I wanted to share with the community my recent experience ordering livestock through saltwateraquarium.com.
I recently purchased some trochus snails and a rock flower anemone. Upon arrival, all animals were DOA as the heat pack never activated. It was unfortunate, but these things happen, sometimes the heat pack is a dud and it's no ones fault.
I immediately sent them timestamped photos of the unopened bags with temperature readings (52-53F), temperature readings of the heat pack that failed, the dead/bleached anemone, and the bag of dead snails. The initial message from customer service was considerate and professional and appeared at the time as an offer to reship or refund the order if the snails were dead.
Out of an overabundance of caution, I requested a few days to see if any of the snails would survive. When they started rotting in the tank, I e-mailed customer service back to inform them that they were in fact dead. They requested a photo of the snails out of the tank, but by that time, I had already disposed of the snails, having interpreted the first message offering a refund/reship to imply the photos I had previously sent would suffice. Clearly that was a misunderstanding and I accepted responsibility for not holding onto the snails and accepted that the mistake was mine. I then requested a credit or refund for the remainder of the order. At worst, I was hoping to get a credit for the anemone. At best, I was expecting to have them refund or reship the order (minus the snails) as they advertised: "We do not reship/replace an order unless more then half of the order has an issue. We do not cover any shipping costs for replacement orders unless your entire order is DOA."
In either event, what followed was a back and forth that lasted seven days, as it would frequently take them 2 business days to respond to my e-mails. I was met with very terse responses and in my opinion, extremely unprofessional behavior. To be honest, rereading the messages, I have to assume they had written me off as some type of scammer, but it was still extremely disappointing customer service. To clarify, while it would have been nice to get the order reshipped as it was DOA, I would have settled for a credit on the anemone. In either event, it was the most disappointing customer service experience I have had in this hobby in more than twenty years, both with whichever customer service representative I e-mailed as well as the manager whom I ultimately e-mailed. Having worked in the industry myself, it was pretty uncomfortable to watch it unfold.
In the end, the money was always inconsequential. I've always wanted to support saltwatweraquarium.com as one of the smaller retails out there and came away pretty disappointed in the process. After my experience, I won't be ordering any livestock from them again. This is a single data point, make of it what you will.
I recently purchased some trochus snails and a rock flower anemone. Upon arrival, all animals were DOA as the heat pack never activated. It was unfortunate, but these things happen, sometimes the heat pack is a dud and it's no ones fault.
I immediately sent them timestamped photos of the unopened bags with temperature readings (52-53F), temperature readings of the heat pack that failed, the dead/bleached anemone, and the bag of dead snails. The initial message from customer service was considerate and professional and appeared at the time as an offer to reship or refund the order if the snails were dead.
Out of an overabundance of caution, I requested a few days to see if any of the snails would survive. When they started rotting in the tank, I e-mailed customer service back to inform them that they were in fact dead. They requested a photo of the snails out of the tank, but by that time, I had already disposed of the snails, having interpreted the first message offering a refund/reship to imply the photos I had previously sent would suffice. Clearly that was a misunderstanding and I accepted responsibility for not holding onto the snails and accepted that the mistake was mine. I then requested a credit or refund for the remainder of the order. At worst, I was hoping to get a credit for the anemone. At best, I was expecting to have them refund or reship the order (minus the snails) as they advertised: "We do not reship/replace an order unless more then half of the order has an issue. We do not cover any shipping costs for replacement orders unless your entire order is DOA."
In either event, what followed was a back and forth that lasted seven days, as it would frequently take them 2 business days to respond to my e-mails. I was met with very terse responses and in my opinion, extremely unprofessional behavior. To be honest, rereading the messages, I have to assume they had written me off as some type of scammer, but it was still extremely disappointing customer service. To clarify, while it would have been nice to get the order reshipped as it was DOA, I would have settled for a credit on the anemone. In either event, it was the most disappointing customer service experience I have had in this hobby in more than twenty years, both with whichever customer service representative I e-mailed as well as the manager whom I ultimately e-mailed. Having worked in the industry myself, it was pretty uncomfortable to watch it unfold.
In the end, the money was always inconsequential. I've always wanted to support saltwatweraquarium.com as one of the smaller retails out there and came away pretty disappointed in the process. After my experience, I won't be ordering any livestock from them again. This is a single data point, make of it what you will.
