Warning! Potential Problem with Kent Salt. - Page 2

Funky_Fish14 · #1 02-23-2006, 04:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Reefer

This business of sending a pound of the stuff to Kent sounds ridiculous to me. A whole pound! I don't think so. They must have sophisticated labs where all they would need is a teaspoon of the stuff, at the most, to determine the alk. I don't know...I'm no chemist by any stretch....but I think there just hoping that most people will balk at shipping a whole pound and that reduces their loss, but still look good by makin' the offer. JMHO.

Cheers,

Ditto that. I was thinking that myself, but had no idea of why they might do it, definetly sounds like a feasable suggestion!

Chris

untamed · #2 02-23-2006, 04:59 AM

Its possible that Kent is trying to protect itself from being ripped off by clever aquarists who work in groups. One bad bucket...divided up among several hundred people one teaspoon each translates into a great big scam! By making people send in a substantial amount, it might reduce the scamming.

Not that I agree with their decision...I merely offer another explanation for what seems like an odd policy.

Psyire · #3 02-23-2006, 05:58 AM

Or they are dumping all the 'pounds' together and adding the missing ingredient, then selling it back to us. lol

BMW Rider · #4 02-23-2006, 02:59 PM

I recieved a call from John Groff at Kent yesterday and got the same request for a 1lb sample from each pail. He said that for their US customers they were prepaying the shipping through UPS, but that was not possible with international shippments. He said he "would look after me later", but did not provide any detail on that. I sent the two one pound samples off yesterday with UPS; total shipping cost was $21.54 for standard service plus a $1.80 for a packing box from Staples (great timing to have just taken all my cardboard boxes to recycling

). I did check Canada post for shipping rates too. It would have been approximatly $12 to send it with them, but the delivery time would have been longer.

To be fair to Kent, John seemed genuinly concerned about this issue and was very quick at responding to my e-mail. He phoned me while I happened to be out, I called back and left a voicemail for him and he called again within 20 minutes. For a big company that is a very good response to a customers problem. I won't make any judgment on Kent until I get the final resolution on this, so far I am satisfied with the way they are dealing with it.

As for why they need a full pound of salt to test, I can only make assumptions. Probably they want to ensure that it is a large enough sample to allow for multiple tests. Also a very small sample may not accuratly represent the chemical mix in the salt.