Mix up/problem with frags from Wickedfrags
 

I have not heard from wickedfrags nor have they responded to my PMs/emails over the past 2 weeks.

Has anyone else been in contact with them in October?

The reason I ask is this:

I placed a bid on their last auction and it was the high bid. I paid for the pack and contacted them by PM giving shipping and contact info. I had inquired about a purchase prior to the auction and,as advised by wicked frags, several of the pieces I liked were in the auction. A chalice I had liked was not, so I asked if I could purchase it and have it shipped with the auction pack. Unfortunately that piece was no longer available but Dave offered to send photos of alternatives plus other frags that I may be interested in. All seemed good.

That was 2 weeks ago and still no photos or reply. I have emailed and send PMs but no replies.

Now a notification comes in my email that there is a new post to the wicked frag auction.

"could the winner of this auction please contact me with proof of payment to dave. I believe the corals for this auction we're flown my frags that my friends picked up for me and I just want to make sure they go to the right home, they are currently in my aquarium. If no one claims them, then I will send payment to Dave for them."

This came as a bit of a shock. I responded to the thread and gave the recipient my contact info and a copy of the pay pal transaction. That was just yesterday and I have not heard back from them.

I have again sent an email to wicked frags. I expect they are aware of what is going on as they have been responding to various threads over the past 2 weeks.

If someone knows of a genuine reason for the lack of communication I would be very grateful if they would share that information.

Also, to me, it seemed odd that the canreef member who thinks they have received frags in error did not get in touch with wicked frags and have them contact me in regards to that.

I am fairly new to reefing and reef forums. This is the first time I purchased on line. Is this situation common?

Wicked frags is very clear as to the limitations of their "warranty" with respect to delivery, receipt of product and feedback re condition of product.

Thanks for any insight into this.

Hopefully it will end up as no more than a comedy of errors!

It's understandable that online vendors will be fairly busy but 2 weeks is a whack load of time and if he's been online then there are no excuses. I know that we all get busy and stuff comes up in life that could slow down the process but a PM to say "Mid terms and projects due this week will contact you in 5 days or my son was born yesterday I will PM you when were home and safe" takes a total of 4 seconds and takes so much stress off of your buyer.

I would love to say that this is rare but after the whole Frag-A-lot problem my whole perspective of online purchasing is a little tainted (Not saying that are no good vendors out there as I can personally name 6-7 online vendors that are exemplarily). This all seems a little fishy to me, keep us updated please! (And I really hope Dave comes through on this one, would be sad to see another frag-a-lot incident).

Levi

Thanks for posting.
What do others think of picking up the frags from someone else when it will void any warranty and may be a reason for wicked frags not to ship the aditional frags free of charge. I do have a PM where he said extras of some pieces would be included etc.
It seems odd that the person with the frags wants a copy of the paypal receipt (I don't even know how one accesses this). Given my online ID is the same as my DL ID one would think that would suffice:(
Also I am not experienced enough to know what the frags I purchased would look like when not fully open and looking like the photos in he auction thread!

Im confused.. so some unknown person to you says they have your frags?? I guess first I would have to ask them WHY they think they had my frags.. and how did THEY get my frags?

I wouldnt be giving my paypal info to someone I didnt know.

I have made transactions with Dave before. He is a genuine character. I am very sure some sort of emergency has come up for him, and I bet he is not even aware that the frags were sent to the wrong address. Dave is a stand up man. He will fix the situation as soon as he is able I am very sure of this.

If it is the case that the frags went to the wrong person, I would back outta the deal personally... they are stand out pieces and would hate to see it get settled and the frags not be/ or not be as healthy as they should be due to the mix ups

Thanks to other canreef members I now have a name for drock169..and a face to put with it as he has helped me many times at a LFS. He is away for a week or so so hopefully I can get in touch with him when he is back.???who tends the corals when he is out of town???
Now if Dave at wickedfrags would simply respond..........

Jpotter I would highly doubt that this would void your warranty, you have done nothing wrong I mean come on you never even got the frags!

so the frags were sent to Drock? Just out of the blue or sent in addition to what he ordered?

If this is the case kuddos to Drock for bringing this to your attention. Thats pretty up-front thing to do. I may have looked at $400 of unordered frags delivered to my doorstep as a gift from God.:mrgreen:

It would/could if I accepted them from a third party.

From the beginning I have acknowledged that and have said that I am very grateful if not even more than a little confused:)
I am not even certain these are the auction frags as his post re someone picking up frags and bringing them to Vancouver for him was Sept23...a week before the auction ended and I had a PM from Dave re the frags and shipment info Oct 5 and the post re "extra" frags was just a couple of days ago. Go figure..the person I need to hear from to help clear this up is Dave at wickedfrags. If/when I do I will let it be known.

Sorry I was away this weekend. I sent you a PM, and at first I did try to contact Dave first but didnt get a response, i assume hes busy right now, so I posted here. I think Dave will honour the guarantee regardless of the third party aspect, hes a really good guy. The reason he did it this way is because I had friend who came out from Oakville for my wedding ( I grew up in Oakville) and they were picking up my order and flying out with it. This way the frags were only in transit for 5 hours rather than a day. I think there was just a bit of confusion because a friend of mine also ordered a piece and he may have thought that you were that friend.
All said and done, I just want to make sure what you paid for. The frags are the ones from the pictures and they do look great.

Wow, that's a confusing story... :lol:

Who's on first?

And this happened without the knowledge of J.Potter?

Yeah, well it happened without my knowledge as well. I think it was just a coincidence that I also placed an order awhile ago. Pretty much when I posted that thread asking if pick up was ok was when I placed my order, which shouldve been a separate order.
Trust me I thought it was odd when I got my friends at the airport and picked up a box which was pretty heavy when I thought there would only be a few pieces in it.

i find this odd i have only delt with WF twice and both were group orders. all went quite well both times for us.

Man am i glad i can drive to SNAPPYs place, drool over his tank and get home in 2 hours. more or less depending on how long he lets me stare endlessly at his tank.

The only one who can answer the question has not replied to this matter....just a thinking out loud

This is highly unusual for Dave. I've never had any issues with Wickedfrags and he has always been very professional and takes his business quite seriously.

I don't really know what to suggest Janine except to wait for a response.

OK..tonight I had a PM from Dave.He has verified pretty much what we all put together bit by bit. Poor business on his behalf and took a long time to reply but at he has admitted they were shipped in error. Now I only hope that the frags are well, that Derek and I get a mutually convenient time for me to get them when his wedding vacation is over(his work is about 45 min from my place..not certain where his home is) and that Dave will ship any additional frags at no charge as the auction frags were accidental stow aways.

Thank you all for you ears, support, advice and help in tracking down Derek:)..and most of all kudos to Derek for coming forth about the frags.

Now if anyone can tell me how to rid my new cowfish of ich (which just appeared tonight) I would be grateful to learn about that...this reefing is becoming a bit of a steep learning curve. New tank..live rock from canreefer(it came with some attached corals), inverts and the cowfish and macro algae has been in the cycled tank about 2 weeks. It is the only fish and about 1.5" long. Normal behaviour..looks like it has rolled in salt crystals!Eating mysis soaked in commercial garlic..also eating nori. It arrived with a bashed hind prong that developed some fluff but that quickly resolved..now the white dots! What next???

To clarify for those reading...

Drock169's friend Mark picked up frags at my place Thursday Oct. 22 rather than having them shipped.

For some reason I had it in my mind that Mark was picking up a couple frags for Drock169 and also bringing back the last SPS auction items for JPotter(perhaps because I never file/print all the PM's I get), clearly this was not the case. The combination of usernames and real names combined with the number of PMs sometimes makes my head spin, specially when I am not spending to much time online.

As per my PM's to the individuals involved yesterday, ideally we can coordinate to get these auction items to the correct owner. That being said, I realize this may not be easy, if at all possible.

I communicated to those involved yesterday that if we can not coordinate getting the frags into the correct hands, a full refund for the auction winner and Drock169 can simply keep the frags as this was my mistake (sunset monti, purple monster frag...), or he can pay me what he feels the frags are worth, or what he can afford.

Having not been aware of this thread until this morning it was a fascinating read. And FYI there were no emergencies, problems or other excuses, just a mistake made on my part.

In the future it would probably be helpful to have a phone number that you could be reached at Dave. That would have solved the issue fairly quickly (and likely not in public!). Although I do understand that having a business number would be a pain in the butt.

Umm! Sorry but how does that compensate the winner if someone else gets her frags for free???????

Mark and Derek had my phone number as Mark called me before he came by, Janne did not have my number.

And as a business...........this is not a business for me. Sometimes I wonder why I pay to sponsor when I am really only selling frags I grow out.

They get their money back - so there is no gain or loss, just a PITA experience due to my error.

That being saod - Derek (the canreef member/reefkeeper who received all the frags), well he as been very cool and has taken the time to communicate clearly during the event. If something can be done with the frags he will make it happen.

Nice to have a post from wicked frags. Wouldn't it be great if we could all be perfect all the time:)

Re frag business: If one has a "business" name, web site with product and policies, forum section under vendor etc those who see this are of the assumption that it is a business...of some sort or another. It is different from the member who posts that they have fragged a piece and will sell it. To the customer it is irrelevant whether that is a main or subsiduary income. To the government the $ income is all that is relevant when it comes to taxation.
Having said that I am glad there are those growing out frags for hobbiests to aquire as from my short experience in general the frags seem to do better than the "large" pieces from the LFS.
In the future I will try to ascertain the nature of a frag business so I can set my expectations accordingly and I will definitely try to get a telephone contact number before ordering.
Now to sort out getting the auction frags and the "additional" ones.

Would it not be good business practice to follow up on an order you have sent in a rather unconventional way?

We all make mistakes and nobody is perfect so don't be too hard on Dave. I am also curious if you people don't work as it seems that a lot of you spend a lot time reading/replying on this forum. There is a lot of drama on this forum and that's why I rarely participate on any thread. Get a life people!

I don't know who falls into "you people" and I can't speak for others but I work full time...if I didn't I don't think I could manage this hobby!

This was unnecessary. I do work full time. I think you would also be concerned if $300 worth of merchanise you ordered ended with someone else. And I havent been hard on Dave, I've just been trying to help him get his stuff to the right person.

Seems to me that if this thread wasn't here Dave may still not be aware of the problem and JPotter would be getting more upset by the day. Dave admitted his mistake and is taking action to make good for the mix up. A little empathy from fellow reefers is good thing IMO and people should not be chastised for caring.

Glad to see Dave pulled through on this one! We do all get busy, and yes I have a life actually a very productive one including being a full time university student, having a part time job, taking care of my 220g system among various other stuff. Maybe you need to start participating in the Drama Cooper, the people on this forum are a riot :razz::razz::razz:!

Please do participate more. It's not like the internet is real, we're just a figment of your imagination...

You and me both!

Agreed - because of your efforts, and of course JPotters', probably the reason I did not get a PM from either one of you yesterday.

IMO most members on this board are genuinely good people with good intentions, probably the reason this board is the busiest in Canada and has more active members than any other board.

Please read the posts in the thread whenever possible. I was aware of this issue before I was aware of this thread, I noted this and so did JPotter in out posts (as I replied to her PM the day before I was aware this thread existed).

I do agree with your comment regarding the empathy of fellow reefers, and that not all people handle mix ups the same and may seek input from fellow reefers. Readers should know however that my plans for addressing this issue were already in place before I learned of this thread, and that they have not changed since this thread was created.

It seems each of has a somewhat different take on the time line of events re this frag mix up. When push comes to shove timelines can readily be contructed from PMs, emails and thread posts.

Through a series of events of which I was unaware I was concerned by the lack of response to repeated attempts to contact wicked frags..PM, email and finally this thread.

It would have been nice if there was prior awareness of an issue, and a plan to rectify it, to have been party to that information.

The difference in time zones skews ones perception of "day". I did have an email from Dave in my box when I got home last night and I did reply to it yesteday.

I am grateful to those who have participated in this thread and who have assisted in getting this incident resolved.

***Picked up the frags tonight:) !**** Thanks Derek, thanks Dave and Derek added a frag of one his acros.

I have never received shipped frags before but I think they will be fine.. the grapejelly looks a bit like a soft grey-lavender coral with a good tan...but the sunset monti arrived like a ray of sunshine. Hopefully the grapejelly will color up. How long can I expect to wait to see polyps?

Thank you all for your support.

Yay! Looks like a happy ending after all - we all deserve a group hug!
:grouphug:

Glad to hear everything is now in your hands. Regarding the grape jelly, well the polyps are very small and not a a different colour so they are not significant like that of the sunset monti (yes a true ray of sunshine!). Move it up gradually in your tank to mid-high level for best colour.

Agreed. Best possible result given the mistake, thanks again Derek and Janne.