Is It The Fish Store Clerk's Responsibility?

[Bubblenester]

I work at my lfs and I think its the customers responsibility to either do research themselves or take my advice. I never refuse the sale though even if I know they arent capable of taking care of the fish.

If a salesperson at a bike shop says, "Hey, I am not selling you this motorcycle to you because you have a kid" I guarantee you that the salesperson would get fired. Who am I to make decisions for people I dont even know? All I can do is give them advice and show them another fish they might like that is more suitable, but if they like that fish, I am not going to stop them from buying it.

Many of you do not realize that if you are a salesperson and you refuse sales, you either get in trouble, or fired. If you own the shop, you can do whatever you want and refuse as many sales as you want, but you arent going to be in business for long if you do that. However, if you work for someone else you cant mess around with their stuff or refer them to different shops unless you have the owner's permission.

We only refuse sales under one of two conditions:

1. It's a kid under 18 and they can't convince us that they have the proper setup and know how to take care of the fish
2. It's someone wanting a marine fish and they admit that they don't have a marine aquarium

Who am I to make decisions for people I dont even know? Exactly. I can give them advice, I can tell them that their fish will probably die, but in the end it's their decision. There are few rules of fishkeeping that can't be debated anyway... for example, go to the betta forum and ask what the minimum tank size is for a betta. Your responses will range from "a little betta hex is fine" to "a betta should NEVER be kept in a tank under 5 gallons". Personally I've found that they do well in anything from a half gallon on up as long as the water is kept clean. If I went to buy a betta and someone refused to sell it to me when they found out I wasn't keeping it in a five gallon tank, I'd be pretty pissed off, even if it was because they wanted the best for the fish. I'm sure you can think of many examples of debate over minimum tank sizes, compatible tankmates, and other things- with experienced fishkeepers on both sides.

As for us losing money by selling fish to these customers because we just end up having to replace them indefinitely? Not really. We don't replace a fish without a water sample, and without asking questions about tank size, tankmates, etc. to determine whether or not it was the customer's fault. Actually you'd be surprised at how often someone comes back after losing their fish and asks for help with all intention to listen and follow the advice this time. In that case the owner will happily give them advice and replace their fish for free with something more suitable, and we've gained a good customer. If we had refused the sale, they would have just gone to Petsmart to get their fish instead.

I also want to correct my last post, about our average daily fish loss. I checked our records for the last four weeks and the average was actually only 4.2 deaths per day, although you may want to add a little to that for fish that we pull during the day and forget to record. So unless it's a big store, 10 dead fish might be too many.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

Oh and you were saying you would sell fish to anyone, once the fish dies the next day - they'll bring it back and ask for a refund. So you'll lose a fish and a profit.

Thats why we dont have a livestock guarantee. Our customers see that our fish are healthy in our tanks so we dont need to insure our fish.

I think if you were to base me as your average customer, my recent trips include:

2 weeks ago:
80 quid on tank
30 quid accessories
10 quid fish

today:
109 quid on tank
22 quid on plants and decorations
Nothing at all on fish.

At the weekend I may spend another 10 quid on a few more leopard cories.

If all the shops customers were like me..

Well, i dont see why you spent so much money on tanks that have no fish in it. Although the price of the equipment is high, the fish stores arent really making much money off of it. Just recently, we sold a 180 stand and canopy for 500 bucks. We got it got 450 i believe so we got 50 dollar profit. If we sold 500 bucks of fish, we would get well over 200 dollars of profit.

 

[funkyhoney]

I work in a pet shop and have experience selling basically every animal we own. Before I sell something to a customer I don't either recognise, or can tell they know what they're talking about, I ask if they know what they're doing. We also have little tags with the fishes requirements, size, temperament, etc. Generally the people who don't know a thing stand out; like one guy had a small 'pre-made' tank under his arm and was looking at oscars

Of course it is a alot easier to incorrectly sell someone a fish they shouldn't have than say, a dog or parrot. But at the end of the day people should do their own research on fish, just as they should on any other animal, or any product whatsoever. You wouldn't walk into a car dealership and grab one that 'looks nice' but wouldn't fit in your garage and is completely inadequate for your needs.

Also, the people working in any given store are paid to provide you with good service. Don't just go buy stuff you don't know anything about without at least ASKING first, that's just common sense.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

I also want to correct my last post, about our average daily fish loss. I checked our records for the last four weeks and the average was actually only 4.2 deaths per day, although you may want to add a little to that for fish that we pull during the day and forget to record. So unless it's a big store, 10 dead fish might be too many.

Many people dont realize that fish stores lose fish everyday, im willing to bet even the best fish store in the world does. It is bound to happen when there are over 700 fish in a store. 5 a day seems like a lot to many of us, but for the amount of fish the stores have and receive on a weekly basis, it is nothing.

 

[raptorrex]

(boboboy @ Mar 11 2008, 02:39 PM) *
indeed so. but if you are miss sold an insurance policy, and those who had endowment mortgages in the ninety's were.

andywg
You are muddying the waters. That was for intentional mis-selling of policies and a filaure to take advice on board.

not in any way, its miss selling, the fact that customers are getting refunds, even though they themselves were, partially, responsible through lack of knowledge proves my point. the greater responsibility rests with the seller. in law that is.

boboboy
it is the responsibility of the vendor, not the client. if you were sold a dvd unit to fit into your PS3, even if you didn't know it should be Blueray, but correctly identified the machine, by law, it is the retailers responsibility, they must refund or exchange.

andywg
This applies more to requesting a cory and getting a stingray, the supplying of something different to that which you requested.

if you ask are these ok for my tank, if the reply is yes, as one poster said he had to do every time, as he could not refuse a sale. but the real answer is no, regardless of the knowledge of the salesman or keeper, the information was incorrect. quite apart from being a morally bankrupt attitude, it would contravene the sale of good act, in the UK. to wit,miss selling is still, though businesses would like us not to know it, illegal. also miss labelling, miss information and over selling, have built in protection via the trades description act and the sale of good act. though i realise that is only in the UK.

boboby

miss selling is still, though businesses would like us not to know it, illegal. also miss labelling, miss information and over selling, have built in protection via the trades description act and the sale of good act. though i realise that is only in the UK.

andywg
Though this is nothing to do with what we are discussing, this is not about people knowingly selling inappropriate stuff, but the buyer not having the sense to research it.

If you buy a house and haven't had a survey done, it is not my fault if you have paid too much for a wreck that falls down in the first wind. Caveat emptor.

i am afraid we are talking of people knowingly selling incorrect items, at least one poster says he has no choice, others have said it not up to them to tell you your choice is incorrect. both have knowingly sold improperly, therefore they have both miss sold and offered miss information.
and yes on the face of it the house scenario stands up. but if at any point either by the estate agent or by the surveyor, you were given any incorrect information. you would not be wholly culpable. though admittedly very stupid.

andywg
If. What if you don't. What if the fish ship makes an honest mistake. At best they give advice. To make them fully responsible would push the price of advice and fish through the roof.

i honestly see no difference, though i would expect a shop that had made an honest mistake to try and sort something out. mistaken or deliberate the information was wrong. quite why retailers should expect their customers to be more professional than they are themselves is beyond me.

andywg
If you say "I want a wheel, I would like that one" and point out the one you want, that is your fault. I am not talking about mis-selling where people are actively saying it is fine, I am talking about people not asking and leaving it to you.

do you not think it is right for the salesperson to ask? but yes in your scenario i would say the customer would not have a leg to stand on. that however was not the scenario i put forward.

andywg
The same rules apply, but as you can see form the above, your analogies do not quite sit right.

on this we will disagree

andywg
Not really, a conman is someone who sets out to deceive, not one who lets people who think they know better gt themselves into trouble.

quite right, that's obtaining money by deception, wait a minute, that's a conman is it not?

 

[andywg]

not in any way, its miss selling, the fact that customers are getting refunds, even though they themselves were, partially, responsible through lack of knowledge proves my point. the greater responsibility rests with the seller. in law that is.

Where? In the cases of mis-sold endowments it is because the advisors and sellers were not fulfilling their statutory role of informing the purchaser of the risks of using investment based products to attempt to repay a mortgage.

if you ask are these ok for my tank, if the reply is yes, as one poster said he had to do every time, as he could not refuse a sale. but the real answer is no, regardless of the knowledge of the salesman or keeper, the information was incorrect. quite apart from being a morally bankrupt attitude, it would contravene the sale of good act,

Really? I can't remember anywhere in the act that it states the act is contravened if someone unknowingly gives bad advice on the suitability of something which has no pre set or manufacturer's guides on how it should be kept. Would you care to tell me exactly which section of statute covers such an eventuality?

in the UK. to wit,miss selling is still, though businesses would like us not to know it, illegal. also miss labelling, miss information and over selling, have built in protection via the trades description act and the sale of good act. though i realise that is only in the UK.

The trades description act is for prosecution of people who are mis-labelling products or selling things that are not what it is claimed. Someone selling a fish that might not be suitable for a tank is hardly going to attract the attention of BERR.

i honestly see no difference, though i would expect a shop that had made an honest mistake to try and sort something out. mistaken or deliberate the information was wrong. quite why retailers should expect their customers to be more professional than they are themselves is beyond me.

Quite why the customer should expect the retailer to be more knowledgeable about something they intend to try and keep alive is beyond me. The simple fact is, if the mistake is an honest one you have very little recourse in law, especially when dealing with living fish where the true effects of stunting are not fully known, let alone the effects of fish in too small a tank.

do you not think it is right for the salesperson to ask? but yes in your scenario i would say the customer would not have a leg to stand on. that however was not the scenario i put forward.

Why should the salesperson ask? Should they always say "Are you sure you want that" when the customer is assertive about what they want? I for one would very soon be sick of salespeople constantly questioning my choices in such a way.

on this we will disagree

On much we will disagree, and that is where your argument falls down. there is no agreement on what fish can be kept in what size tank. How then can we expect the vendor to inform and apply such a guide when there isn't one? It is all conjecture and personal opinion.

andywg
Not really, a conman is someone who sets out to deceive, not one who lets people who think they know better gt themselves into trouble.

quite right, that's obtaining money by deception, wait a minute, that's a conman is it not?

No. The conman sets out to deceive, rather than failing to intervene when someone else thinks they know what they are doing (especially if in the above circumstances the "conman" may know no better than the individual). If you decide you want to change the oil on your car and decide what oil you want and buy it from halfords, they are not conmen for failing to ask exactly which car you have and whether you are sure you have the right oil.

 

[jourdy288]

Well, I haven't read all the posts, but I believe it should be. For example, when I first started out, I had 3 zebra danios and three guppies in a tank I thought was two gallons, later my discovery is it was less than one. The guy at the shop helped me MAJORLY! He thought it was only that size, and he told me to get a ten gallon, and he gave me many other gallons of advice. As I think, the person at the pet store has the responsibility of store tender and educator.

Looking at further posts, I would just like to remind everybody that at a superstore LFS, the employees do not know any better. All responsibility should fall on the owners of the chain. Further, in a small LFS, where things are alot easier to monitor, then responsibility falls on the shoulders of whoever hired the ignorant.

 

[Siamese Fighting]

All my local fish shops will replace fish if you bring them back the next day. Dead or otherwise. I think any LFS who was as stuck up as some people seem to be in this thread, and refuse to accept them back, will lose ALL custom from that customer and their network of friends. (Which as we all know, can be endless in the fish world).

If I ever find such a place, I will happily make an example of them. Luckily, I do not live within 60 miles of such a place.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

All my local fish shops will replace fish if you bring them back the next day. Dead or otherwise. I think any LFS who was as stuck up as some people seem to be in this thread, and refuse to accept them back, will lose ALL custom from that customer and their network of friends. (Which as we all know, can be endless in the fish world).

If I ever find such a place, I will happily make an example of them. Luckily, I do not live within 60 miles of such a place.

Although we may lose customers from time to time, guess what? They always end up returning because of the health and variety of the fish we have in stock and they realize the death was not our fault. People dont drive up from LA(6 hours away) and down from Sactown(2 hours away) to come to our store for being a bad shop. I dont know how it works around where you live, but around here and in pretty much everywhere else it in the world works about the same. If a fish shop has a good reputation, you refer people to that shop if they are looking for a good fish shop. If you know the fish are really good, but the store has a few issues, you refer them to the shop, but tell them the issues. The shop does not suddenly turn into a horrible shop just because they wouldnt refund you a few fish after they warned you it wouldnt be a good idea to buy those fish in the first place. That is pretty much just blaming the shop for your own mistakes. If i beat someone down inside a corner store and the popo comes, i cant blame my actions on the clerk because he didnt stop me. It doesnt work like that.

Just because a place does not accept refunds does not mean its not a good shop. We dont accept refunds because the customers know what they are in for when they buy a fish. Lets say a customer buys a hawaiian dragon eel off of you and it dies the next day. The customer wants a refund, what are you going to do? Do you think a customer is expecting a refund if they have a pair of helfrichs they bough yesterday die? They come back to see what they did wrong so they wont have any more casualties like that. Losing fish is part of the hobby, and if you need to realize if you are really planning on being serious about this hobby. The wellbeing of the fish is not in the shops hands after it leaves the doors. If the fish was healthy before it left the shop, doesnt it mean the customer made a mistake if it dies in their house? If the fish were in our shop still instead of going to into a customers tank, it would still be alive. Giving a refund would be like giving money to people because they made a mistake from not taking your advice.

 

[angel-al]

I think you should offer refunds providing water quality is OK and you can refuse to sell fish if theyre obviously going to die. Thats not being responsible. There are ways of guiding customers to the correct fish without being rude. Sometimes you just have to swallow your tongue, but at the end of the day, you dont have to sell the fish. In fact you will be respected a lot more because the customer could go away, chech what youve said and think yeah she was right. Then youve got a customer whos gonna come back.

Its definitely the responsiblity of the lfs. Plecs can be rehomed if too big in my lfs in fact we welcome large fish as we have lots of big tanks. The fish that are terrorising tanks at home can come and live happily until more suitable owners can buy them. So it works both ways. You just have to use a bit of common sense

 

[Siamese Fighting]

The shop does not suddenly turn into a horrible shop just because they wouldnt refund you a few fish after they warned you it wouldnt be a good idea to buy those fish in the first place. That is pretty much just blaming the shop for your own mistakes.

I love this. Seriously. You don't even read what you say half the time.
You said you would sell a fish no matter what. It's a profit. So since when did you say you were warning them it wouldn't be a good idea? Haha oh god I fail to see the point in talking to you now.

I don't care if your shop is made of pure gold, if people realised you were morally lacking in any decency then no one would shop with you. Out of pure good will, all good LFS would refund. You live in fairy tale land my friend.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

The shop does not suddenly turn into a horrible shop just because they wouldnt refund you a few fish after they warned you it wouldnt be a good idea to buy those fish in the first place. That is pretty much just blaming the shop for your own mistakes.

I love this. Seriously. You don't even read what you say half the time.
You said you would sell a fish no matter what. It's a profit. So since when did you say you were warning them it wouldn't be a good idea? Haha oh god I fail to see the point in talking to you now.

I don't care if your shop is made of pure gold, if people realised you were morally lacking in any decency then no one would shop with you. Out of pure good will, all good LFS would refund. You live in fairy tale land my friend.

If you read my earlier posts, I said I gave them advice. That advice includes telling them it probably wont work. My exact words to a customer is "It probably wont work, but if you really want to you can try." They end up buying it anyways. I am not going to refuse a sale or they will just go to my boss and I get busted for it.

Come visit San Francisco one day and take a look around. You probably will think you are having a dream. Many fish shops around my area are going out of business so they cannot afford refunds. They can barely support themselves and their family. All the other shops are being affected because all the customers are going to their clearances instead of buying from the other shops. The worst rated shop in the bay area is making the most money. 3/4 of their fish are half dead, and the other 1/4 is dead, but lots of people still continue to buy their fish with no livestock guarantee. All their saltwater fish is cyanide bombed and they still manage to sell more than everybody else. As long as its cheap, not that many people care around here. Its too bad that I am not the one living in the fairytale land.

 

[CFC]

90% of the fish i buy come with no money back guarantee, sometimes they don't even guarantee it will survive the journey home.

Shops do have a responsibility to provide the customer with the correct information on the fish with tags showing common name, scientific name, eventual size and temperament. If this information is supplied and the customer chooses to ignore it then the responsibility lays squarely with them.
You cannot expect the employee to know everything about every fish in the store, at the very best all they can do is make educated guesses based on common knowledge, i.e Cichlids are aggressive, it is down to the customer to find out what will and wont work in their own aquarium as only they know what they already have and how large their tank is.

Shops that deliberately give false information to make sales are a completely different matter and i firmly believe that in such instances should have their livestock license revoked. I understand that mistakes can be made with some of the less available species but knowingly selling things like Oscars to people with 10 gallon tanks or a predatory fish to someone with a small fish community tank after they have asked for compatibility advice is dishonest and should have some kind of repercussions.

 

[Azaezl]

Shops do have a responsibility to provide the customer with the correct information on the fish with tags showing common name, scientific name, eventual size and temperament. If this information is supplied and the customer chooses to ignore it then the responsibility lays squarely with them.
You cannot expect the employee to know everything about every fish in the store, at the very best all they can do is make educated guesses based on common knowledge, i.e Cichlids are aggressive, it is down to the customer to find out what will and wont work in their own aquarium as only they know what they already have and how large their tank is.

Shops that deliberately give false information to make sales are a completely different matter and i firmly believe that in such instances should have their livestock license revoked. I understand that mistakes can be made with some of the less available species but knowingly selling things like Oscars to people with 10 gallon tanks or a predatory fish to someone with a small fish community tank after they have asked for compatibility advice is dishonest and should have some kind of repercussions.

I agree completely with this, if the shop has everything labelled correctly then it is down to the indivdual to read those labels and make the choice whether the fish is suitable for their setup. We can't expect 1 person to know about every fish sold in the shop, for example if I worked in a shop I'd be fine giving out advice about community fish and the ocassional oddball but cichlids I'd be pretty much lost on because I know virtually nothing about them but at the same time I would be honest enough to tell someone I don't know much about that particular fish and that they should research it. I think the best thing a shop can do is label the fish correctly and if possible have a factsheet about the fish they sell for the employees to cross reference if asked a question about that particular fish, for example if someone asked what food a cory ate and the employee did not know then they could look it up on the caresheet for that fish and advise the customer.

Also if only shop employees would recommend people research fish / tank size / cycling etc it would help alot. When I started keeping fish again(2006) all I knew is what I'd been half heartedly taught by my dad, which was fish need a tank, water, filter & food I never thought to look anything up on the net until one day I decided to try to find out more about my little black moor and where he originated from, how to know for sure if he was a male etc and that's how I found this forum and all the fantastic info.

Alot of people don't realise that the info is out there because of misconceptions that all fish need is a bowl / tank, water & food, if an employee at the fish shop(whom they probably assume know what they are doing) told them to research the fish they were interested in on the internet preferably as it's up to date but if not(as some people still do not have internet access) then buy a book about fishkeeping, this would proably help stop alot of the usual newbie mistakes.

 

[raptorrex]

andywg, you seem to be saying, whatever the case, if deliberate or by mistake, the retailer has no responsibility of any kind for the action or inactions of itself or its staff when related to stock sales. apart from being untrue, like it or not, the sale of goods act and the trade description act both apply here as anywhere else in the retail trade. it is a morally bankrupt attitude, making it a very eighty's. personally i cant help thinking Maggie would be proud of you.