Really ticked off at Harbor Aquatics!

[MarkS]

I would post this in the vendor experience forum, but WebTv will not allow me to log in long enough to post there

Anyway, I plad an order for ten pounds of Fiji live rock Saturday night after work. I assumed that they would be off on the weekends and would not be able to get to the order until Monday. This would have worked out great since I am off Tuesday and Wednesday and would be home either day to recieve the order. However, I work late on Mondays so I I e-mailed then Sunday night with specifics of my order such as size and that I wanted it delivered FedEx overnight and to be shipped out Monday. I asked them to e-mail me with the complete total. Monday came and went and no e-mail. I figured that they might have forgotten, so I waited for the package today. No package. With no shipping e-mail, I have no tracking number. After calling FedEx and checking if any packages were shipped from there zipcode to mine, I find out that the order is not late... It was never shipped. Not only that, but they have yet to process my card.

What REALLY sucks is that today is the first day that I could call them. Of course, I only see that they are closed on Tuesdays after looking on their site for the phone number... On Tuesday! This also means that they were there on the weekend to at least acknowledge my order and e-mail.

This was my first order with them, but may be the last. They are supposed to have the best rock around. Unfortunatly, I am going to have to cancel that order and buy my rock from Premium Aquatics. They both get their rock from the same supplier and supposedly pool their orders, so I'll get the same rock. I like working with PA anyway and have always recieved great service from them. I just wanted to try someone else for a change.

Being in the customer service field, I know how bad it is to lose a first time customer. All they had to do was try harder.

Mark

[Aged Salt]

Mark, my exp. with PA has always been excellent. Never give up a sure thing for a possibility

[Baalz]

Did you ever think about picking up the phone?

[tclaw]

I am sorry you had a disagreeable experience with Harbor Aquatics; however, their rock is well worth the wait. I have never bought my rock from any other vendor because I have been overly satisfied with the quality, variety of macro, and the occasional porites or other tag alongs.

Having seen their facility numerous times, it is no wonder that their rock turns out as well as it does. You are also guaranteed that the rock has been fully cycled before shipment to you as they cycle the rock between 3 huge rock tanks.

I would give Harbor Aquatics another chance, and perhaps maybe call and leave a voicemail message, as I am sure it was nothing personal.

Just think.... sometimes you yourself get so busy that you forget things.

Give it another try... you will not be disappointed.

-Scott

[tclaw]

Originally posted by Aged Salt
Mark, my exp. with PA has always been excellent. Never give up a sure thing for a possibility

We're talking Harbor Aquatics.... Don't make me smite you.

[Crawdad1]

Originally posted by MarkS
on Tuesdays after looking on their site for the phone number... On Tuesday!
Mark

I took me 2 that's right two clicks to come to their front page which has their toll free number. I really think you need to take a step and look at the big picture. You are at fault more then they are. Yes someone should have called you or e-mail you, but since you were seeking out the rock you should have been the one to follow through and make sure it happens. The internet is great, but there is a lot more room for mistakes then picking up the phone and talking to some one. I belive that they also have voice mail as well. Sorry. I really hate to take sides, but I'm also in the customer service area as well and belive that the customer has to accept some of the fault as well.

[Q-ball]

[moved]

Hiya....a few things jump out at me from your post. If I've mis-read it, please correct me.

1. -

From your postI assumed that they would be off on the weekends and would not be able to get to the order until Monday.

You know what happens when you assume, right? I don't mean this as an attack, but as the man said "assumptions are the pinnacle of great messups" (ok, he used a different word than messups, but you get the point) Using my DSL (your results may vary depending on your connection speed) I was able to find Joy's hours of operation as well as her phone number HERE in approximately 20 seconds.

2. - I don't see where you ever heard back from Joy, yet you still expected the order to be recieved on a specific date? Now, I know you likely were really looking forward to getting your rock, however without having heard from Joy I don't see why you simply expected the order to be sent out without any confirmation. She's been pretty busy lately, it can be hard to get back to everyone that contacts her instantly.

I'm not blasting you, so don't take it that way. But I do think that a lil more patience might be warranted. Joy runs a great business and is a pretty busy lady, so give her a chance. Talk to Joy when you return her call (she returned your call today, on her day off when she goes to the airport to pick up shipments of rock & corals btw) and I'm sure she'll make you a happy customer.
JMO of course,

Q!!!

[MarkS]

A few things...

First, I placed the order about 3AM Saturday morning. I really did not expect it to be processed until Monday. Since I was going to be at work all day Monday, I wanted to place the order early so it would be processed and shipped.

Second, getting the hours of operation was not an issue. I only found out as I was looking for the phone number. Yes, it is two clicks away, but it is much harder to access links with WebTV. Regardless, if they are open on weekends, why did I not get an e-mail or phone call on Sunday? This promted my belief that they were closed as expected. It also promted me to send them an e-mail on Sunday detailing what size pieces I needed and the shipping method I wanted to use. Since I would not be home Monday, I could not recieve a call or e-mail and would not be able to get them this information otherwise.

Third, I checked with FedEx today to see if it was shipped because the last time I ordered live rock (from PA), the same EXACT scenario happened. I could not get ahold of them and never recieved an e-mail or call. The package arrived on time without me ever being given a tracking number or even knowing if the package was shipped. This was due to them having two seperate e-mail addresses for my on two seperate servers. I updated my e-mail with them when I placed the order, but it was not transfered to their offline server when the order was processed.

Fourth, I cannot be making personal calls from work unless it is an emergency. On top of this, there would be no reason for me to call since I was at work and did not have access to my e-mail. I did not know until 2AM Tuesday morning that a shipping confirmation e-mail was never sent.

Fifth, I did call. I did not leave a message because if they were not there Tuesday to pick up the phone, they are not there to process the order. I thought that something got screwed up on their end. If they processed the order on Wednesday, it would arrive too late (Thursday). At this point I decided to cancel the order and place it with PA.

This is much more than I have ever had to go through buying any MO live rock/stock. I should not have had to do anything since I placed my order two days early and gave detailed instructions by e-mail one day early. I had absolutly NO expectation that it would be shipped or even processed on the weekend and needed it to be shipped out Monday or Tuesday at the latest for it to arrive on time. Even if it could have been shipped on Sunday, it would not have arrived until Monday and I would not have been home.

I am not trying to bash Harbor Aquatics, but someone seriously screwed up. I did much more than a customer should have to. I should have been able to place the order and leave it at that.

Mark

[lil_mikey69]

Im sorry to hear about your bad experience with Harbor Aquatics. Ive read many positive things about Joys little setup.

I currently dont have a SW tank, but Im in the process of picking up the equipment for it. Ive got several FW tanks at the moment though. I plan to purchase all my live rock from Harbor, but a lot of that has to do with it only being about 15 minutes max from my house. So I can go there and pick out whatever rocks I want, and theres no shipping cost then! Which is a big help. Their rock is $4.50 a lb, and the LFS has it for $6.99 a lb. Big difference, and I wouldnt be surprised if they got it from their anyways. Ive heard nothing but great things about their rock. I also believe it is just Joy running the place pretty much alone. I think I may have also read somewhere, maybe even on their website that they cannot always fill orders immideatly, but Im not real sure.

[John R]

Throwing in a curveball. If you come on RC and write anything negative about anybodys favorite website, you are doomed to see "it's your fault" and "it's your responsibility". While we, the consumer, have a chance to gently force vendors to treat the customer with respect, a lot of people because of their pleasant experience forget that sometimes things go wrong. If you followed their procedures and if the services promised by the vendor aren't rendered, you are allowed to complain. I'm not in retail so I'm on the side of the consumer. Retail guys will knock themselves out finding every possible glitch in what you write or say til they finally come to the "well, I don't know what went wrong".
Hopefully your order comes through without further incident.
Good Luck.

[Crawdad1]

Originally posted by MarkS
Fourth, I cannot be making personal calls from work unless it is an emergency. On top of this, there would be no reason for me to call since I was at work and did not have access to my e-mail. I did not know until 2AM Tuesday morning that a shipping confirmation e-mail was never sent.

I pretty sure that there is a law where you get a min 1/2 lunch and 2 - 15min breaks when working an 8 hour day. I also belive that Joy has an 800 number which does not cost you a dime to make a call(what a country). You could have called! I have not bought from Joy in 5 years, and I not defending her it's more like every on line vendor. Step up to the plate and take the responsibility that you drooped the ball. I currently support my LFS because they are much closer to me. My 200 lbs of rock WILL be here Friday because I CALLED and spoke to a person and did not fire off an e-mail with the hope that it will show up.

I'm done, and sorry if I have hurt your feelings . Good luck in the future ordering from online vendors.

[BOTR]

Guys I gotta say that Harbor is not, in my mind, worth all the hype that this board gives it. Joy is not worth her namesake. Here's a little story for you............
This was almost 2 moths ago I'd guess so I'm not writing this too soon after the incident, I've had time to calm down. My wife and I arrive at Harbor about 15 minutes before they open. We had a bit of a drive at the time and estimated a bit more travel time than was needed. We pull up and decide that since the road there is very small it would be best to park in the gravel on the greenhouse side. This lady pulls up, walks past our care grumbling and *****ing about not being able to park in her own driveway. I stop her and offer to move. She says somthing to the effect of never mind, we're already in the way. So I sit. She then comes out of the house stomping, and I mean stomping past our car still *****ing about us being in her driveway. I get a little upset and pullout. Not wanting to waste a good part of my day I decide with my wife that we will drive around a bit untill she opens. We come back 30mins after she said she would open and she has not returned yet. We go around the block and she is there. Go in browse a bit offer to buy 300Lbs of LR from her. I ask her if she would offer some kind of quantity discount, nope. I can get the same rock delivered to my door for cheaper. I don't buy it. I end up picking out a coral. something like $42 I have all $20 bills, she doesn't make change. I will never go there again and neither will any of my nearbye reefin friends. Worst expirence ever, 2 moths pass and I'm still ****ed. This is one man's opinion, maybe you all love "Joy" I for one do not. Never disrespect a man in front of his wife.
Thanks,
Chris

[reefcam]

Originally posted by tclaw
Having seen their facility numerous times, it is no wonder that their rock turns out as well as it does. You are also guaranteed that the rock has been fully cycled before shipment to you as they cycle the rock between 3 huge rock tanks.

So I'm a bit confused. tclaw says they have a facility. To me, this means a store front of some sort in a commercial area. But then I read from Tank that he pulled into her driveway, meaning, Harbor Aquatics is a garage operation. And there's nothing wrong with that. We have a guy running his operation from his garage, but I wouldn't call it a facility. Or maybe. So now I know. A garage operation.

So Tank, was the live rocks worth it? Just trying to get a complete picture of what Harbor Aquatic is.

[MarkS]

What I cannot believe is that I, the customer, am being accused of "dropping the ball"!

I am the store manager at where I work and I can make 800 number calls. But I lead by example! I do not want personal calls made, so I do not make them. I cut any incoming person call very short and all of my friends and family know not to call me unless it's an emergency.

According to the thinking of all but two of the members posting so far, it is normal and expected to place an order a day or more in advance and then call to make sure everthing is alright the day it is supposed to be shipped! If you were an employee of mine, I would have FIRED you already! IT IS NEVER THE CUSTOMER'S FAULT!!

As the customer, it is my ONE AND ONLY duty to place the order and provide accurate information. NOTHING MORE! I did just that. Just exactly how much time should she have been given? Why should I care about her staffing levels? She is doing this out of her house? Did I read that right?

I am a store manager with Domino's Pizza. I know that does not mean much, but we specialize in delivery. I know from experience that the customer does not care about my staffing level. I am providing their dinner and they want it hot, fresh and in the time specified. The ONLY things I expect from them is an accurate phone number, address and order. Regardless, I have given MANY free orders away because THEY screwed up on one or more of these points. It is still not their fault! WE should have called THEM back at some point to verify if we felt that was a necessary course of action. IT IS NEVER THE CUSTOMER'S FAULT!!! Imagine how far our sales would drop if I required my customers to call a day or more in advance to place the order and then never guaranteed that it would be made when they wanted it unless they called me the day of the order! I am in a low volume store to turn it around and I have been sucessful! I would not be sucessfull if I ever thought the customer was wrong. Some of my employees did not get this point when I transfered here. They either got it REAL quick or no longer work for me! I even had an ORDER TAKER tell a customer to HURRY UP! My store was in that bad shape. Any business that plans on staying in business had better focus on their customers. And I mean all customers, not just one part of them. My life would be easier if all I had to worry about were carryout customers and not delivery customers. However, that would take away more than 80% of my business. If Joy cannot handle both, then she need to make a decision of which she plans to keep!

Mark

[rsman]

I gotta agree with MarkS, ive never ordered from harbor aquatics and wont, my life is online, i have no issues ordering products including livestock online, and do such from many different online sellers, if i place an order i want the order, if there is a problem then i should be getting an email, phone call or smoke signals or something saying hey there is a problem and I should be getting it so fast that I am not sitting at home waiting for some box to arive. ive delt with many of the online stores and many of them have messed up the tracking # emails of which can be an inconvinence but my order still arives. thinking this is what was going to happen isnt wrong.

whatever the opinion of harbor aquatics is the customer absolutely has to come first. if Joy?? cant place the orders on time, then she? needs to put a banner up on her site saying there is an X number of days delay so that the customer KNOWS now that they wont get there shipments when they expect them.

[gregmoeck]

tank, thanks for the info. I will never use Harbor Aquatics.

[Rod Buehler]

I just want to say the eveeyone/anyone can have a bad experience with even the best vendors. For a few of you that are saying "things like "I will never use harbor aquatics" after reading this thread.. you are missing out.

[BOTR]

Rod Buehler,
After having been to Harbor I'm not quite sure what you mean by missing out? Setting aside Joy's attitude, I still saw nothing that impressed me about the facility. Yes she had LR Corals and clean up critters...... so what. Her prices were not that great, her LR did not impress me. One thing I can say is that here little prop type tanks on the left side of the greenhouse were pretty neat. Had some nice clams. I can honestly say that I wish I had never gone. Was not worth the stress. Every person can make up his/her own mind about things of this nature, I am not nor will I every be a sheep. You know it's sad really. I was extremely excited about going there, felt like Christmas, until I met Joy. Maybe she is normaly a great person to deal with, I suppose it could be that I just got lucky. You guys have fun at Harbor, I'm glad you like the place, I'll just stick with a few local's and a few online vendors. I don't even run a buisness and I would never treat a complete stranger the way I was treated at Harbor.
Thanks,
Chris

[Crawdad1]

Tank if you da a search in the vendor experoences you'll se the the positive feed back is far grater then the very very few negitive feed backs. If I did not return to an establishment because of one bad experiance I'm pretty sure I would be missing out on some thing. I give stores a couple of trys before sateing I'm not going there again. Its possible that she was haveing a bad day. I'm sure you know how that goes if you have a job. So to base you opioion on one experiance is not very accurate. As for her operation. It's not just a garage operation. She has some of the finest corlas as well as live rock.

As for Marks.

http://theinnerreef.com/a/whofigured.jpg

Go figure. I guess I have learned that what you read is what you get.

[BOTR]

Crawdad1,
I agree with your statement. However, where I come from you treat people with a bit more respect, unless your looking for trouble. I cannot comment much more on this topic as I feel I would soon start violating RC law. I have very strong feelings about my visit to Harbor, and if you were there to hear some of this stuff you would also never shop there again. As to having the best corals and LR, I think not. Decent stuff, and yes a few great pieces, but not the best. I do think people should go check it out, I did.
Thanks,
Chris

[nvillacci]

Never ordered from Harbor Aquatics. But in this day and age with so many competitors, the customer shouldnt have to settle.. Whether for not so good prices, customer service or selection. Personally, Ill never order from HA. Reading these post, esp the one with the bad-attitude from Joy in person, thats scary.

Ill rehash another experience with another vendor to prove a point. I ordered a coral from Reefermadness.us. The SAME DAY, Chris calls me at work to makes sure thats what i want and to confirm a delivery time. That was so cool. I got home from work, and theres a message on my machine from him again, just confirming my order! Wow... my first mail-order coral, I was impressed.

Delivery day comes along, and FEDEX drops the ball... Coral may not make it, I had to frag it out. Called Chris, he told me to watch the coral and let him know how it does. Monday comes along, I email him the status. Im waiting for his email, WRONG he calls me again. Talk for about 30 minutes. He then ask me what he can do to make it right.... This is jawdropping to me. I feel sorta bad as I misunderstood his lighting directions and may have contributed to the corals mishap. I tell him as much, he says no problem, what coral do I want?

Um....

Im not one to take advantage of anyone, I offered to just wait till I see a "Reduced Price" coral I like, my original was also "Reduced Price". LOL Chris scolds me and says thats not how it works, he'll let me pick ANY coral and work with me.


THAT IS HOW EVERY VENDOR SHOULD BE.

Theres too many options out there, they need to compete for our business. I guess thats my bottom line.

Nick

[Brad Gardner]

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...arbor+Aquatics

Talk about "jawdropping".

[Crawdad1]

Tank I respect that an I'll tone it down.

The bottom line is that Marks will not even bare a little bit of responsibility for this not happening. Maybe their internet service was having problems and the e-mail got lost. may be it was a problem with the web tv connection. maybe joy did get the e-mail and accidently deleted it. there are so many things that could have happened and marks (because he shot off an e-mail) is washing his hands of any responsibility. It is not a matter of quality of product or even an on time response. This is the fact that he (marks) should have put fourth an effot to may sure harbor got his e-mail. He sent the e-mail off on saturday and by monday still did not have a response. This for me would have been a red flag. If I was not able (because of my job or what ever) to call them I would have ask a freind, brother, or parent to make a quick call to make sure things did not get messed up. This day and age people as so quick to blame someone else, but yet they do not put any effort into themselfs. I really do not think that this type of follow though being expected from a curstomer is out of line. What do you think?

[BOTR]

I gotta say that Mark should bare some reponsibility for this situation. Everyone does need to realize a few key points here. First is that Joy does run the place basicaly out of her house. That puts a few other factors into play here. She has no employes (wow I spelled that pretty badly) which means any and all buisness goes through her, may be a bit much for one person. Secondly, when dealing with small online vendors you sometimes have to take things into your own hands and keep on them a bit. Email is not, in my mind, an acceptable form of communication. If the company can be contacted by phone I always make the effort to call them after an order is placed. Just seems like a good thing to do. I never count on something until I talk to them, or get a non automated email. Even then it can be a bit iffy,
Thanks,
Chris

[MarkS]

Originally posted by Crawdad1

As for Marks.

http://theinnerreef.com/a/whofigured.jpg

Go figure. I guess I have learned that what you read is what you get.

LOL I keep meaning to change that. It's a joke. I really don't like it either.

I still have to stress that a customer should not have to bear any responsibilty for a business' mistake. Ever. That is not customer service.

Also, Joy has yet to contact me. No e-mail, phone call, nothing. She did TRY to call on Tuesday, but I had just left to see a movie. I called back about three hours later to get an answering machine. I have never heard from her since. It's like I never even placed the order with her. I do have an order number and invoice though. My order was in her computer. Even if she did not get my e-mailed instructions, I still would expect the order to be shipped on Monday, barring any reasonable delays which I would expect to be notified about immediately. Also, the promised contact from her "customer service representitive" to go over shipping options never happened. Either she dropped the ball or did get my email.

Of course, this is from my experiences with Marine Depot, Premium Aquatics, Flying Fish Express and Myreef Creations. Maybe if I shop around more I'll find more places that do not live up to my "high" expectations. LOL