Thanks for the initial post I think a large amount of things that needed to be discussed between member and mod alike have been covered! Goes to show that even when this community is at each others throats were still here for each other.
Levi

Holy cow, this is already at 8 pages. Am I the only one around here that has to work on saturday? :lol:

I am at work too! This has been some good reading! :lol:

I did not read through the whole 8 pages, skimmed through some posts, and read some posts.

As with other members, I do believe that canreef staff are not be blamed for this unfortunate event. Being a vendor is simply paying to advertise on this website, and that is all.

However IMO, since this is an open public forum, we should not need to use the "underground" PM system to find out the quality of any vendor. We should be able to read publically on the forum, what other people's experiences are of any local retailers and online vendors. Just my opinion.

Edit: can someone PM me which vendor(s) I should be avoiding? :lol:

it's reasons like this that customer service is SO much more important nowadays than advertising. Spending time and money on satisfying customers ON THE FIRST TRY yields far better returns than just throwing money at advertising because people are more connected than ever and WILL tell their friends about poor experiences.

Yes, the vendor could have a chance to correct the problem but if another vendor doesn't have to put out fires all the time than people will go there instead.

The bottom line is customers are more savvy than ever and in any service industry your business HAS to recognize that and provide what people want or else there WILL be ramifications. Long term ramifications.

The statistic is that if someone has poor experience at a store they're 50% likely to never shop there again. However, if a trusted friend tells them of a bad experience at a store the chance is 80% that they won't go there in the first place. Word of mouth is extremely powerful because of the internet and vendors must make sure they provide the best customer service experience possible on the first try. Putting out customer service fires is pointless if you stop the fires from happening in the first place.

That's the rub......... this is not a public forum......... it's a private forum.

I remember way back a LFS (not an advertiser) threatened to sue the board because of people making unfavourable comments about their business.

All the mods ask is that we don't make vendor rating threads because they just are not constructive. If you really want to know about a vendor...... ask for pm's or pm some of your friends who you trust on the board for their opinions.

Eventhough this is a private forum, the mods give us plenty of freedom and it a pretty good place to exchange idea.

Cheers,
Vic [veng68]

I agree with the concept that buyers need to take the responsibility to research a potential vendor fully on their own. PM is a good way to accomplish this.

However, I don't think it's unreasonable for a consumer to be frustrated given the policy that negative reviews are censored while positive ones are left - it clearly leaves a hugely skewed impression. Say for instance I move to Victoria from Seattle. I get on Google and search for something like "coral frag online vendors in Canada reviews" and some cached links to posts on Canreef come up. I read some positive reviews about numerous vendors and draw the conclusion that they're all great so I pick the one that has the prices I like only to discover that the particular vendor is atrocious and all negative reviews have been censored. I think this situation is very likely and if I was the victim I would certainly be miffed.

I don't know about everyone else but when I'm looking for a vendor and there are no reviews about them at all and others have rave reviews, to me thats the same as a bad review and therefore should be avoided

This is getting boring

There is nothing illegal about posting negative opinions on a forum. Even if any retailer or vendor seeks legal action against canreef, nothing will happen in the end. After all, we are in Canada and we do have the right of freedom of speech. I do understand that the owner of this board may not have the financial support or time to go to court, but IMO, it is the right thing to do.

Of course, what canreef decides to do, is their own choice. As other people have said, if you don't like this board go to another one or make your own.

100% agree, I would be mad too if I were in that kind of situation.