Terrible Experience with Michaels NY Aquatic

[DigitalFishAquariums]

I typically don't air my laundry.

Over several orders I was tempted to buy on price, but of the four, I've never received an order I was happy with.

The vendor was very difficult to reach and did not address my issues, orders were late, fish would arrive in a condition I would have never purchased with them, and fatality in QT was the highest I've seen from any online vendor.

When I did finally connect with them, they gave some story about personal difficulties, which may or may not be true, but I accepted it and gave them another chance.

They didn't honor their agreement to replace a lost fish, and the new fish i had ordered had the same, vendor specific, shockingly high mortality.

When I asked about this, they blamed me. I pointed out that I didn't have these fatalities and wrong orders, as well as refusal to honor arrive alive agreements, with other vendors.

They insisted I was killing the fish.

I reiterated I didn't have this issue with other vendors.

They did not accept feedback, did not provide good service, and have terrible customer service.

My primary gripe isn't that this happened. You do get what you pay for, and there is a lot of fatality in this hobby, especially in transit. A lower cost option that's maybe doing their best to drive volume can sometimes mess up.

Businesses do need to turn a profit.

But when a customer alerts you to an issue they're having, I didn't even ask for recompense, or for them to honor their arrive alive on more than one fish, which had arrived in truly spectacularly poor shape, I would expect a vendor to do their best, or at least react in an appropriate way.

The fish were poor, the ordering experience was poor, and the customer service was worse.

They should fix their practices. For now I do not support them.

 

[NYAquatic]

As we discussed extensively via email, I'm sorry things didn't work out.
BUT
When you get a large shipment with 0 losses, then next day almost everything dies in your QT system, it makes absolutely NO sense to suggest that the fish, which came out of 3 separate systems on my end, all came in deathly ill
If fish are so sick they're about to die, they don't normally survive the stress of shipping.
You'd certainly have had some losses in transit. But that was not the case.

1 fish dies, no issues
could be anything
when nothing is DOA, and nothing in noteworthy condition, as there was no communication before they all died, then almost EVERYTHING dies 24 hours later, it makes NO sense to assume it must be something on my end.

And just to clarify, I gave you replacements for all your losses up to this last order, when you didn't request any credit, just proceded to bash me all over the internet.

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

to be clear, you have never replaced a single loss, you did however send me fish you failed to send in a previous order, and you're now claiming they're a replacement, which is disingenuous.

you had several DOAS, several visibly emaciated fish, and several visibly diseased fish.

this is the copper band you sent me, then didn't replace :

I have had orders from WWC, Live Aquaria, several local shops, and various and sundry other vendors.

I have not lost ANY of those fish this year.

the other half of my fish i order from you, and i have a fatality rate of 50% over four orders in the last six months. The order i wrote this review about i got 4 fish from WWC, and 3 fish from live aquaria within 24 hours of your order.

your order had heavyfatalities. nothing else died.

your fish are inferior, and your customer service is worse. people should not buy from you.

 

[DigitalFishAquariums]

Update: apparently they've hired a team to handle customer service, they've reached out and may be making this right.