You might have heard the rumors circulating about sex toy brand Lora Dicarlo closing. Or, you might have bought a toy from them recently, only for it to never materialize. So, what exactly is the situation?
As sex toy experts who are very familiar with Lora Dicarlo, we were surprised when we were recently alerted to the fact that their products and services no longer seem to be available. And, of course, we had to investigate.
Information around the brand is fairly scarce right now, leaving many customers very confused and, understandably, upset. Questions have been popping up over the internet from people looking for answers, including this post from Reddit:
In this article, we’ll answer all the most frequently asked questions about this issue, including:
- What happened to Lora Dicarlo?
- The timeline of events
- Has Lora Dicarlo gone bankrupt?
- Why has Lora Dicarlo closed?
- I bought a Lora Dicarlo toy that hasn’t arrived, how do I get my money back?
- Who is Lora Dicarlo?
What Happened to Lora Dicarlo?
With no official statement from any Lora Dicarlo representatives, including Lora Haddock Dicarlo herself, we can’t be 100% sure what has happened to the brand.
However, there are is a lot of evidence that it has closed, or is in the process of closing. Their website, loradicarlo.com, is no longer online and cannot be accessed, and their products are out of stock on almost all online sex toy stores.
Lora Dicarlo’s official social media profiles remain silent, except their Twitter page, which continues to post automated tweets of reviews left by users. Many users have left comments on their old posts, complaining that their orders, some made over a month ago, remain unfulfilled while their customer service team is unreachable.
Yet, when you begin to dig behind the scenes, some revealing evidence comes to light.
Here’s the Timeline As We Know it:
- July 29th, 2022 — Sex toy brand Lora Dicarlo goes offline on ShareASale for 11 days due a lack of funds. ShareASale is the platform that Lora Dicarlo, and many other sex toy brands, use to track and pay out commissions to their affiliate partners, like Bedbible. It’s not uncommon for this to happen to many brands, though it is usually for a much shorter time.
- October 12th — Lora Dicarlo posts a promotion for their Halloween sale on their Twitter and Facebook pages, which is their last (non-automated) social media update.
- October 17th — Gisele International, a sexual wellness sales and marketing agency, terminates its relationship with Lora Dicarlo after the brand goes silent.
- October 22nd — They go offline again on ShareASale, and this time it stays this way.
- October 28th — An automated email was sent out from a now-former executive employee at Lora Dicarlo. Among other things, it explains that “there is no longer an internal resource available to continue any partnerships as planned”.
- November 2nd — Loradicarlo.com goes offline, and an error message appears when you try to visit it. Different browsers show different error messages, but it remains unavailable for everyone.
November 4th — Emails sent to the loradicarlo.com domain begin to bounce back to senders, and calls to company phone numbers are sent to voicemail.
November 7th — An email circulates from a senior adviser at Lora Dicarlo stating that they believed that the company would be filing for bankruptcy “imminently”.
So, Has Lora Dicarlo Gone Bankrupt?
As of November 29th, 2022, the time of writing, Lora Dicarlo has not yet officially for bankruptcy.
We contacted an attorney, Jeff Fucci, who specializes in this area of law. He was able to look into the court filings, and provided us with this information:
Because “Lora Dicarlo” and “Uccellini Inc.” are two different search terms, an individual and an entity, I conducted two searches on PACER, the records locator for the federal courts. This is where bankruptcy actions are filed. Neither search yielded affirmative results.
Jeff Fucci, Esq.
Below, you can see the results of the searches he conducted, showing that no bankruptcy filings have been made for either Lora Dicarlo or Uccellini Inc..
Despite this, it does stil appear that the company will no longer be operating. If you search on LinkedIn, you can see that many of those formerly employed at Lora Dicarlo report that they stopped working there in October 2022.
One of these employees is former Lora Dicarlo CFO Jason Moyer. We can see has already updated his LinkedIn profile to show his new CFO role at a new company, starting in October 2022.
Such a senior member of staff leaving the company at this time signals that this is more than just mass lay-offs of more junior employees.
Why Has Lora Dicarlo Closed?
We can only speculate about why this has happened to Lora Dicarlo, especially as they have yet to put out a statement themselves.
For some, it may be extremely surprising that a brand like Lora Dicarlo could fail in this way. After all, they’ve had a huge amount of press and excitement around them since the beginning.
Lora Dicarlo’s first product was the Osé 2, a dual-stimulating vibrator that had both a g-spot stroker and a clitoral suction stimulator. The toy was hailed by many as groundbreaking, using ‘micro-robotic’ technology to deliver highly realistic and pleasurable sensations.
Its popularity was boosted further when it was infamously given an award for Robotics Innovation at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2018, only for them to rescind it a month later, stating the product was “profane”, “immoral” and “obscene”. The next year, however, they had a change of heart (and policy), and reinstated the award.
Lora Dicarlo’s newer products continued this trend of innovation and hype, which resulted in very high expectations from consumers. Unfortunately, however, the toys couldn’t always live up to them, and many ended up with negative reviews from disappointed users.
On Bedbible, our reviewers have had very mixed experiences of Lora Dicarlo’s products. For example, the Baci and the Sway really impressed their testers, while the Filare and the Carezza were a real disappointment.
Perhaps the biggest flaw of Lora Dicarlo’s products, however, was the price. Sex toys are known for being expensive purchases, but many of the offerings from Lora Dicarlo were extremely pricey, even by industry standards.
Of course, price will always be a very subjective issue. Still, many consumers and reviewers were left questioning why the toys cost so much, especially when many of their functions and results didn’t match what the company was promising.
Lora Dicarlo’s Funding Debacle
Aside from their current issues, and the incident at CES, Lora Dicarlo also made headlines for something more.
In April 2021, Lora Dicarlo launched an equity crowdfunding campaign on a platform called Republic. It was widely publicized, especially with the joining of celebrity angel investor Cara Delevingne, and raised $1.7 million from 3339 investors.
It was a surprise to many, then, when Republic pulled the campaign in mid-November of the same year. All the investments were refunded, and the funds that Lora Dicarlo put into the campaign were lost.
In short, the campaign was withdrawn because new information was filed by Lora Dicarlo regarding an executive that left the company and privately sold their equity to a new shareholder, endangering the fundraising campaign.
A short while later, Lora Dicarlo opened a more traditional Series A instead, with accredited investors. This was the last record of any fundraising occurring for the company.
Bought a Lora Dicarlo Toy? How to Get Your Money Back
Since Lora Dicarlo has not officially filed for bankruptcy at this time, we unfortunately cannot provide any concrete guidance on how to go about requesting a refund for any unfulfilled orders.
It is unlikely that you will be able to resolve the issue by contacting Lora Dicarlo themselves, as the company seems to be unreachable by email or phone.
However, it is possible for you to request access to the company’s filings yourself.
You’ll first need to create an account on PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records). Then, go to this page to access the filings in the Delaware court. This is where the company behind the Lora Dicarlo, Uccellini Inc., was incorporated.
Sign up as a “Plaintiff, Defendant, or Debtor in a Case”, as shown below.
Doing this will allow you to access information about when Lora Dicarlo, or Uccellini Inc., will hold their “The Meeting of the Creditors”. At this meeting, you will have the opportunity to interface with Lora Dicarlo in person over the details of their filing and provide any objections.
While this meeting can be attended by the public, no invitations or postings are sent out. In other words, you will have to actively inform yourself and join. Due to the nature of a bankruptcy filing, you will not be a debtor, and therefore entitled to a refund, unless you actively report yourself to be so.
Filing a Proof of Claim
You can also fill out a ‘Proof of Claim’ for, called Form 410. This is a three-page document that must typically be completed and signed by the creditor, the creditor’s attorney, or an authorized agent. The information you’ll need to provide includes:
- The amount of the claim
- The basis for the claim
- Whether the debt is secured by a lien
- The last four digits of the debtor’s account, if applicable
- Your address for notifications and potential payments
Along with the form, you should include copies of any documents that support your claim, such as purchase orders, promissory notes, invoices, account statements, mortgages, and contracts.
In addition to mailing the form to the appropriate district court, creditors may also file electronically, either through the court’s website or via a third-party bankruptcy claims agent. If you want confirmation that the proof of claim has been filed, you can include a self-addressed stamped envelope along with a copy of the form in your mailing, or you can visit the court’s PACER system to see the filed form online.
Official instructions on how to do this are available here.
Other Useful Links:
- Bankruptcy basics, from the United States Courts
- “How Do I Get The Money Owed To Me From Someone Who Has Filed For Bankruptcy?” from the United States Bankruptcy Court, Central District of California
- A Guide to PACER, from Upsolve
About Lora Dicarlo
Lora Dicarlo was founded by its namesake and CEO, Lora Haddock DiCarlo in 2017. The idea behind the company was to utilize state-of-the-art technology to create sex toys that felt incredibly realistic and pleasurable.
They collaborated with Oregon State University’s Robotics and Engineering Lab to first create the Osé, a kind of rabbit vibrator that mimicked human touch using micro-robotics and other patent-pending technology. They then went on to create a wide range of similarly-advanced toys for people of all genders to use.
Company Information
This is the most recently updated information for the company that represents the Lora Dicarlo brand. Of course, we now know that the CFO listed here no longer works at the company, and that the phone number is now no longer reachable.
- Company Name: Uccellini Inc. [Incorporated in the state of Delaware]
- SEC CIK #0001759667
- Company Address: 626 NW Arizona Avenue, Bend OR 97703
- Phone: 541-633-5005
- CEO: Lora LeeAnne Haddock DiCarlo
- CFO: Jason Moyer
Trademarks and Patents
The following trademarks were registered by Lora Dicarlo: