Fragalot!

[jorjef]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Why wouldn't he?

For that matter why are you speaking for him? Let him come here and speak for himself.

I guess I'm speaking about the positive orders I have had recently, which yes I guess is speaking for him. I will always say "you can never move forward if you're always looking at the past".

He's like a hardened criminal just released from jail, even if he has proved he has reformed people will always throw his past in his face...How many other frag shops have come and gone over the years? he must be doing something right.

[Delphinus]

From my experience and hindsight he's always offered nice stuff at nice prices. What was his weakness was his inconsistency. 3 out 4 orders would be positive, 1 order would be "well I didn't get what I asked for" or "I had DOA's". Then the replacements would come as DOA and those would get credited and then those would be DOA's and then it started to become evident that basically he was cutting and bagging and shipping all in one go, which would explain the inconsistencies and basically it would come down to luck of the draw for each individual.

The concern I have is this. Each positive review on Canreef acts as an endorsement and promoting a business and the fact remains that no business can use Canreef for promotion unless a sponsorship model is in place. As far I know there has been no request made to start a new sponsorship. Whether Canreef would welcome such a request is another matter but the fact is no communication has been made from fragalot in this regard. So until then we remain neutral. Canreef can be used to coordinate group orders, but the sheer number of threads all of a sudden promoting the business has to be viewed as slightly interesting.

[jorjef]

Maybe there is a large amount of new people in the hobby with little knowledge of his past and have tried him recently and having had a positive experience find it surprising to see negative posts and feel compelled to respond.

[reefan]

Originally Posted by jorjef

Maybe there is a large amount of new people in the hobby with little knowledge of his past and have tried him recently and having had a positive experience find it surprising to see negative posts and feel compelled to respond.

With him it has always been buyer BEWARE! One thing he generally did was short ship and have a large number of DOA's. Then he would say I'll replace that or make it up on your next order. And so the cycle starts with seldom getting what you wanted on each order but with promises to fix the next time. So people kept ordering and getting sucked in until after 5-6 times many people said enough is enough and wrote off the losses because it's just too much hassle.
I still say if you use this forum you should support the vendors who sponsor here and quit being so cheap trying to save a couple of bucks with a non-sponsor who has a terrible track record. If he was so confident in his product he would offer free replacement shipping like one of the sponsors here does.
I have shopped around with many vendors and have found you generally get what you pay for.

[jorjef]

Originally Posted by reefan

With him it has always been buyer BEWARE! One thing he generally did was short ship and have a large number of DOA's. Then he would say I'll replace that or make it up on your next order. And so the cycle starts with seldom getting what you wanted on each order but with promises to fix the next time. So people kept ordering and getting sucked in until after 5-6 times many people said enough is enough and wrote off the losses because it's just too much hassle.
I still say if you use this forum you should support the vendors who sponsor here and quit being so cheap trying to save a couple of bucks with a non-sponsor who has a terrible track record. If he was so confident in his product he would offer free replacement shipping like one of the sponsors here does.
I have shopped around with many vendors and have found you generally get what you pay for.

I agree it's buyer beware.....with every supplier. For the people that after the second or third failed attempt to get things straightened out I say this "Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results" is what some people define as insanity. Ask for a refund. As far as calling me cheap lol well I don't subscribe to 10$ frags or frags of any kind for that matter, I have no patience waiting for them to grow. The reason I bought from him after two years is he has colonies that I wanted and had in stock, again a bit of my instant gratification flaw I have.

I have sent emails request for corals to various sponsors of Canreef and have never been afforded a response..Ask once no answer, I won't ask again. I have had some great results from shops that sponsor this site but I'm certainly not going to restrict myself to them alone and from what I know there is no "rule" saying I have to.

[jjntm]

lol...cheap... I'm pretty sure ppl who know me on here can tell you that is not true... a lot of my corals came from paul at oceanic... who is also a pleasure to deal with and seems to know his ****... I buy from ppl who treat me right, not the cheapest place... I was simply stating clearly the price is what made us all take the risk and buy from the "f" word... I for one have no complaints... all corals I received are beautiful corals...

As for being cheap, considering I probably have close to 10k invested in this hobby, I don't believe that to be the case...

[jjntm]

Originally Posted by jorjef

I guess I'm speaking about the positive orders I have had recently, which yes I guess is speaking for him. I will always say "you can never move forward if you're always looking at the past".

He's like a hardened criminal just released from jail, even if he has proved he has reformed people will always throw his past in his face...How many other frag shops have come and gone over the years? he must be doing something right.

+1... I have to say that if there was a bunch of negative reviews that were being deleted by mods, then who's fault is that? sponsor or not, I think that all reviews should remain!!! whether they are good bad or indifferent! If you would like to "stand up for members" then it would make sense to keep all reviews... this way members can make informed decisions. It just seems weird to me that Burc would basically tell some of you to go eat dirt while he was nothing but kind with me and gave me ZERO hassle with the VERY few mistakes with my order... I HAVE RECEIVED EVERYTHING ASKED FOR!!! and the couple mistakes became freebies...

If he rly does rip everyone off then how is he still in business and have so many of us that have been clearly willing to stand up and say we have been happy with him, for he went that extra mile for us! hell I have had other orders from supposed reputable online stores and even LFS's that I had doa's and unhealthy items received and got the oh well it is what it is and there is nothing we can do about it... hell I have had more issues with sponsors on here then I have had with this "non sponsor" (although the LFS one would be my own damn fault since I was new to the hobby and trusted the employee of the store that the corals and fish were healthy when in deed they were not.)

But I feel that Burc has been very professional and even gone that extra mile to make sure I am happy! so to me that speaks volumes about his character and I will continue to use him.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by jjntm

+1... I have to say that if there was a bunch of negative reviews that were being deleted by mods, then who's fault is that?

sponsors have the ability to delete posts in their own forums. We didn't delete them, he did.

[jjntm]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

sponsors have the ability to delete posts in their own forums. We didn't delete them, he did.

got ya... maybe it would make sense to take that privilege away from sponsors to delete, for this empowers them to allow events like that to happen... if that right wasn't there in the first place then everyone would have been aware...

maybe when he got the boot so to speak from canreef it became a wake up call? it does seem to me that with the volume of frags that he would be shipping out he seems to be doing pretty good with keeping us all happy these days... has anyone had bad experiences lately? if so was it that corals were browned? missing? what was it? did burc replace the items or offer a credit? did he respond with in 24 hrs? (he responded within an hr for me... but most online businesses offer responses within 24 hrs...)

[tim the toolman]

Originally Posted by jjntm

.. has anyone had bad experiences lately? if so was it that corals were browned? missing? what was it? did burc replace the items or offer a credit? did he respond with in 24 hrs? (he responded within an hr for me... but most online businesses offer responses within 24 hrs...)

mine was 2 weeks ago at the most. Single person order of about 500$ and special requested a Saturday delivery. This was a Tuesday. On Friday I heard back from him saying all was well but Saturday wasn't going to happen. No biggie I said. Oh and by the way of the 60 snails you ordered I can only send 20. Also no big deal. Shipment arrived on wednesday (8 days total) several Doas and they were the most expensive pieces. Also there was about 20% substitution which I wasnot informed about. More dead the next day. 16 of 60 snails, no shrimp which was ordered. All this and then i had to ask for a refund of course. So only a fraction of the $ was returned. Another email which was not quite as friendly and the rest of the money was then refunded. No offer to re ship or replace. Not the end of the world all in all but just not the greatest in experiences.