checked into hotel yet so can not confirm efficiency beyond booking room at present.

Date of experience : October 06, 2023

Worst customer service ever.

Worst customer service ever. I purchased tickets to copenhagen and by mistake I mistyped one letter in my son's name . I promptly send an email and they refuse to help me to modify one letter . They keep stating that I need to contact KLM agency to correct the letter . therefore KLM agency said that we need to contact lol travel as they are the agents . Will not use your service again watch out do not trust them Of course was done with a charge of 55 euro disaster

Date of experience : January 13, 2024

Dear customer, we are sorry for your evaluation, we have checked on our system and we see that name correction has been done since same availability was present. We hope you changed your idea about us and we are at your complete disposal for any need, thank you lol.travel

Booked for my summer vacation 2023

Booked for my summer vacation, booking done very easily and checked after a week with the hotel directly, and they go the reservation correctly.. no any issues till now. hope when arriving at hotel, won't have any issues.

Date of experience : April 28, 2023

Dear customer, first of all, we would like to thank you for having spent a little bit of your time to share your experience with all of us. We are very happy that your experience was positive and you are happy of having booked your summer holidays with us. We hope to see you very soon on lol.travel to plan your next trip! Thank you, lol.travel

What a brill 50th Birthday I had!

What a brill 50th Birthday I had! I went for my 50th birthday, great surprise in hotel with a bottle of champagne and a birthday card. Lovely big room, very clean, great food amazing view (sea). Also, very good Restaurants couple minutes walking. Quick check in, good and helpful receptionist. Fab time! Definitely we go back again! I rate ***** hotel, definitely I recommend for a very good holiday, I will return again. Love it!

Date of experience : October 10, 2022

Dear Nelia, thank you very much for your positive review! We are happy to know that your experience has been enjoyable. We hope to see you soon on lol.travel Thank you lol.travel

I saw, I decided, I booked it, all easy

All was easy but best of all, the price was fantastic compared to other online prices for same hotel. I only wish they showed more than one photo. Would use them again without hesitation.

Dear Jami hello, thank you for your evaluation, it is very important to us! We hope to see you soon on lol.travel for your next trip! Thank you lol.travel

We had booked a room in playa del…

We had booked a room in playa del carmen for march 1 2023 and when we arrived at the hotel, they said we had no bookings with them even though we had prepaid LOL and we had the reservation number and the hotel voucher but they had no information on us and would not honour the voucher so we had to leave and find a room 2:30 am when most hotels were closed. **Update** After speaking with an agent, we did receive a full refund for our accommodations. Due to this we have now given 3 stars.***

Date of experience : February 27, 2023

Dear Keith, first of all we are sorry about what happened, we are sorry that you had not a positive experience. We have checked on our customer assistance requests database and do not found any assistance requests associated to your booking, we kindly advise you to open an assistance request from your reserved area on our site so that we can assist you. One of our operator of customer care will shortly assist you. We remain at your complete disposal, Thank you. lol.travel

flight cancellation due to Covid

I had a flight cancellation due to Covid and booked through Lol Travel. Emirates cancelled but Lol Travel offered a travel voucher instead of a refund. I've emailed numerous times over the last two years with an automated response with a ticket number, but that's it! The voucher expired last week and no assistance offered. I suspect that they had no intention of helping.

Date of experience : February 14, 2022

Dear Philip, We're sorry for the inconvenience and for the negative review. We provided to check your booking and we saw that you were already in contact with our costumer service. Our costumer service sent you the voucher on December 28th 2022, but you didn't mention about the refund and you didn't reply to the ultimate mail. We would like to have a better understanding of this matter and we suggest you to contact us in order to get in touch with your flight department. We remain at your disposal. Thanks. lol.travel

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Online travel agency market: Who owns who?

At first glance, there seem to be hundreds of different OTAs in the market, but in actuality, most OTAs are owned by top brands such as Tripadvisor, Expedia, and Booking Holdings. Numerous acquisitions and mergers have created enormous powerhouse companies that dominate today’s OTA market. These companies have diversified their hospitality business portfolio beyond OTAs to include sectors like flights, car rentals, tours and activities, restaurant reservations, and more. Many OTAs will cross-post property listings with their partners and subsidiaries, therefore, diversifying your channel mix across networks can greatly increase visibility. 

The following infographic helps illustrate “who owns who” in the OTA world. Under some acquisitions, the acquired company continues to operate as an independent subsidiary, while in other instances the smaller company is dissolved and their brand is merged into the larger company. Also, in some cases, the acquired company had other smaller companies and brands attached that then become part of or absorbed by the larger company. Therefore, this list of parent companies and subsidiaries does not reflect every single merger or acquisition that has taken place between each OTA. 

For example, Airbnb has acquired a handful of companies that now operate under the Airbnb brand, whereas Expedia Group owns many companies that operate under their own brand but are owned by Expedia Group. Also note that aside from OTAs, Emirates/Dnata own subsidiaries in several categories, including air transport, aviation services, flight catering, ground handling, cargo, and more – not all of which have been included here.

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Caring for ourselves and our community. Creating a more sustainable future. Inspiring people to feel good at every moment of the day.

Born in Montreal

If there’s one thing we know, it’s how to dress for the seasons. In a city that sees temperatures drop to a frigid -40 C in the winter and rise to a balmy +35 C in the summer, we’ve mastered dressing for each season (and everything in between). Lolë was created in 2002 by Evelyn Trempe when she spotted a gap in women’s technical outerwear. She noticed that the selection of women’s travel and outerwear was bland and lacked style. So she set off on a mission to create an inspiring collection for women who want to get out there and live out loud every day. Fast-forward to today, Lolë has evolved into a global brand with a mission to inspire mindfulness. From smart consumption to unique experiences, we create to make you feel good, day and night, at work or play, year after year.

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M.G.A.E. had racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees to take on Mattel, the iconic brand behind Barbie, and Larian was also worried that Bratz had fallen out of popularity. The crop-top and platform shoe-wearing dolls were huge in the early aughts but had left the spotlight due to changing consumer tastes, as well as a particularly bruising report from the American Psychological Association that accused Bratz of sexualizing young girls.

Larian needed a win, and that night, he decided to browse YouTube and explore product-reveal videos he’d heard his kids talk about.

“My children said, ‘Do you know about this iPhone unboxing?’” Larian said from M.G.A.E.’s headquarters one recent fall afternoon. “I go on YouTube and put in ‘Apple iPhone unboxing’ and, oh my God, they were right. I thought people were crazy, frankly, for doing that. Then I typed, ‘toy unboxing.’”

A lightbulb went off.

Larian went straight to his design team with direct orders: “I said, ‘We need to make the ultimate unboxing toy.’”

The M.G.A.E. creative team’s response, L.O.L. Surprise! dolls, are pint sized, candy colored and have impossibly huge eyes, which makes them look like something out of an acid trip. They come with stylish hairdos, as well as varying accessories, like a handbag, coffee cup or headband.

But the toy’s cuteness isn’t its only wow factor. L.O.L. Surprise! dolls come inside opaque packaging, so kids don’t know what they’re getting until the toy is fully unwrapped. Each accessory — which typically number seven to nine, but can go into the dozens — is also hidden in its own layer of packaging, making the unwrapping an experience. The dolls, which target the 4 to 14 age range, also have different functions like squirting water or secret skin designs that are — surprise! — revealed after being placed under water.

Larian’s late-night inspiration spawned a sensation — one of the most popular toys of the last decade.

Last year, M.G.A.E. reports, the company made more than $4 billion from L.O.L. Surprise! doll retail sales. It’s expecting to rake in $5 billion in 2019, not including revenue from licensing deals.

According to the NPD Group, a market research firm, L.O.L. dolls are outpacing the sales of Barbie, Pokémon, Nerf and Marvel action figures. Its products are even more popular than Star Wars toys.

“I’ve been in this business 29 years and I have never seen a doll line take off so fast,” said Christine Osborne, the founder of Wonder Works, a chain of toy stores in South Carolina. “We’ve had crazes like Beanie Babies, Webkinz, and there’s usually a lifespan. But L.O.L. isn’t going anywhere.”

L.O.L. Surprise! dolls seem to be everywhere: On the shelves at Walmart and Duane Reade; gracing Amazon’s best-selling toy list ; and in private Facebook groups , where rabid fans buy, sell and trade them. On the Christmas wishlist of a 10-year-old girl that recently went viral on Twitter , L.O.L. dolls sat comfortably next to the new iPhone and Gucci slides. They usually sell for about $10 — cheap enough for kids to buy them using birthday or allowance money — although some L.O.L. editions can cost as much as $249.99.

L.O.L. Surprise! dolls are a fusion of toy trends that have dominated the decade. Specifically, they’ve risen to fame because of the toy’s remarkable ability to mimic a YouTube unboxing video IRL.

And for kids today who turn to social media to discover toys instead of roaming the aisles of Toys “R” Us, L.O.L. Surprise! dolls are a welcome trend to chase.

“Kids today want surprises,” said Stephen Pasierb, chief executive of the Toy Industry Association, an American trade organization. “They live in a world where everything is online, they know what to expect anywhere they go, and so they crave the mystery of experimentation.”

[ Did moms exist before social media? ]

Larian, 65, is just as infamous in the toy industry as his Bratz dolls are.

An Iranian Jewish entrepreneur who moved to America when he was 17 to study engineering, Larian sold hand-held electronic games before going on to build M.G.A.E. Witty, blunt and a self-professed “kid at heart,” Larian is a legend for his enterprising spirit, as well as his chutzpah. He’s notorious for pulling stunts like sending out emoji-filled press releases that tease the toy industry for falling behind.

Industry insiders like Pasierb compare Larian to Donald Trump, as he regularly uses social media to air his grievances and gleefully berate adversaries like Mattel. (Social media will confirm that Larian isn’t a Trump supporter, though. He’s dubbed all politicians “crooked.”)

Recent tweets from Larian implore the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Mattel; and LinkedIn posts tease Mattel employees for spending more time looking at his profile than doing actual work. (A 2011 court judgement awarded the Bratz copyright to M.G.A.E., though the two companies continue to bicker in court.)

Larian’s tenacity is what initially helped get L.O.L. dolls moving. When Larian first took the product to Walmart, he said, the retailer initially declined to stock it.

“The buyer said, ‘There is no way that kids are going to buy a doll they cannot see,’” Larian recalled. (Walmart, which now sells the dolls, declined to discuss the interaction, saying it doesn’t comment on supplier relations.)

Larian moved on to Target, and after a buyer there demurred as well, Larian called the buyer’s boss and threatened to berate the company on social media for years to come. Target eventually agreed to stock the toy, and by Christmas 2016, L.O.L. dolls were flying off the shelves. In an email, Nikhil Nayar, the senior vice president of merchandising at Target confirmed that the dolls “quickly became a hit with our guests, and it has been one of our top selling brands over the last two years.”

From there, M.G.A.E. inked deals to sell L.O.L. Surprise! at larger retailers around the globe, and at smaller, independent toy stores.

Moms like Jackie Kotler say they love L.O.L. dolls because they’re a more wholesome toy than some of the souped-up offerings on store shelves.

“The girls are utterly entertained and it’s the rare toy out there that isn’t electronic, so it allows them to use their imagination,” said Kotler, whose two daughters, 5 and 8, own about 50 of the dolls. “With L.O.L. dolls, they get creative and make up storylines. It feels like going back to old-school play. It’s the Barbie for now.”

[ Breaking gender stereotypes in the toy box. ]

The rise of L.O.L. Surprise! dolls dovetailed with the explosion of YouTube’s unboxing genre.

By the mid-2010s, tons of YouTubers were uploading videos of themselves unwrapping gadgets, beauty products — anything that could game the site’s formula that translated eyeballs to cash. Toys became a quick hit for unboxing, and kid influencers like Ryan’s World and EvanTubeHD soon rose to fame for earning millions of dollars by simply opening toys in front of a camera.

Much to the chagrin of parents who are bewildered by the trend, many children today would rather watch YouTube kids unwrap products than play with toys of their own. The videos can be addictive because they have the potential to stimulate areas of the brain that cater to reward, noted Richard Freed, Ph.D., a child and adolescent psychologist and the author of “Wired Child: Reclaiming Childhood in a Digital Age.”

“The unboxing trend capitalizes on the anticipation humans have when they want something,” Dr. Freed said. “It’s not as much about the reward as it is the excitement of the reward that can trigger the dopamine.”

Jackie Breyer, the publisher of Adventure Media Group, which puts out several toy magazines, said L.O.L. Surprise! products have thrived precisely because they are YouTube bait. A mother of two, Breyer recounted her 10-year-old daughter opening L.O.L. dolls while performing a voiceover to an imaginary camera.

“She pretends she is running her own YouTube channel,” Breyer said with a laugh. “Kids see YouTubers who are popular and live glamorously, and so for a moment, when they unbox their toys, they can have that experience too.”

Larian, a dogged observer of toy trends, said that once he caught wind of toy unboxing, M.G.A.E. made sure to link up with toy influencers early on, sending free products to YouTubers like Cookie Swirl C, who has more than 12 million subscribers. This helped spread the word and let the toy get swallowed up and spit out by YouTube’s algorithm as well.

Not that M.G.A.E. has left marketing solely in the hands of influencers. The company launched a YouTube channel of its own when it debuted L.O.L. dolls in December 2016, and it’s amassed upward of 1 million subscribers (although some of its unboxing videos draw more than 6 million views). An unboxing experience on M.G.A.E.’s YouTube channel often includes brushing the dolls’ hair, petting them and other A.S.M.R.-heavy triggers that have become popular on social media.

“Kids are not watching Nickelodeon anymore; they are not watching TV anymore. They are on YouTube, so what we did is a whole line of unboxing on YouTube,” Larian said.

L.O.L. Surprise!’s YouTube play is a perfect example of how toy companies today sidestep marketing boundaries that the Federal Communications Commission put on children’s television programming in the ’90s. Unboxing videos, which are often created or sponsored by toy brands, are frequently how children learn about products.

“My kids are practically raised on YouTube and so they knew about L.O.L. before I did,” said Joanna Cox, a mother of three living in Washington, D.C., whose 7-year-old daughter, Helen, owns almost 30 L.O.L. dolls. “My kids zone out for hours while I try to get stuff done, and then they say, ‘Hey, Mom or Dad, I want the toys that I watched.’”

Some parents despise the unboxing trend and the toys that have spawned from it.

“This is completely not what I want my child to witness as ‘fun,’” one bemoaned last year on a children’s online safety forum . “I have deleted YouTube Kids from my child’s device because he was beginning to think that all families live like this — $1,000s worth of new toys every week.”

Others, like Kotler, prefer unboxing videos to other trending YouTube content.

“I’ve seen videos of adults who dress up as princesses and make content for kids, and I find that to be really creepy!” Kotler said. “I’d much rather have my kids watch children playing with L.O.L. dolls. That feels safer.”

While L.O.L. dolls are stocked at major retailers globally, M.G.A.E. has been especially dogged about its distribution approach. Of the 30 different types of dolls it sells, a select few are rare and infrequently distributed. This scarcity sways children to constantly seek them out. It’s driving Yeezy sneaker-like hype , where there’s no shortage of sellers listing highly sought-after dolls like the Splash Queen or the Punk Boi for almost $200 on eBay .

“A significant success of these toys is mismatching supply and demand,” noted Sucharita Kodali, an analyst at Forrester Research who studies consumer industries like toys. “It fuels the frenzy.”

Each L.O.L. Surprise! doll is also packaged with a booklet that shows all the dolls, and which ones are the rarest. It incentivizes children to collect the toys, as opposed to just being O.K. with owning one or two of them.

“Those little catalogs tell the kids what they aren’t getting and that’s a pretty genius way to create brief euphoria and convince the children they should want to keep buying more,” Cox said. “As a parent it’s pretty frustrating though, because you just want them to be happy with the one they are getting.”

Other parents, who may have traded baseball cards or action figures in their day, are thrilled that collectibles are trendy to new generations.

“Toys like L.O.L. dolls have created different patterns of play,” Pasierb noted. “They are teaching kids how to trade, negotiate and communicate.”

Osborne, the owner of the South Carolina toy stores, has hopped on this train. Her stores now host L.O.L. Surprise! trading hours on Saturdays. Kids come in and barter with each other — or buy more L.O.L. dolls from the store, of course.

[ How to manage play date anxiety .]

As anyone who’s ever been a kid knows, toy trends come and go.

“It can be Tickle Me Elmo or fidget spinners, but everything in the toy industry has a lifespan of about 10 minutes,” said Kodali, the Forrester analyst.

M.G.A.E. has toy lines that similarly cash in on YouTube trends, like Poopsie Slime Surprise, a line of unicorn creatures that excrete rainbow goo and are meant to address the toy industry’s slime craze. (The line includes purses named Pooey Puitton, which, unsurprisingly, has ruffled the feathers of L.V.M.H.’s Louis Vuitton.)

But Larian is currently hard at work to make sure the L.O.L. Surprise! legacy endures. In July, M.G.A.E. debuted L.O.L. OMG, a larger version of its iconic L.O.L. Surprise! doll that’s meant to rival Barbie (in an email, a spokeswoman for Mattel said that “Barbie has proven her staying power by remaining both timeless and timely, continuing to reinvent the fashion doll category through new product innovation, diverse doll options and the celebration of female role models”). M.G.A.E.’s plan includes issuing constant updates to L.O.L. dolls, like replacing plastic hair with synthetic, softer hair, and an expansion into a line of L.O.L. pets.

Larian said he continues to scour YouTube to see what kids like, but also gets intel from his 2-year-old grandson, Lev. (Coincidentally, Lev isn’t allowed screen time. Jasmin Larian, founder of fashion label Cult Gaia who is Isaac’s daughter and Lev’s mother, said she’s opposed to screen time because she knows how “addictive” it can be.)

Meanwhile, M.G.A.E. has plans to move L.O.L. Surprise! beyond dolls. There are now licensing deals for bedding, shoes, board games and bathrobes. In November, M.G.A.E. debuted an L.O.L. Surprise! movie on Amazon Prime. Larian said fans can expect more from the line in the next decade.

“There’s going to be new trends, but we are like a chameleon,” he said with a big grin. “We will change for them.”

[Why the L.O.L. Surprise Doll became a top-selling toy ]

Chavie Lieber is a journalist living in New York City who covers fashion, business and tech.

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