"Customers like this" Pt 2 - Sabotage?

[Anonymous]

Wow... - Thats a good thread. - Better than an average episode of "Cops" IMO..

I was hit up by my LFS for what I could come up with for possible causes of an alk spike which they experienced in one of their larger systems and in the process of elimination I had to stop and re-confirm on the question of two-part additives.. (There were a pair of Kent two-parters sitting on the euro-bracing of one of the tanks in the system in question..)

Their answer was again "no" but after a few minutes it got me thinking and led me to the question you know I had to ask.... - Sabotage??

It doesn't seem out of the range of possibilties... - And from what I've heard, Tropicorium over by Detroit for a while (if not still) went to a system where people had/have to wait by the door for someone to lead them around the store because of an apparent "wishing well" situation where a penny (or few) landed in the water for a while unnoticed. (At least, thats the gist I got from the stories I heard..)

So I'm curious... - Any of you out there run into confirmed (or suspected) sabotage situations from jackhole "customers"..??

 

[JennM]

Yep it happens. I've seen it here.

Store I used to work in had a 580-gallon display - quite impressive. We were forever pulling pennies out of it Luckily nothing ever died as a result. I've found screws, nuts, bolts and other miscellaney in there too... we'd run a magnet through the sand periodically. Pennies we had to watch for.

About 6 years ago a local store was broken into and their tanks soaped. Sounded like that was possibly a disgruntled former employee or customer - some expensive specimens were supposedly removed before the soaping occurred. I never did hear the final outcome of that one, but we were all very upset about it at other local shops.

Also beware the individual "just looking" while carrying a "Big Gulp" cup or similar. Expensive frags have been known to vanish this way. Perp scoops his prize with the empty cup he's pretending to drink from. There was a news story a while back where somebody stole a $5K acro or something ridiculous like that, from a store, using a diaper bag... link was posted here when it happened.

Lots of sabotage - even when you know your customers. I've been shoplifted - and I know who's done it but without conclusive proof... well the one I know ripped me off for a $50 book is now in jail - he killed somebody with his car.. DUI. He won't be out for 20 years

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

It was an Acan during the peak of the Acan craze

I've got story about friends stores that watched clams disappear into pockets, th drink cup method, and the pennies in the invert system.

The store I used to work at had to get rid of the reptile section. Local kids would come in, and let them loose. At times, they'd run around and step on lizards for fun. Man did I want to crack some skulls then :twisted:

 

[JennM]

LOL back in the day my ex and I used to help a guy out who ran a fish and reptile store - in return he'd sell us stuff for cost - helped our 'habit' back then

He had some kind of python or boa get loose, it was 4 or 5 feet long... enough to be somewhat alarmed about.

I don't think he ever did find it... it's probably still lurking in the ductwork of that old mini-mall... prolly about 20 feet long by now, feeding on rats and stuff. 8O

Where I used to work I got shoplifted on my watch, and I am reasonably certain that the perp worked for a competitor at the time. Of course I'll never know for sure... but that day he was in scoping things out and a guy who was in the midst of a messy divorce brought in the contents of his 200+ gallon tank. He had to make several trips back and forth from his home to the shop with all the stuff. I was working alone, and I was writing down an inventory of each bag he brought in, and they were floating in our system - I was going to go over the list with him when he was done bringing everything in. He had a gorgeous BTA that I was going to buy from him (skipping the middle man - my boss - LOL!) and I floated its bag along with the others.

When the man returned with the last of his livestock and we went through the inventory list, already having discussed the BTA - it was gone. We unpacked each bag one by one and checked it off the list. Nothing else was missing. There were only 2 other customers in the store during that whole time, and one had my attention the entire time he was there - the other, the competitor's employee, was unattended for long enough to scoop the bag and pocket it.

Like I said I'd never be able to prove that he did it - he was long gone before the loss was noticed, but given the circumstances I knew he had to have taken it. Henceforth, he was never left unattended in that shop. I guess the temptation was too great - nice specimen, already bagged up and a busy overworked employee with her back turned just long enough.

You think you know people...

Heck I've even had a dog-eared copy of Scott Michael's Pocket Guide to Marine Fishes disappear. We have (had) 2 copies that we use for reference here at the store, both are very well worn - and one vanished. I always have new copies on the shelf... surprised that they didn't steal a better one

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

In LA I worked at a store on the same block as two other stores. People used to come in with a pepsi cup with a nudi in it and ask how much they could get for it. We would ask what it was and if they said 'umm, I don't know, its my buddies' we would say, 'do you want us to return it to the other store, or do you want to do it yourself'.

 

[Rascal]

This was quite a while ago but it's like it happened yesterday. A service client called me to ask if I knew what happened to a few fishing rods that were in his garage. He owned a car dealership at the time,lived on the beach, left his garage door open, and I had two of my service guys over there earlier in the day. I told him I didn't know anything about his fishing rods.

About a week later one of my girls was at the store. I would have typically been there with her but ran out to run an errand. This customer comes in, my employee says hello, and he proceeds to walk into the back with a Big Gulp cup.

I got back to the store not very much longer and as I was walking from the truck to the store my cell starts ringing...it was the store calling me. I walked in the front door to the fresh smell of chlorine. I remember questioning my manager as to what happened, freaked out for about 2 minutes when I realized what happened, and went and locked the front door. In the time it takes to walk in and walk out, my customer had nuked 4 of my 9 systems with granular pool chlorine. The powder was sprinkled on the edges of the sumps.

Chlorine kills fish FAST...and turns live rock white FAST. There was no immediate remedy.

The police showed up and were of absolutely ZERO help. They filed a report but wouldn't even cite my customers name.

Ok, this is where it gets good. Months go by and I get a phone call. It is my original customers brother. They used to be partners in the same car dealership but he was in the process of opening his own. He asked me to give him a quote for this pretty high end custom tank. I went to his house...big, beautiful, also on the beach..and at some point I needed to go into his garage, where the pumps and filters were going to be. I noticed some fishing rods and made a fairly innocent comment about surffishing. He said, in such a matter of fact tone 'Oh, those are my brothers. I need to take them back before he misses them".

I wish I had gotten some type of reimbursement from that, but low and behold he still sits in jail in Miami for drug trafficking.

 

[JennM]

Dang....

 

[Anonymous]

In LA I worked at a store on the same block as two other stores. People used to come in with a pepsi cup with a nudi in it and ask how much they could get for it. We would ask what it was and if they said 'umm, I don't know, its my buddies' we would say, 'do you want us to return it to the other store, or do you want to do it yourself'.

:lol: At the Reptile Room in Hayward, Aaron gets a nearly daily visit from the local hoods. They catch garder snakes and try to sell them to Aaron. He always has to decline and ask them to return the poor snake to where they found it.

 

[Anonymous]

We once had a guy bring in a Cali king snake. He said it was an eastern king snake. The response of the reptile manager was 'yeah, east of your back yard'.

 

[Anonymous]

:lol: Now that's good

 

[Anonymous]

Local store would have their employees sabotage all the other stores tanks. We could never prove anything but they tanks would always go foul after one of their employees would be spotted in the store. Now there is only that one store in business. Store put about 4 other stores out of business over the years. Would also strongarm wholesalers to not sell to the other stores.

 

[JennM]

Did the sabotaged stores never take measures to either catch the perps, or file insurance claims? Surely that falls under vandalism... some insurance policies will cover the livestock, some don't, but most would cover lost income if a system was compromised and the business was unable to generate income from its being vandalized?

IMO it would be worth the cost of surveillance cameras if that type of thing was a risk... "caught on tape"....

Jenn

 

[WayneSallee]

Yea sabotage happens a lot in this industry. I personaly am not much of a carbon user, but in the store, I us a lot of it because you don't know what people are throwing in the tanks.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets
[email protected]

 

[Anonymous]

one of the stores i worked in got nuked with copper in our reef system by local competitors' employees -i've heard plenty of stories from other smaill/middlin independents who've experienced the same

 

[Anonymous]

I have been going to a small local store since I was a kid. I have caught people stealing snakes,lizards and ofcourse dry goods. But the owner which knows me extremely well hired a guy to be his manger and this guy started selling tanks and whatever else basically out the backdoor. To make a long story short when I told the owner and helped him catch the guy in the act, I set up a buy. I was only given a thank you, nothing else. I do get small discounts once in a while, but I thought I really deserved something more for that other deal. The owner told me he noticed some tanks disappearing and no money in the register.

What would ya'll have given someone that did what I did?

 

[pyrrhus]

A pat on the back and an Atta-boy for doing the right thing.

Honestly, a person shouldnt expect payment for doing what is decent and honest.

 

[Rascal]

I agree. It would be a sad state of affairs when people expected to be compensated for doing something good, moral, and right.

I read this before someplace. Kinda catchy and starts out like this... 'do unto others...'

 

[dizzy]

SaltwaterDave,
I think what you did was admirable. You should be proud of yourself for doing the right thing. I think if you were paid for doing it, it would actually diminish the personal satisfaction you must surely have received. Use this experience to gain the knowledge that you have grown as a person. You are a better man for your actions.

 

[Anonymous]

I think participating in a sting to directly benefit someone else's business is beyond the normal level of decency I expect from people. I would have asked you what you wanted and either given it to you wholesale or outright.

Do you guys think it would be decent and honest to tell your customers they can get the same products you sell significantly cheaper online, or is that somehow outside the bailiwick of 'do unto others'? :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

He did offer me some cash but I declined. Over the years he has looked out for me here and there and he knows I will continue to look out for him.