I'M CALLING YOU OUT LIVE AQUARIA!!!

[NowGlazeIT]

I went on divers den a couple days ago. buyer beware of the Wisconsin facility. A lot of those fish need some real TLC.

 

[ca1ore]

Nothing wrong with fixing bad English ......

When I quote other folks, I sometimes cannot resist fixing the grammar. C'est la vie! Who knows if the reviews are 'fake' or not; I'm inclined to think they are not. Either way, LA/DD are an excellent source for fish and inverts.

 

[wattson]

Im not protecting anyone but calling "someone out" like this in your thread is a VERY BAD way to go about your motive here..
If you personally had a bad experience first hand then thats fine ,but how did customer service take care of the bad situation is the real question?
Lets hear your conversation of your first hand experience in the Vendor Feed Back section in the R2R forum.
If you DONT have a first hand negative experience with this vendor ,,then this thread should of NEVER been started.
Its not a perfect world selling/shipping livestock, theres always a negative situation that arises in this live animal industry,,the biggest question is when a problem happens,,how does the company handle the situation..
Nuff said,,,this thread is pointless ridicule

 

[ca1ore]

I'm feeling the urge to correct all the grammatical errors in this thread .......

As the father of two teenaged boys, I actually want them to have good grammar - reading bad grammar isn't a good way to actually achieve that goal. Online testimonials are mostly useless anyhow.

 

[DSC reef]

Im not protecting anyone but calling "someone out" like this in your thread is a VERY BAD way to go about your motive here..
If you personally had a bad experience first hand then thats fine,,but how did customer service take care of the bad situation is the real question? Lets hear your conversation of your first hand experience in the Vendor Feed Back section in the R2R forum.
If you DONT have a first hand negative experience with this vendor ,,then this thread should of NEVER been started..
Its not a perfect world selling/shipping livestock,,theres always a negative situation that arises in this live animal industry,,the biggest question is when a problem happens,,how does the company handle the situation..
Nuff said,,,this thread is pointless ridicule

Well said.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

The first review thanks the company drs. foster and smith instead of live aquaria (not a ton of people know but they are owned by the same people)

 

[dansreef]

Im not protecting anyone but calling "someone out" like this in your thread is a VERY BAD way to go about your motive here..
If you personally had a bad experience first hand then thats fine ,but how did customer service take care of the bad situation is the real question?
Lets hear your conversation of your first hand experience in the Vendor Feed Back section in the R2R forum.
If you DONT have a first hand negative experience with this vendor ,,then this thread should of NEVER been started.
Its not a perfect world selling/shipping livestock, theres always a negative situation that arises in this live animal industry,,the biggest question is when a problem happens,,how does the company handle the situation..
Nuff said,,,this thread is pointless ridicule

Very Well Said!

I ordered from LA a couple of months ago and received EXACTLY what I ordered. They were well packaged and arrived in great shape....all the fish were fat and healthy. They acclimated quickly to my tank and are model citizens. I will order from them again with confidence.

 

[ca1ore]

Except LA/DD shipment emails are all from Drs. Foster & Smith, so I think folks that have actually ordered (and can read) know LOL. So if you are suggesting that means the review is a plant ....... not a particularly compelling argument! Maybe not everybody knows that Petco owns Drs. Foster & Smith.

 

[Brautumn]

I went on divers den a couple days ago. buyer beware of the Wisconsin facility. A lot of those fish need some real TLC.

They also state there is a blemish on the fish on the post with a picture of the blemish. So you can either buy it or pass and I have never seen anything major.

 

[puffy127]

Does anyone really buy fish from LA based on customer reviews?

 

[wattson]

Except LA/DD shipment emails are all from Drs. Foster & Smith, so I think folks that have actually ordered (and can read) know LOL. So if you are suggesting that means the review is a plant ....... not a particularly compelling argument! Maybe not everybody knows that Petco owns Drs. Foster & Smith.

Yep,since Petco is the owner for say and they are doing business in many different states,,State sales tax for everyone..LOL

 

[vertigo01]

More than half of the online reviews you read, were written by someone who got paid to write them.

 

[ca1ore]

Yep,since Petco is the owner for say and they are doing business in many different states,,State sales tax for everyone..LOL

Well, true of course - Petco has nexus in most of (all?) the 50 states. Likely will happen to all e-commerce sales eventually.

 

[ca1ore]

More than half of the online reviews you read, were written by someone who got paid to write them.

Other than being susceptible to conspiracy theories, you know that how? BTW, I don't doubt that there are fake reviews (they're generally quite easy to spot .... or they used to be) just curious how you 'know' it's more than 50%?

 

[Flatlandreefer]

In my experience when I have had issues with an order their customer service refunds my money with very minimal questions asked. Although I would have preferred that those orders arrived in better shape, their customer service more than made up for the inconvenience and takes the risk out of ordering online. I would say as a company their integrity is high and there isn't much to call them out on. I think even if they do edit or take down some reviews that are out of line I am fine with that because it is on their own site. My issue with online reviews is that one bad review tends to outweigh multiple positive reviews, or at least puts some doubt in the readers mind. There is no way of putting a review into context and understanding who is actually writing the reviews without physically talking to the person writing the review. Overall I think LA has a good reputation and is a valuable vendor in our hobby.

 

[andyg1960]

I don't know if their reviews are edited or not, but it just so happens I received three fish from them today. The bicolor angel was laying on its side in the shipping bag and breathing heavily. It died during acclamation. The magnificent fox face is breathing heavy and hiding in the corner of my QT. The long nose hawkfish seems OK. I called them and they refunded me for the angel and made a note of the condition of the fox face. I am not happy with the bicolor angel obviously but I am happy that they refunded my money. Remains to be seen what happens with the fox face. Do I write a review that says the angel was dead within an hour of arrival?Thoughts please. If I wrote it of course I would mention that it was very easy to get a refund. They didn't even want a photo or anything.

 

[NowGlazeIT]

They also state there is a blemish on the fish on the post with a picture of the blemish. So you can either buy it or pass and I have never seen anything major.

Yea but take a look at all the fish that are just labeled as having blemishes. (All Wisconsin facility)If you have an eye for illnesses in fish youll see what I’m talking about.

The reason I QT now is because of LA. And if you’ve been getting lucky good for you honestly. But I just bought 6 fish from LA. The only 2 from Wisconsin had bacterial infections/fin rot. The one I got from Florida had white stringy poop and the rest from Cali we’re fine except one did disappear on day 4 or 5

I’m just saying this has been my experience and it was just a few months ago. But the pictures are from today. And that purple tang has a lot more going on then an old blemish

 

[wattson]

QT everything unless its dead in the shipping bag,,it is very well known in the hobby to QT...no excuses to blame a vendor because someone was too lazy to QT new arrivals and lost everything..I QT snails for a week,,just for algae reasons..
Gamble all you want if you dont QT,,when things go wrong ,,blame yourself not a vendor..Easy Peasy..

 

[vertigo01]

Other than being susceptible to conspiracy theories, you know that how? BTW, I don't doubt that there are fake reviews (they're generally quite easy to spot .... or they used to be) just curious how you 'know' it's more than 50%?

From my personal observations as well as friends.
Here is an honest write up regarding such http://www.alanhawk.com/blog/rotr.html
Not Reef or aquaria related but fish related none the less.

 

[ca1ore]

OK, but here's my problem - it's almost all anecdotal based on what people 'think' or have 'observed'. None of which stands up to statistical or critical thinking scrutiny. I've never been a fan of conspiracy theories (fodder for the weak minded) and have looked on with great concern as facts come under attack (particularly in the era of T). So, absent statistically significant data, it's all supposition. Do I think some percentage of reviews are complete fakes? Yes, but no clue as to what percentage. Do I think reviews are often useless? Yes, when I buy something on Amazon I have to trawl though countless insipid ones (I have a rather poor view of the intelligence of many) to find the few that are actually of value. It's just not that hard to do.

Anyhow, I think this was a quite interesting thread. I spend a lot of time teaching my boys critical thinking and that just because somebody says something is RARE (often in caps LOL) doesn't make it so and a good review (or a bad one) is just one suspect data point.