Marine Flora

[weimers75]

Here’s a history of my e-mails sent back and forth with Sam, the owner of Marine Flora so that you can make your own conclusions (warning, it’s detailed ;)):

March 29th: The original order was placed. In the instructions, I asked Sam to hold the order so that more could be added in order to reach the free shipping amount. Two people signed up with their orders and a shipping date of April 3rd (Tuesday) was set.

I had trouble from the beginning getting a response from Sam. E-mails took days to get a response. March 30th, I sent an e-mail to Sam which stated that I had sent 3 e-mails from March 22nd-March 30th (asking about availability, to confirm holding the order until the other items were added, asking how the others should pay, and to set a shipping date).

March 31st: I finally got a response to my e-mails. One of the people who got in on the group buy IM’d him (they’re friends) that I had not heard from him. She then sent me a pm stating Sam had been busy and he would contact me. He finally did, stating that he was having trouble with receiving e-mails through the site and it was being worked on. I also asked if the Tuesday ship date would be ok so that I could get the shipment.

April 2nd: No response from Sam about ship date, so I asked again if they would be shipped tomorrow. I asked his friend if she had heard anything, to which I got a pm stating “the ones she ordered have been fraggedâ€.

April 4th: Orders arrived without a heat pack (it was cold here). I floated the bags in my tank to warm them up, the other people came and got their orders that day, except one and their frag was put in my tank.

April 5th: I sent Sam an e-mail with pictures of the frags. One polyp ($32 per polyp) didn’t look like it was going to make it, another frag was not what I ordered. Got a response right away, stating that that’s how those polyps look but to keep and eye on them, and that the one I thought was incorrect was actually correct, but that my lighting was probably what made it look different (i.e. brown instead of blue).

April 8th: I sent another e-mail stating that the polyp still had not opened and that the other frag’s color was still brown and that I was upset considering it cost $40.

April 9th: I got a pm from Sam’s friend stating he would “make things rightâ€.

April 11th: I sent another e-mail to Sam since it had been 6 days since I got a response. I had been off of work for Spring Break and wanted the replacements to come when I was home or a refund. Here’s and excerpt from that e-mail:
I am aware that you have another job, but you are also running an internet business and this is a poor way of running it. It only takes a few minutes to respond to an e-mail, and you have obviously had enough time to talk to *.* who told me you would be taking care of it. Unfortunately, I did not place the order through *.*, and I expect to hear from the person I placed the order with.
I then went to Club-Zoa to check out some threads, and found a reply from Sam on one of the threads. I then searched for his replies, and during those six days he had time to add new things to his website and make 11 posts.

I got a response that night stating that he would send a replacement for the one that didn’t make it and a replacement for the brown ones.

April 13th: I got an e-mail that the frags had been made and were healing and can go out next week when I can get them (no mention of the fact that I told him I was back at work).

April 22nd: I had finally made arrangements to have someone get them that Wednesday, the 24th and e-mailed Sam.

April 24th: I got a response from Sam stating that he fragged them and wants to make sure they’re “100%†before sending them. But according to his previous e-mail, they were supposedly fragged and ready to go the week of the 16th-20th.

April 28th: I get an e-mail to “go ahead and Paypal me $45 for overnight shipping feesâ€. NEVER had I heard of this in all of the previous communications. I sent my final e-mail going over the last few weeks and the problems we had had. I asked for an alternative shipping method that was cheaper, or for a credit since I felt that the shipping was high and that it should have been covered since the error was not my fault. I also stated that if I had not heard anything by Monday that I assumed it didn’t intend to make things right and would post appropriate feedback on the forums. Interestingly, he has had time to post more pics on this site since then, but not to reply to my e-mail.

So that is what I have done. Make your own conclusions, but here are some pics that you can use to judge for yourself. My pics are taken under t-5's, 2 10,000k and 3 actinic. The polyps look nothing like Sam’s pics…especially considering the price.

My pic:

Pic from Marineflora.com:

I would have taken pics of the Emperor Blues, but conveniently they are no longer on his site.

To be fair, I did order the Red Hares, and they look identical to his pics.

 

[weimers75]

Good advice. Someone on another forum stated that Sam uses blueline 20k with super actinics. I wasn't suggesting a bait and switch, just that it didn't look the same.

Also, I want to reiterate that I wasn't asking for a credit because it didn't look the same, I asked for a credit for that polyp because 1 of the 2 frags died.

 

[Marine Flora]

Michelle,

You ordered items which are under "collectors edition". These corals are are usually not fragged from the mother colony onto frag plugs until ordered. I frag them when they are ordered and hold them for at least a week before shipping out. You ordered 2 polyps of the blue shuriken and requested it separated onto 2 plugs (which I did accomodate your request). 1 frag had 3 blue shuriken polyps and the other had 1 shuriken polyp. You said one frag died.. which is the 1 polyp of blue shuriken. I see 2 polyps open in your photo yet you claimed one frag (1 polyp of blue shuriken) died and requested replacement for the single dead polyp of the blue shuriken. As for the other coral, I offered to send some chromis shield palys as a replacement which I feel are valued higher than what she ordered.

When you placed the order and wanted it shipped ASAP because you could only recieve it on a certain date, I went ahead and accomodated your request even though I felt they weren't ready to ship.
You wanted to have the replacement corals shipped at my expense at a certain date but the difference this time around is I want to make sure they are healthy before they go out so this would be avoided.
Initially, I was going to pay the shipping and send you replacements but after so many pushy & threatening emails. I've decided to request overnight shipping fees to be paid.

You emailed me several days after you recieved your order with no photos of any of the DOA corals. According to our policy DOAs are to reported the same day of delivery which you did not do.

I have 400w 20k Ushio with T5 blue+ actinics over my corals. There is no deception there. You also said you had comparable lighting. MH+T5 combination looks different than T5 Standalone.


Sam

 

[weimers75]

Sam,

I wish your responses were this fast to my e-mails, the last of which was on the 28th which I still have not gotten a reply to. In response to your post, the frag of the Blue Shuriken that died was for my friend who went in on the group order. HE HAS NO FRAG and he paid for it. The other polyp opened within the last week. You chose to put 3 polyps on one of the frags, but he has none and paid for a frag.

Secondly, I asked in several e-mails if the first ship date was OK. All you had to do was say they needed to heal, and I would have waited (I was on Spring Break the next week and could have gotten it then). The one that I was in a rush for was the replacements, but after you said it needed to heal I said I would make other arrangements. I made arrangements for almost 2 weeks later and e-mailed you, then you changed the story and said they were recently fragged.

The reason I was upset about shipping was because it was never mentioned, then suddenly I got a short e-mail to paypal you. I understand this is normal, but like you said you were going to pay for shipping. Look at the dates on those e-mails that you say were so numerous...if so much time had not gone between responses then there would have been fewer. I truly thought you were avoiding me or putting off the replacements...it was more than 2 weeks after the original order that replacements were fragged.

The part about the photos is an absolute LIE. On the first e-mail they were included in the e-mail. You said you never got them so I sent them as an attachment. After that, You asked three times for photos from my friend's tank, and three times I told you both frags were shown in my pic, and I resent it stating this. If you didn't get mine again, why did you not say so?

Again, I feel like a month is enough time to make this right, and I felt like I was getting the run-around on more than one occassion because the stories kept changing (shipping costs, frag times, response times, etc.)

 

[weimers75]

Can we put e-mails in posts or is that a privacy violation? If so, I have saved all of Sam's e-mails as well as my own and can post them here if that will give a clearer picture for everyone. I didn't think we were allowed to and didn't want to break the rules:)

 

[weimers75]

I got a pm stating there wasn't a problem posting e-mails, so I thought I'd include some of them to hopefully shed some light on what Sam called "pushy and threatening" e-mails.

April 8th:

I e-mailed you on Friday about my order and thought I would give you an update (did you get that e-mail?). As of today, only 1 of the Shuriken polyps have opened. Also, I am quite disappointed in the color of the Emperor Blues, they are brown. I paid $40 for brown zoos. I know you said they color up weird in your tank...could you explain this? Do you mean the growout tank is different and they will need to color up in my tank? So far, the only ones that look as pictured are the Red Hares, they're awesome and completely open. I do understand that this is not your full-time job, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated at the slow response times. We had several problems communicating before the order was shipped, and I had hoped it would improve.

April 11th:

It has been six days since I last heard from you and I have sent 2 e-mails during that time. I am aware that you have another job, but you are also running an internet business and this is a poor way of running it. It only takes a few minutes to respond to an e-mail, and you have obviously had enough time to talk to [another reefer] who told me you would be taking care of it. Unfortunately, I did not place the order through [another reefer], and I expect to hear from the person I placed the order with.

I placed an order after I heard good things about your company from members of SMART, MiReefers, and Club-Zoa. I would have thought after these recommendations I would have had a better response. After a week in the tank, I still have only one Shuriken polyp open, and the other person that I ordered with would obviously like to have his polyp, but we have been waiting for it to open...he too is anxious for a response. Also, the Emporer Blues are still a brown color. I can provide pictures as soon as the lights come on. I have others who are anxious to know how the order is going and I keep waiting to respond to them to see what the final outcome is. Please let me know where to proceed from here.

Sam's reply: I'll send you another polyp of the blue shuriken. Which other corals did not make it? Does the other gentleman have photos of the zoanthids also? Let me know, I'll get you guys some replacements.

The replacements for the DOA have been fragged and healing, They will go
out next week when you are ready to accept them. I will go ahead and send
replacements for the other DOAs also. Please let me know when you are
ready to accept them.

April 22nd:

Sorry that it has been so long since I have replied, but I am trying to figure out a day when someone can get the delivery. I was thinking Tuesday for Wednesday delivery would probably be best. Also, I wanted to confirm that you had said you were sending Blue Chromis Palys to replace the Emperor Blue, and a replacement polyp for the Shuriken that never opened. To this day, only one has opened out of the four you sent, so I'm not sure if they're poor shippers or maybe they weren't fragged long enough before shipping.

April 24th:

I sent out an e-mail on Sunday and have not yet heard back. Were you going to be able to ship out the replacements today? Otherwise, I will need to make other arrangements. Please let me know asap.

Sam's reply on April 24th: I fragged them and want to monitor their health to make sure they're 100% before sending them out to you guys. The previous time, some of the frags were rushed out bc you guys had a certain date you could accept the shipment.

And then on the 28th: If you want to go ahead and paypal me $45 for overnight shipping fees since replacements are not shipped w/o costs. I'll go ahead and do so. Thank you.

Hopefully, this will give people a better idea of what happened. I didn't include all of the e-mails (obviously) but they were mainly asking if Sam received my last e-mail or asking the status. The only remotely threatening e-mail was the last e-mail I sent to Sam, and although quite lengthy basically said I was tired of waiting, and that if I didn't hear a response in 3 days I would assume that he had chosen not to send replacements and I would leave appropriate feedback on message boards that I belong to. I feel that I truely tried to remain peacful and work this out.

 

[MangroveCoral]

Weimers75,
As a fellow hobbyist, I think you should just move on. You obviously spent a lot of time (and stress) over this transaction, detailing and saving all the communication you had with this vendor. I just think you should just let it go and use your time to enjoy the hobby.

I have a 240 gallon tank, and most of my corals come from internet vendors and ebay. So I have had good experiences and bad experiences with vendors. One time, I asked the vendor to leave shipment at the front door if not home. Unfortunately, the vendor did not pay attention to that request and I received a very smelly dead clam waiting for me at the post office 3 days later. From another vendor, I got a few brown colored corals when they were supposed to have the nice colors as pictured on the internet site...although the blue corals you post above do look like the pictures from the vendor's internet. It's all about the lighting, and unless you have exactly the same lighting bulb, wattage, etc...the color will probably not be a perfect match. Anyway, I remember yelling at the vendors. But you know what? It's just not worth it. You always run into a risk of receiving dead corals whether these corals were shipped improperly or they were just too stressed out. That's why so many vendors have such strict shipment policy. So I decided not to argue anymore.

I don't know if you are a frequent customer with this vendor. If you have bought quite a lot and built a good customer relationship with this vendor, then this vendor should try his best to keep you as a customer. But if you are just a new customer, I think it's useless to continue your quest of getting credit or whatever. To be fair to this vendor, it did seem like he did offer to do the right thing in the beginning. Perhaps there was some miscommunication in the beginning. In any case, I think you should just put this transaction to rest....It just seems a bit like you are stalking or harassing him. I hope I didn't offend you...just my 2 cent.

 

[weimers75]

No, you didn't offend me:) I too have done a lot of transactions online, and only on one other occassion have I had a problem, and it was fixed right away.

I guess the reasons why I was so upset about this one is the amount of money they cost for what I got, and the run-around that I received from the vendor. Had the order been made right, I certainly would have posted that things went well.

Finally, I would have left things alone if the vendor had not accused me of fabricating the story. I felt like I had to defend myself with proof to show my side of the story and hopefully prevent others from making the same mistake.

 

[Enraged]

Not really seeing anything threatening or pushy in your post??
Almost all online vendors request you pay shipping on DOA replacements and so forth.
If he is waiting for the Frags to heal instead of rushing them out to meet your deadline then i say good for him because he is trying to avoid future problems and worrying about the health of the coral. I understand you irritation as i am waiting for him to ship my coral out as they ran out of Styrofoam containers and it has taken him a bit to restock those but I haven't gotten all mad about it they will arrive next week.
His response times have not been any better or worse then any other online vendor i have dealt with and 95 percent of my tank stock is from online sources.
like you have mentioned many of these sources are not full time suppliers and do this as a source of supplemental income out of their home therefore responses can take time.
Be patient it seems like he has already stated he is going to make it rite.

 

[weimers75]

Again, if you read carefully, he stated that he was going to pay for shipping, then suddenly changed his mind. Also, he has not responded to my last e-mail and has no intention of making things right. I agree, I was glad he was willing to wait...but if you look closely, I gave them nearly two weeks to heal, then when I requested they be shipped he stated they were recently made and needed to heal AFTER he said two weeks previously that they were already fragged.

That's what I'm upset about, all of the inconsistencies. If asking for an e-mail response is pushy when he has time to post pics on this site to sell more stuff and reply to threads, then he should have time to help the people who have already placed an order.

I'm moving on as someone suggested so probably won't check back on this thread, I'm just trying to help people avoid the same problems.

 

[weimers75]

I got a pm last night that a guy I know from another forum had replacements for me. Mind you I had no idea they were coming, and by the time I found out they were there it was too late to go pick them up, so they've been sitting there overnight and today while I'm at work. I'll keep you posted on how they do, hopefully they'll be ok. I wish someone (either Sam or the person who received them if he knew they were coming) would have told me before they shipped so I could have made arrangements:(

 

[Chelsey]

What about going home on your lunch hour?

 

[weimers75]

I supposed to pick them up from someone and I only get 25 minutes for lunch and they aren't home then:( I'm a teacher, so I have a set lunch time.

Doesn't look like today is going to work for pickup, it seems when one of us is available the other isn't. I just wish someone would have told me they were coming! Seriously, they were delayed in shipping for one day, so they actually arrived a day after they were supposed to, and no one told me I was even getting replacements...I was told when they got here, and now I can't even pick them up.

 

[msman825]

how much money are we talking here you spent with sam

 

[weimers75]

My order alone was $144, and three other people went in on the group order.

 

[Marine Flora]

What can I say? danged if you do, danged if you don't.

You have everything you ordered + more Michelle. You ordered 2 red hare, I gave you 4. You ordered 1 blue shuriken for yourself and supposed one for another person. I sent you 4, 2 are still alive. not including freebies you recieved also.

If this was a group buy I really don't understand why someone had you place the order for them. I'm really puzzled- The other 2 people in the group buy placed their own order.

I paid shipping for the corals to the other people in the group buy. I told the others in the group buy that I would make their order right. The replacement blue shuriken is in there also. 3 polyps to be exact-

msman, she spent $112 not whatever she claimed.

this is alot of ticking and moaning for someone who got what they ordered + more.

 

[weimers75]

Here's the problem Sam...communication. The problem is that half of the stuff that I received didn't make it. I had NO idea replacements were coming. The stuff sat there overnight (but in his tank at least), after it had been sent to the wrong city (not your fault). True, you sent freebies, and I appreciate that, but it died.

Receiving it and having it live are 2 different things. Neither frag that you sent me lived, they have both melted away. Both of my friend's frags are open...he plans on getting them after they've settled in a bit. (He lives 45 minutes away, and again, he could have picked up after work but we didn't know they were coming).

As for why we ordered together, it was easier. Look on the site that I did the group order through, it mentions my friend way before you and I had problems.

Sam was right about the total...my friend and I's order was $144 which is where I got the number from. Mine was $112, Lee's was $32. Sorry for the mistake.

To clarify...I'm not way ahead. 3 frags have melted away of mine, one of my friends. Of the original order, only 1 of the 4 people didn't request a replacement. I don't think I'd be "ticking and moaning" as Sam put it if responses to my e-mails would have been anywhere near as fast as what I get in a public forum. Funny how when it "goes public" I get all sorts of replies.

As for those of you who feel that I should "move on", I have. My only purpose in writing this is to inform others of the difficulty I have had. Isn't that what a feedback forum is for? Wouldn't you like to know something went bad so you can make an educated decision?

 

[Marine Flora]

Michelle,

"My only purpose in writing this is to inform others of the difficulty I have had. Isn't that what a feedback forum is for? Wouldn't you like to know something went bad so you can make an educated decision?"

This is a feedback forum but please keep it factual.

I'm done wasting my time on this thread.