What do you think of Race's Guarantee Initiative?

[Kalkbreath]

Does a 14 day guarantee cause buyer irresponsibility or does it actually make the buyer more responsible? I would not be surprised at all if offering a 14 day guarantee resulted on fewer claims.

Think about it like this,

You mail order a fish from a place with a DOA guarantee but no DAA guarantee. You open the box, inside is a fish that looks like crap. It is lying motionless in the bottom of the bag, breathing heavy, has torn up fins and looks as it might break out with oodinium any minute. What are you going to do? It is not dead yet, but it looks to be on it’s last leg.

I don’t know about you, but I am not going to take a chance on it. I would not even bother to open the bag, I would call up the etailer and report it as a DOA. They ask to send it back , I’d take the fish out of the bag, toss it in the box still kicking and send the sucker right back.

Now, this time I order from LA with their long DAA warrantee. The fish comes in looking like crap just like before. But since I have 2 weeks to figure out if it is going to die or not, I’m going to put it in a quarantine tank and try to treat it, if I can successfully treat it, great, if not, no harm in trying....

Yes nothing like an illustration of just how dishonest customers can be .....to support the notion that they are not! (dishonest)

 

[JennM]

Touchee, Jeff!

 

[Anonymous]

You guys confuse me. Who was saying that there aren't dishonest customers?

 

[Anonymous]

You guys confuse me. Who was saying that there aren't dishonest customers?

Dishonest customers that mix up fresh saltwater and throw the dead fish in it then try to collect on the guarantee. 0 nitrates was always a dead giveaway that they had mixed up new water to try and fool the water testing.

Then there would be the people who would pretend that they had a 180 when they really only had a 55. They would fill it full of appropriate fish for a 180. They would finally get figured out either when they start bringing back dead fish or employees from other stores would tell me about them buying tons of fish there too.

I dont know how Jenn and the rest handle it every day.

 

[JennM]

Those types of customers aren't as numerous as they used to be - at least not in my shop - but yeah they exist. Ask them if they tested their water and they say, "Everything is fine." Define "fine"... we may differ

Nobody here said that there weren't dishonest customers - I think we all agreed on that.

Jenn

 

[swsaltwater]

From the other side I can say I have seen a lot of dishonest stores prior to me owning this shop. Price fixing based on the way you look, parasites easily seen but no warnings to customers about them, corals being sold as white frogspawn, crappy old skimmers being sold as state of the art(DRFS does this as well, Seaclone!!!!! with no warning that it really does nothing but make a pretty tornado), telling customers that shops that medicate their tanks are bad as copper will kill your system(I was blind as a hobbyist to this but now i know better lol), selling a indo elegance as an aussie elegance when you know it wasn't.............List can go on forever.

I try to have faith in most customers, but I can tell when they did not acclimate or never test the water. How are the water parameters, answer "Normal". In that case no warranty and they should learn to take care of the animals when it hits em in the pocketbook. I will replace a fish even if it wasn't my fault as long as they do the minimum needed to care for the tank.

 

[JennM]

SW, nobody said there weren't dishonest stores either. Been there, done that. As a consumer, you can educate yourself and choose to spend your dollar wisely.

Online - sight unseen, consumers typically are more at risk, because all they get to see is a website.

I am not referring to DFS here in this instance - I've seen plenty of online etailers who sell this and that, and not just in the fish biz... in general - there are plenty of online sellers of everything from soup to nuts and many of them do not identify who they are, where they are or anything.

It boggles me that they can plop a shopping cart on their site and people will hand over their credit card number to buy whatever, sight unseen and never really know who they are dealing with. There's countless instances of fraud every day.

Again - to be clear, my comment above does NOT refer to DFS, or any legitimate seller of anything who identifies themselves and provides enough information to be validated as a legitimate business.

I'm not legitimizing unethical or unscrupulous shops - in fact I'm with you on that. Until the consumer comes to the same conclusion, however, these enterprises will continue to exist.

Jenn

 

[swsaltwater]

DRFS is far from a bad etail company. The non disclosure of drop shipping and selling old technology that does not work well and is simply a waste of money are the only issue i see with their practices.

Ohh and then there is Race...........

 

[JennM]

LOL after several days' discussion over on another board, I just got told to go away or be banned

The message posted in the public forum said to respect Race's posting rules - heck he started the discussion and in his last post actually agreed with me on something!

Oh well - forced to take my toys and come home.

Race - I'd be happy to continue what I felt was actually turning into a constructive dialog over here. Ironic that once the discussion actually proved to be enlightening, I get asked to leave.

Now I remember why I quit posting over there in the first place. In fact, my speaking up about it over here will likely get me banned anyway

Oh well.

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

Those types of customers aren't as numerous as they used to be - at least not in my shop - but yeah they exist. Ask them if they tested their water and they say, "Everything is fine." Define "fine"... we may differ

Nobody here said that there weren't dishonest customers - I think we all agreed on that.

Jenn

You just fire them as a customer! I did this to one customer that was known around town as "Tommy the fish killier". I banned him from buying fish and corals.

My biggest pet peeve were people that would talk your ear off for hours then buy the stuff online then come back in to ask you to help with all the problems they were having.

 

[Anonymous]

My biggest pet peeve were people that would talk your ear off for hours then buy the stuff online then come back in to ask you to help with all the problems they were having.

LOL, I just ask them where they bought it and then ask what the place they bought it from said. They usually get the picture.

 

[JennM]

LOL I have had both scenarios - I've "encouraged people to do business elsewhere" when they are too high maintenance. I've also suggested to people to check with the dealer they bought it from - for both hardware AND livestock.

I'll help when I can - I've cleaned up plenty of messes caused by hobbyist ignorance as well as questionable LFS/etail practices. I try to look out for the best interests of the creatures, while trying not to enable people to do unwise things.

Jenn