Jan December 1, 2009 Share December 1, 2009 Everyone knows that i just love mushrooms so i'm always looking for them. i found what i thought was a good deal on ricordea yumas for $29.99 from Atlantic Sea Farms. So I made a puchase. I placed the order yesterday for Fedex delivery today. The first problem was that the package was shipped fedex ground. So that meant that it could be delivered up until 8pm. I got this from fedex at 5:00 after i called becasue I became concerend that the package had been on the truck for local delivery since 8am. Well what i got was a wet smelly box filled with shredded fiber that smelled like urine. It gets worse. When i found the bags of corals they were ice cold. I found one tiny warm pack in the bottom of the box. The bags are covered in the fiber packing so I wont even attempt to place them in the sump. The corals are all brown. i'll post pics later. I sent them an email but frankly there is no way they can make up for the loss. I WILL get my money back. This is know for sure because I used paypal. If you want to know how to get your money back in a situation like when using paypal just PM me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnybv December 1, 2009 Share December 1, 2009 Sorry to hear another horror story from an online purchase....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan December 2, 2009 Author Share December 2, 2009 Thanks John. It's all a learning experience. It's really too bad I can't find yumas locally. I'll see you tomorrow though. Sorry to hear another horror story from an online purchase....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sportzfish December 2, 2009 Share December 2, 2009 Thanks John. It's all a learning experience. It's really too bad I can't find yumas locally. I'll see you tomorrow though. What colors are you looking for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore December 2, 2009 Share December 2, 2009 Sorry to hear your bad experience. I feel bad for both of you. Obviously you didn't get what you were expecting, which is unfortunate. Him, because he is a greenhouse grower like me. He is trying to play a lot of roles, grower, marketer, shipper, customer service. This is why I only sell wholesale- it's too hard to concentrate on growing and also have to adroitly handle problems like this. Obviously it was a poor/inexperienced packing job coupled with slow customer service response, and no fault of Jan's. All I can say is give the guy a chance and help support local aquaculture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan December 2, 2009 Author Share December 2, 2009 All colors. What colors are you looking for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan December 2, 2009 Author Share December 2, 2009 You know Justin I understand what you're saying, really I do. don;t feel so bad for them. I've seen what you do and I can only imagine what it takes to keep up with it but I can't imagine that you just went into a business like that on a whim. You put a great deal of thought, care and time into it. You established a reputation based on the quality and care of your livestock and your customer service. I mean a good reputation in your business is pretty much all you have. Prices and livestock are a given. When i see something like this it tells me that this company didn't put any thought into the care of the corals or the customer. If you're offering a service like this at the very least have appropriate shipping containers, not the best, but at least something that will keep the livestock alive. Always aim to make the customer happy. You (collectively, not you) get one shot per customer with something like this. A bad reputation in this economy is very bad. Sorry to hear your bad experience. I feel bad for both of you. Obviously you didn't get what you were expecting, which is unfortunate. Him, because he is a greenhouse grower like me. He is trying to play a lot of roles, grower, marketer, shipper, customer service. This is why I only sell wholesale- it's too hard to concentrate on growing and also have to adroitly handle problems like this. Obviously it was a poor/inexperienced packing job coupled with slow customer service response, and no fault of Jan's. All I can say is give the guy a chance and help support local aquaculture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore December 2, 2009 Share December 2, 2009 Your points are all good and true. The customer is always right. However, consider that you received the box at 5pm and posted your negative experience at 6:41pm. Maybe give him more than 1:41 to clear things up? It's one thing to not order from him again, but you could have just cost him several more customers from this club, and possibly the club a sponsorship as well. I'm not trying to make excuses for him (I don't even know him). Sometimes it pays better dividends to help a new business fix problems rather than immediately publicly torch them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan December 2, 2009 Author Share December 2, 2009 No, this is not a matter of the customer always being right. He put no thought into packing these corals. They came to me in ice cold water with no insulation. They were put in a plastic bag, boxed with some thin padding and shipped. One of the pieces was an 8" ribbon gorgonian. It was folded in half and placed in a bag only half full of water. Half the gorgonian is out of water. It's cold in Norfolk too. This is negligence. I'm reasonable. But honestly speaking they can't give me a reasonable explanation for doing this. The corals arrived brown. They're dead. Careless act. Note the heat pack and how much padding is in the box. Gorgonian folded in half half out of water Your points are all good and true. The customer is always right. However, consider that you received the box at 5pm and posted your negative experience at 6:41pm. Maybe give him more than 1:41 to clear things up? It's one thing to not order from him again, but you could have just cost him several more customers from this club, and possibly the club a sponsorship as well. I'm not trying to make excuses for him (I don't even know him). Sometimes it pays better dividends to help a new business fix problems rather than immediately publicly torch them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore December 2, 2009 Share December 2, 2009 Are all the corals dead now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan December 2, 2009 Author Share December 2, 2009 Now? Still. They were DOA. I floated the bags in 78 degree temp for about 1 hour last night. I opened the bag with the shroom and it stunk. I even took the shroom out, dipped it in some tank water and it was covered in brown jelly. There was no need to open anything else at that point. Are all the corals dead now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore December 2, 2009 Share December 2, 2009 Too bad. The gorgonian was probably fine. Most corals can survive cold temps for quite a while. I've pulled some corals out of absolutely hideous shipping water and had them look great just a few hours later. If you thought this was bad don't ever open a box of transshipped corals! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dandy7200 December 3, 2009 Share December 3, 2009 Being an online vendor myself, I read your original post and did think you were being pretty harsh and not giving him much time at all to respond. After seeing the pictures though your reaction makes perfect sense to me. That is absolutely awful packing, wtff is that fiber fill? Did he think you had a hamster? Obviously something is wrong, either he shipped it knowing he was out of the correct packaging materials just to get the order out in a timely matter or he just has no clue what he is doing. Personally I would give him the benefit of the doubt and give him until the close of the following business day to respond before posting a negative review. When most vendors see negative threads posted on a public forum that is routinely crawled by google and have not had a "reasonable" amount of time elapsing to mitigate the problem, it almost always shoots a red flag up. I know your intention is not to blackmail a vendor here, I only thought I would throw it out there since it is an unfortunate reality we all must deal with from time to time. If he were to stumble upon this thread without being given at least a chance to right the situation it might turn a unfortunate situation into an uncomfortable one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan December 3, 2009 Author Share December 3, 2009 Thank you. I don expect to have this problem again as I do most of my shopping with our sponsors. But if i do purchase something online and this happene again I will definately give the seller a day before I post anything here. Just so you know I emailed the seller immediately after i opened the box, before I posted what happened, I've still not gotten a response from them. Now it's out of my hands. Being an online vendor myself, I read your original post and did think you were being pretty harsh and not giving him much time at all to respond. After seeing the pictures though your reaction makes perfect sense to me. That is absolutely awful packing, wtff is that fiber fill? Did he think you had a hamster? Obviously something is wrong, either he shipped it knowing he was out of the correct packaging materials just to get the order out in a timely matter or he just has no clue what he is doing. Personally I would give him the benefit of the doubt and give him until the close of the following business day to respond before posting a negative review. When most vendors see negative threads posted on a public forum that is routinely crawled by google and have not had a "reasonable" amount of time elapsing to mitigate the problem, it almost always shoots a red flag up. I know your intention is not to blackmail a vendor here, I only thought I would throw it out there since it is an unfortunate reality we all must deal with from time to time. If he were to stumble upon this thread without being given at least a chance to right the situation it might turn a unfortunate situation into an uncomfortable one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan December 14, 2009 Author Share December 14, 2009 (edited) Edited December 14, 2009 by Jan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Ward December 14, 2009 Share December 14, 2009 For some reason, the shop name sounds familiar, and I think it's the online-only shop in Va. Beach - the 1 day ground shipping to NC, VA, and MD would mean that they're centrally located to those states, so Va. Beach would make sense. If that's the same vendor, then they are members here but their vendor forum isn't currently active (but I think it was before). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan December 14, 2009 Author Share December 14, 2009 They haven't logged on since October. This is just not worth my time. Please disregard my recent post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami December 14, 2009 Share December 14, 2009 Looks like some communication has been established, though - it looks like you've caught their attention with the complaint on complaintsboard.com: http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/...25.html#c527605 Jan, I hope you can work this out with them and get your money back. Their packaging is definitely different. They seem to be using blown insulation to line their box and "Hot Hands" hand warmers for heating. Not exactly typical commercial practice. Here's some additional contact info from Google in case you haven't tried a phone call: 1718 Battlefield Boulevard South, Chesapeake, VA 23322, (757) 270-8954 (their website's down "for maintenance.") Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gatortailale December 15, 2009 Share December 15, 2009 Now? Still. They were DOA. I floated the bags in 78 degree temp for about 1 hour last night. Sorry to hear of your problems. However, can you explain this statement so we can understand more. Are you saying you sat on your box of corals all day and did not attempt to acclimate until the evening? What time did you accept delivery of the box? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind December 15, 2009 Share December 15, 2009 Wow, from looking at that picture I can say that is no way to pack a coral. The insulation would have prevented the heat given off by the hand warmer from effectively reaching the bags. Not to mention that the bags are placed with nothing between them and the cardboard box. Jan, Did you post that on "complaintsboard"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coral Hind December 15, 2009 Share December 15, 2009 Sorry to hear of your problems. However, can you explain this statement so we can understand more. Are you saying you sat on your box of corals all day and did not attempt to acclimate until the evening? What time did you accept delivery of the box? The opening post states she got the box at 5pm. I am guessing she floated them for an hour and then opened the bags to find the dead smelling corals. Then posted here on the bad experience. I do not agree with their decision to post a customers name and email on the web as they did. Plus I found a post were they are accusing her of "scamming" them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami December 16, 2009 Share December 16, 2009 <thread closed at originator's request.> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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