How not to package fish.

ynotme4886

ynotme4886

Member

I ordered some fish from this site a few days ago. They arrived this evening. 4/7 fish were dead, the other 3 were barely breathing and on the verge of kicking the bucket themselves.
I'll start at the beginning though.
Knew my fish order was shipped yesterday, to arrive today, so I checked with FedEx early this morning to see an estimated arrival time (guaranteed delivery by 3 PM) and stayed near the door all day waiting, periodically checking to see if FedEx had updated anything else on my package. Around 2:30 PM they did, said that no one was home and package was being returned to the facility

I called FedEx immediately of course, protesting that this was a live package and I certainly was home, no one had ever come to the door. They asked to verify my address, and they had it wrong, so I checked my order confirmation from here and we had given the correct address. FedEx, after multiple phone calls from me, finally turned their truck around and brought me my order at about 4:45 PM.
When I opened the Styrofoam box, I was quite surprised to find only a few heat packs haphazardly strewn across the top, and they were barely tepid. I quickly removed them and started taking the fish bags out. They were frigidly cold and as stated above... 4/7 fish were stone cold dead.
The other three were still breathing a bit, and revived after floating the bags for a bit. The inverts I got were fine once they warmed up as well

My lesson learnt from this... Ship things to the proper address, and maybe actually put in adequate heat packs!

As for the answering machine saying "packaged to survive 48 hours!"... I have some serious doubts given that mine didn't make it 24

Some pics-
Heat packs (wow, 6):

Fish (like sardines in a can):

Fish still in bag pics available upon request.
One last thing... The sizes of what I got were definitely on the small side. The Maroon Clown was advertised at 2-4 inches (and I have a 4 inch Maroon myself), he came in at maybe an inch and a quarter at the most.
So for $250 I got some new snails and hermits, 2 false percs, a really small fire shrimp and a small cleaner shrimp. (and the tiny maroon)
What I lost totalled $30 in fish. Not enough to be a reorder here without paying shipping
 
pleasants9

pleasants9

Member
you made your order from swf.com? that blows, im always scared to order online. 9 out of 10 i suck up the extra money and go to the lfs.
 
lil.guppy

lil.guppy

Active Member
Im sorry to hear about your tragic online experience. I always feel nervous too.
You know with that many heat packs I would not be surprised if FedEx was bumping the box or dropping it around. They sometimes can be pretty rough with stuff.
 
blacktop pete

blacktop pete

Member
no excuses for this:wrong address, packaged poorly(winter time),small fish(false advertisement) accept nothing short of a full refund.
 
subielover

subielover

Active Member
That really sucks for you. Of course it is about 20 degrees out where you and I are, so it may not have been the wisest decision to buy right now. Either way I guess if they are going to sell them, then they have to make sure they get to your house alive and well. Sorry to hear about it, and I am sure swf will take care of you.
 
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