Terrible Communications with Aquarium Specialty

[UncleJT]

On 5/27, I ordered the following items from Aquarium Specialty:

OceanMotions 2-Way Squirt
Tunze Powerhead
Salinity Calibration Fluid

About an hour later, I received an email from the account of "Kelly Humber" at AS informing me that the OceanMotions device would ship from the manufacturer and the rest of my order would ship from Aquarium Specialty's warehouse on 5/31. No problem, I was expecting this response.

By late afternoon on Wednesday June 1st, I had not received any type of tracking number or order update so I emailed Kelly Humber to see what was going on. She never replied. On Friday June 3rd, I placed a couple phone calls to AS but could never get anyone on the phone. I finally ended up leaving a PM for Scott on one of the forums they sponsor.

This morning, Scott replied to my PM. He explained that Kelly has been on maternity leave since May 16th and he'd have some one else check into the order for me but stated "we ship these direct from the manufacturer". Based on this statement, he obviously didn't read my entire PM to see I had ordered multiple items so I had to send him another PM to clarify exactly what was shipping:

So every item on my order is being drop shipped? The email sent to me on the 27th from Kelly's email address indicated only the Ocean Motions device was being drop shipped and all other items were shipping from YOUR warehouse on the 31st.

In the future, when someone is going to be out of the office, you may not want to have automated emails sent out with an individuals direct email address. I had assumed Kelly was the one who sent the email so I was emailing her.

I'm very disappointed with the communications breakdown on this order. Regardless of who processed my order and where it was shipping from, I would have thought I'd have received some type of order update by now.

Respectfully,

- JT

35 minutes later, I received another email from "Kelly Humber" with an order update stating that the Tunze was out of stock but is shipping today along with the salinity solution and the Ocean Motions is shipping from the manufacturer on Thursday.

5 minutes after I received the above email, Scott replied to my PM I quoted above asking me only if I checked my "web account" for updates. He answers communications very tersely and never once addressed any of the communications issues. Not very good customer service at all.

This will likely be my last order with Aquarium Specialty. I had wanted to order all of my Zeovit stuff from them but this poor customer service and terrible communications is unacceptable.