SCAMMER ALERT!! Have you ever been scammed by someone in the hobby?

[robbyg]

you know... my wise friend once told me “if you ever decide to loan money to a friend or family, just gift it to them, you’ll save your relationship.”...

Your friend is absolutely correct. I lost two friends by lending them money in their time of need.
One of them really annoys me because he see's me sometimes and then tries to act like everything is fine. The other one at least has the decency to stay far away from me.

 

[Butcher333]

1) I don’t think businesses should be selling coral with bugs and pests. They know how to dip. They preach the practice. They charge top prices. Don’t want to bash any local businesses. You receive a shipment. You prepare your coral for sale. I’ll take the extra step from there, monitoring in my quarantine. They have no idea how much future business they cost themselves.(I do)
2) Thanks for all the stories and examples of scams I just read. I’ve always feared that kind of stuff so avoided it all, but have sometimes wondered if I’m too cautious. A lot of the scamming tricks I couldn’t even have imagined.

 

[Requiemiero]

I'm glad that this thread was made because I'm definitely learning a lot. As a new member who's been buying a lot of stuff on this site, I've honestly been taking lots of risks that I shouldn't have.

I'll see in like a week to see how everything shakes out but I'm 2/2 for now.

I feel kind of bad because I feel like someone might think that I'm a scammer because the light I bought from them didn't work out of the box when I tried every way possible to make it work. (Even contacted that company's support.) In the end I had to get a refund from them and they were really gracious. But I wonder if the light worked for them before shipping and they think I broke it

Well, I'll just keep doing my best moving forward to ask for more pictures and ask more questions. And also take my own pictures of proof.

 

[komokazi]

I got had on a tank where all the included equipment didn't work, the lights (white channel dead), and the main return pump was completely seized, and upon disassembly, dead planaria everywhere. Disregard initial message haha.

 

[Anthony Scholfield]

This forum can be such a joke sometimes, haha. Ya''ll ask a question about scammers but God forbid we name the fools who have wronged honest reefers. Here is my slow clap to you R2R for saying its okay to scam, we wont name you and protect our friends, get real! Maybe its time this forum re-evaluated whats important, being "nice" isn't always nice.

 

[laverda]

Not exactly a scam. I had a guy come over with his buddy for some free corals I advertised. I was working in the garage when they arrived, so I had the door open. one of my tanks is in the garage and while I was getting corals for him his buddy was stealing a couple hundred dollars worth of tools from me.

 

[Jenuvio]

Walked into a LFS today.. saw Red Sea Coral Nutrition 30% off... noticed it expired soon. Would that be considered borderline shadiness??

 

[Sump Crab]

Bought a mushroom off a "reputable"/sponsor vendors site and when I received it it was clearly not the same as pictured, either that or photoshop was so intense in the photo it was not recognizable in person. I called, they insisted it was correct and that the picture had been taken a long time ago. I wanted a refund, didnt happen. At worst it was a scam and at best it was an honest mistake by a careless vendor. Either way I felt duped. Never bought from them again.

 

[AJsReef]

Luckily I have not. However, I always use AMEX+PP just in case have saved me countless times in other endeavors over the years

 

[laverda]

Walked into a LFS today.. saw Red Sea Coral Nutrition 30% off... noticed it expired soon. Would that be considered borderline shadiness??

At least they realized it was expiring and discounted it. Many would not do that and just hope you don’t notice. You could always ask for a bigger discount since it is expiring.

 

[laverda]

Bought a mushroom off a "reputable"/sponsor vendors site and when I received it it was clearly not the same as pictured, either that or photoshop was so intense in the photo it was not recognizable in person. I called, they insisted it was correct and that the picture had been taken a long time ago. I wanted a refund, didnt happen. At worst it was a scam and at best it was an honest mistake by a careless vendor. Either way I felt duped. Never bought from them again.

That’s not right either way. I would call them out on that! They will continue to do that kind of thing and get away with it if you don’t let the community know.

 

[Brian W]

Yes bought a Zeovit reactor. Guy said it was new but when I received it I could see glue lines that didnt match up to the manufacturer's quality of standards. The product came apart as I took it out of the box. I guess the seller didnt glue it good enough or else I would of never known it was previously broken.

Messaged him.and of course he replied with " its brand new, I didnt glue it, blah, blah, blah"

Would not agree to refund my money so I had to file a paypal claim. Got my money back and shipped him back his product.

This guy is a we known semi large vendor. After all of this he blocked me and never responded to any emails or messages.

Way to be an adult!

 

[robbyg]

When I was setting up my home electronics lab I bought a lot of used gear and one thing that really helped was that I bought a cheap tripod and cell phone holder so that I could video record my work bench. When packages arrived I would put them on the bench and start recording and making comments as I went along. I ended up with short 15 minute videos that went from unboxing and inspection to me plugging in the unit and testing it.

I always made sure to take a good one minute shot of the unopened box showing the box condition and the tape sealing the box. Then about 5 minutes of me checking out the product for scratches and defects and then a follow through of about 5-10 minutes of me plugging it in and trying every knob and button and checking to see if it works properly. Luckily I only had to use the videos once. All the other times I deleted them right after shooting them. The one time the product was defective and just got stuck on boot-up.
I uploaded the whole video to YouTube and sent the seller a private link. He messaged me back and said to return it.

 

[Dilan Patel]

I've thought about videoing a box opening especially if the box shows up in rough condition. Just to show the honest contents or condition of what came. Also no intent to scam anyone.

I haven't been scammed in this hobby. I have received some very dubiously photographed corals at times but that's the risk I know I take when buying something from someone else's camera, lights, Photoshop skill level, and tank conditions.

Well no that's not true, I guess I wouldn't call it a scam but I did place an online order to a coral shop about 2-4 hours south (depending on traffic). They offered to bring my order up if it worked out when they drove up to the big hub airport to pick stuff up but wound up shipping. That was months after I ordered my corals. I had to keep initiating contact to find out where the heck my order was. Guess they had an alk spike that made everything look ugly.

Well stuff finally shows up and most of it RTNs overnight. All came in looking brown. The most expensive coral I had bought up to that moment, which on their site was a gorgeous magenta burgundy acro, was brown, and when it finally colored up it was pink and green. Looked NOTHING like their pics. Wound up being the hardiest and one of the only survivors of that shipment.

Needless to say I've never been back.

I always video an unboxing wether that is from a hobbyist(which I still video tape) Ive done it with LA,Vivid,Battle...so on. I don't anticipate problems but it gives me solid proof of the condition the box was ion and how the packing was from the start. It also helps me keep the names of the coral in check lol.

 

[Russell Casey]

That is a shame, file a report with the inspector general of the post office it only takes 10 minutes. If it becomes a pattern the post office will have their people handle it, meaning investigate it.

 

[Russell Casey]

Dilan,
As someone who is versed in this type of civil contract, videoing an opening of the box with an honorable company is going to work 99.9% of the time. If you get someone who is a scumbag and wants to refute the video by saying that you possibly filmed something else, unboxed the bottom, switched it out etc.

It will be more problematic. The key is as you conveyed to purchase from people that do you right, and even if it costs more. There is a guy I know that purchased a custom 500 gallon tank put it in his living room, with sump in basement and he purchased the best of the best. Yet, he decided to purchase against my friendly advice to purchase heaters from an online source selling these said heater with supposed fail safes for about 10.00 each. They should easily have been 100 plus. Well guess what exploded in his tank and wiped out most of it, two months ago .

The point is if someone is slightly higher and you trust them to me buy from them, it isn't worth all the hassle. I am going to copy your idea about video taping unboxing so I can post them here and elsewhere that way if a vendor does screw with you at least others will know.

 

[Russell Casey]

I like you found out the hardway. I purchased anew Neptune Apex complete and the box was sealed. it worked great and it was new but due to a power outage the energy bar went bye bye. Guess what, it wasn't honored under warranty because I purchased it from a seller on Ebay. The dates of the equipment were new, but I saved about a $100.00 but now to get the energy bar fixed I am being told about $185.00 so learn from me. I wasn't scammed though I knew when I purchased it that I could run into warranty issues.

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Would scamming include "oh dont worry this is a super easy coral" when in reality it's something like red goni and the person knows you are new.
Or selling a peice with tons of pests like aiptasia without telling the person?

I've never experienced these I'm moreso curios on what others think. I do know it's the reefers responsibility to do research and inspect for pests

 

[Russell Casey]

Something that I often think about is that someone can show you a pic of a colony, say its a Walt Disney, Home Wrecker ETC, and sell you a frag. The frag you usually get from something like that is usually really small and will not really look like the mother colony for quite along time. Then there are tons of factors like light, water quality, additives ETC. You have no clue if that frag you got actually came off that colony. Probably happens all the time.

I have also seen people that buy these said frags at prices that are so low it made me want to buy them all, but my intuition told me that if they were priced this low there is something wrong, guess what the vendor sent these to a friend of mine and now they are going back and forth as they weren't even the coral type shown in the photo. What I am conveying is to not be a victim of this type of crap, don't fall in love with a price and get that dopamine going in our brains that say I got a deal! As that will override if were not careful our rational brain that says Run Forest run .

 

[Russell Casey]

Would scamming include "oh dont worry this is a super easy coral" when in reality it's something like red goni and the person knows you are new.
Or selling a peice with tons of pests like aiptasia without telling the person?

I've never experienced these I'm more so curios on what others think. I do know it's the reefers responsibility to do research and inspect for pests

Salt Creep you must of been in the LFS fish store when I first started the hobby last year that sold me a Twin Spot Goby and told me that this Goby was easy to take care of, and would eat anything. Now one year later Goby still alive, because I have an amphipod culture, and a refugium now that I didn't want but didn't want to let him starve. The point is I now have learned that I ask people that know better than me but also do my own research. I just walked in the store a newbie and thankfully the Twin Spot didn't have to die because of my naivety.