I've ordered seven times from SaltwaterAquarium.com and paid them about $550. Recently I had a very poor experience that caused me to do more research on them. The research shows that they have numerous customer complaints. https://www.trustpilot.com/review/saltwateraquarium.com. My own experience was completely in line with this. Not only was it a bad experience but their own words suggest just how unaware they are of their poor service standards compared to many other vendors. Here's the dialogue in reverse order. A brief explanation: I ordered and paid for an algae cleaner on March 5th. They created a label on March 6th and took 6 days to get it to the post office. Then it arrived at my local post office and was forwarded somewhere else (poorly addressed, or just USPS?), then it disappeared for 5 days which is when I contacted SA.com. This was now 2 weeks from the original order. Their response was that their policy is to wait 10 days after the last update from USPS. At this point, I told them to either replace the missing item or refund me. Eventually the item was delivered on March 25th, 20 days after my order. From their responses, they seem to believe that the customer is responsible for the item once it leaves their door and that the customer has to suffer any consequences of poor shipping. This may have worked a long time ago as a customer service strategy but in the age of Amazon, it's seriously deficient. Not to mention that they are extremely unpredictable on responding to emails. Sometimes it's instant and sometimes it takes forever.
EMAIL CHAIN:
ME: Today, April 8, 2026: -- after SA.com took 2 weeks to respond to my last email
I was not able to withdraw the chargeback but I agree that the charge should be reinstated. The fact that you have to ask me what you should have done is proof of your horrible customer service, which I note is a view shared by many customers on TrustPilot. What you should have done is 1) to respond to my email in less than two weeks and 2) to send out an immediate replacement and not wait an additional 10 days after USPS confirmed it was lost. I am truly astonished that you manage to stay in business.
I am posting our dialogue to Reef2Reef.
EMAIL CHAIN:
ME: Today, April 8, 2026: -- after SA.com took 2 weeks to respond to my last email
I was not able to withdraw the chargeback but I agree that the charge should be reinstated. The fact that you have to ask me what you should have done is proof of your horrible customer service, which I note is a view shared by many customers on TrustPilot. What you should have done is 1) to respond to my email in less than two weeks and 2) to send out an immediate replacement and not wait an additional 10 days after USPS confirmed it was lost. I am truly astonished that you manage to stay in business.
I am posting our dialogue to Reef2Reef.
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