How ANNOYING!

[Zenn]

Ok, this is how it is, i went to Pets at home on Sunday to buy a Powerhead for my undergravel filter and two fish, two Siemese algea eaters...

Now i am sure to you out there that have these little ones, that you know how fast they really are, i spent ONE AND A HALF HOURS at pet at home watching a member of staff trying to catch me two siemese algea eaters! now to top it, yes he knew his stuff, but heck, his catching technique, i was fearing, i ended up with a bag half full of water, that had you know what floating around and half a bag of gravel, because what he was doing, was covering the siemese algea eaters in the GARVEL! then throwing them in the bag, and not checking if they were in there, i was fearing whether the fish would still be alive, now after he THOUGHT he had caught the second he told me

"If you get home and find there is only one in the bag, come back and we will give you the other"

So i went to the till and paid for it all and went home...

Got home and sorted the fish out, i released the siemese algea eater, to only find one v.v, so i fone them up, to tell them to take note, because i couldnt go in again on Sunday because i had other things to do...

Now please note this, Pet at home label there fish and prices, however i paid for the siemese algea eaters under the label of a chinese algea eater (Which i am alright with)

I phoned up and talked to this person, now the first thing that got me, she turned around and said to me

"I dont know who served you, but we are not allowed to sell two siemese fighter to one person."

I was like "What the hell, i didnt say anything about betta's, so i turned around and said "Not siemese fighters, siemese algae eaters (loaches)..."

The she comes out

"We dont do siemese algae eaters..."

I was like W.T.F! The business dont even know what fish they blinking sell...

So i rounded it off, very bluntly and she tell me to come in with my Receipt... and i hung up

Now what type of place sells fish and not know what fish they sell and to top it, cant take care when catching the fish that there customer is about to purchase, after this, i dont think i will shop there anymore!!!

The only good thing i got from there, is my water tested for free, and found out all my levels are perfect, pH 7.0, nitrate levels 0, ammonia level 0, i am pretty proud of that, but going from high nitrate level to 0 in two weeks, that was alot of hard work

 

[CFC]

Lots of shops dont know what they are selling. I once went to buy a pair of fat sleaper gobies, Dormitator maculatus; which are a brackish dwelling goby from Central America which attains a length of around 10 inches but were labled on the tank as Indian gobies. When the lfs worker went to net them he said that the price didn't seem right and that he would have to check with the manager, which i had no objections about. The manager came out and said they were in the wrong tank and were actually Purple spotted gudgeons , Morgurnda morgurnda; another species of sleaper goby but one from freshwaters in Australia which they had seperated from the main tank of them for fighting, but which i knew they were not as i keep and breed Morgunda adspersa which is a near identical fish, he then tried to charge me £22 for the Dormitator macualtus which had originally been priced at £4.50 as a Indian goby! Needless to say i never bought the fish.

Lets see if others can tell the difference

Fat sleaper

Purple spotted gudgeon

Now maybe i'm just picky but those two fish dont look anything like each other.

 

[Zenn]

I can see your point, but i think it is a violation of the trades description act if the staff do not know what they are selling, to be honest the business should know more than the customer generally speaking, i found it insulting that i knew what the business sold and the types of fish better than the business, and they are the ones that order them in as well, come on, that is just plain stupid to sell something you dont know about!

 

[-cAtFiSh-]

psst i think thats a crappy LFS you got there!

 

[Red]

Sorry Zen, but if you will buy fish from Pets at Home then you know what to expect.

My local ones (Godalming & Woking) have disgusting tanks with dirt and desease and I have posted many times about this chain.

They don't know what they are selling and THEY DON'T CARE.

They are cheaper than the LFS for meds, water treatments and accessories but I would NEVER buy a fish from these muppets. Or any other animal for that matter.

The 1979 Sale of Goods Act, the name of your local Trading Standards office and the RSPCA are good things to quote when you next go there.

Do a search for the Sale of Goods Act - you don't need your receipt if goods are faulty and you can demand a refund not a credit note. I don't know where it stands on livestock without looking. http/www.dti.gov.uk/

 

[Red]

Also check out the 1951 Pet Animals Act.
1911 Protection of Animals Act.

A licence is granted by the local authority. If this licence is revoked then Pets at Home don't have a business. There is also a maximum prison term of 6months and a fine of £5000 for persons or businesses who break the 1911 act.

I have just phoned the RSPCA who confirm that these acts and the sale of good act all apply to fish.

 

[turbotiber]

Did you ever go back with your receipt to get the other algae eater???

I can definitely tell the difference between those two fishies and I'm not fish expert!!

 

[Zenn]

I actually just got back from there, and i feel good, i am still a mewbe at this fish keeping, however i know much more than some of the people there...

Now i phoned up on Sunday like i said and spoke to this woman called Gemma, now i did it again today to find out what time they shut and once again Gemma answered the phone, now i went in with my dad, because today my mother went in with the Receipt and she didnt know, and accidently got me a Chinese algae eater (NOT WHAT I WANT!) so i went in with the Chinese algae eater and went to the desk, and this block called Mark who is a friend of ours served us, with the snobby little Gemma behind him, i turn around and tell him what happened, now this is where it got interesting...

I turned around and said i wanted a Siamese algae eater, and there she piped up, "We dont do Siamese algae eaters..."

I turned around and said, "Yes you do"

And we got into a state of "yes you do and no we dont" situation... Now at this point i had pulled out my tropical fish folder, holding all my fish information in... I said "Look, this is a siamese algae eater and you do, do these"

and as i expected Gemma turned around and said "We dont do anything like that here..."

Then i finished it by saying "Yes you do, because i bought one on Sunday and two the weekend before that" and then to top the ice cream with the cherry, Mark came out and said, "i have seen a whole tank full of them down there, they are in with the Chinese algae eaters.."

You should have seen her face drop

Now it only took mark 15 minutes to catch one, because he is more experinced at it, and on our way out, i just had to, i walked up to the desk, pulled out the fish and said

"This is a Siamese Algae eater, please note it, for further customer dealings"

And i winked at her and left with my dad smiling, saying he could never take me anywhere again

 

[turbotiber]

Good! Honestly, I'm glad you put her in her place. That should be a lesson to her to listen to the customer and be more open. You really can't get anywhere if you're rude and don't listen to the person who is buying in your store. Everyone learns from each other

I"m glad you got your Siamese Algae Eater! I hope you post some pics so we can see what you were after to put up with "not up to par" service

 

[White Whale]

Just last Thursday I went to my PETCO looking for otos. They didn't have any. Then I went to look at the pencilfish. (For some reason I am now addicted to these little critters!) They had about 4 with some other fish. I looked at the price so I could plan how many I want to get later on and I saw them marked at $19.99! WTF? I asked one of the staff if that was the actual price. (I know 3 of the female staff and only 1 of the male staff but he wasn't there that day). I didn't let on that I bought those fish there before. He told me with a serious face "Yeah. If that's what they're marked, then that's what they cost." What?! For itty bitty little fish like that? They're not even marine fish! I felt like kicking this guys nads up to his chin. How stupid can he be? So I thanked him and quietly walked away. I hunted down one of the girls I knew who worked there and asked her about it. She saw it and took down the pricetag. She knew what the real price was. Someone just 'mistyped' the price.

 

[turbotiber]

felt like kicking this guys nads up to his chin.

So what was the actual price of the pencil fish??

 

[Zenn]

I wouldnt blame you Itty Bitty betta, that is a stupid price for a fish that dont get bigger than a inch!

Though i have been trying to get my hands on some otto's because i think they look really cool and cute and they are friendly and at the moment my main aim is to get as many cool, cute friendly fish as i can



And thanks turbotiber, i feel much better after saying that to her...

 

[Paul_MTS]

Sheesh that was bad, glad you got her back though.

I caught 3 of those lil suckers in 5 minutes on the weekend and bagged em up in 2 different bags

Catching the last 5 tetras in a tank is hard though!! And trying to rember all the rpcies of eac fish once you go to the til i end up going into the fish rooms with a calculator sometimes

My pets at home tanks look pretty clean as it happens, although when i went there were a few tanks that weren't for sale due to desease but you can expect that in a lot of shops.

We had a made out break of white spot through out the shop 2 weeks back, and about 20 cardinals were wiped out.

out tanks are very clean and have the gavel cleaned weekly and tanks scrubbed about twice a week.

 

[Red]

Firstly good for you that you managed to put them in their place.

Secondly one Pets at Home store that I visited were still selling fish that were BADLY infected with fungus, the other had a dead fish in nearly every tank. I'm happy that yours is a good one.

 

[David]

Whenever I visit a store like that I am tempted to punch the nearest person in the face.