Shipment Vent

Grrr, must vent. I placed an order with an online store and they mislabeled the package and sent it via UPS to my post office, our town is so small that we don't get home USPS delivery. So they of course don't send to a PO Box and returned the shipment. I finally got it corrected and re-sent, not at my expense for additional shipping thankfully. The package was supposed to arrive today. UPS shows up at my work so I asked for my package so he didn't have to drive all the way out to my house (out skirts of town) and he says he doesn't have a package for me or that address. I get online to look to find "Severe weather delays, unknown shipment date" arg!!! I've been waiting for 3 almost 4 weeks for this stinking package now! THANKFULLY! It was only supplies and not live fish or I would be furious. I hope there are very limited numbers of live packages being shipped right now on the east side and they aren't delayed like my package is. Poor fish It's this stuff however that makes me leary about doing online fish purchases anyways. Well hopefully it will get here before my vacation mid july. Some stuff purchased was to feed while I am gone... End Rant.

 - DOH!

I feel your pain. I also live in a not so urban area. Shipping delays and snafu seem to be normal procedure. I sweat every shipment of fish in and out. Glad it is supplies and not life in the box.

bassetman wrote:I feel your pain. I also live in a not so urban area. Shipping delays and snafu seem to be normal procedure. I sweat every shipment of fish in and out. Glad it is supplies and not life in the box.

Oh man, I would be stressed to the max if it was a life in the box! lol I'm hoping within 2 weeks it will be here though. lol

Had a box of fish disappear for two weeks. After that they returned the box to me. Surprise, all but two of the carpintis fry were still alive.

Wholey crap they lived that long! I would expect them to all be dead after 2 weeks! Must of been VERY healthy fish when they went in the box.

I once had a seller ship my fish to an old address, even after I told them the address paypal had was wrong. I was living in Des Moines, and they shipped my fish to Oak Harbor! Luckily I got ahold of the post office in Oak Harbor, explained the situation, and drove 2 hours up there to pick them up.

Oh my gosh! That's horrible!! Poor fish. Good thing you could make the drive to get them!

Yeah, I have ordered dry/nonperishables only online, I am very nervous about doing it with fish/inverts. Surprisingly my stuff has all come quickly and reliably, but it's partly because I ordered it through amazon and have a prime membership- I think my 80 dollars they got from me actually does make them ship prime-member stuff out quickly compared to normal warehouse picks

I would recommend it actually if you plan to order lots of dry stuff online. 80 bucks is a lot but if you order many things online it will probably pay for itself in saved shipping. They have the full line of seachem ferts available with prime shipping, and some other fish stuff I have looked at as well. Plus there is something to be said for getting 2-day shipping which actually does come in 2 days--reliably so far, but I keep holding my breath for the first late item

I know it's not a solution for anything but supplies and stuff, but since that's what you are waiting on I guess it's relevant. Just won't do you any good for the living things part, though. I would just avoid it and get stuff from people on here   

I managed it with a bucket of tank water, a bottle of Prime, and a whole lotta swearing.

I think pbmax is the closest fish boxer to me and he's still a little over an hour away. it's hard for me to get to most things. I did get 5 LF BN sent to me from Ohio and they made it in 3 days and we're perfectly fine. I was happy with them.

I think I would have been swearing the whole way too Gryphon!

Well the swearing was because it was a 2 hour drive up, but it ended up being a 4 hour drive back home due to traffic. I work grave shift, and had left right after work.

I have stuff shipped in all the time.  I've been incredibly lucky as most all of my shipments have come in timely and in good shape.  The only shipments I have had problems with were some very large filters I bought on ebay.  Every filter (4 in total) came in broken.  I think it was more of a packaging problem on the shippers end but geez, the boxes arrived all banged up too.  We were able to repair most of the filters and they run today just great with no problems.  Live shipments, well, I pay the big bucks and do Fed Ex or UPS overnight as that's the only way I can guarantee live delivery.  I've had a few come by USPS Express but lost a couple of fish that way as at a minimum it takes two days to us and when I open the door for the maillady...the boxes are upside down, she shaking them, and saying "Fish?"

USPS is horrible. I had a box of corals com in, and the box was specifically labeled "Deliver directly to door, do not leave in mailbox" and guess where that box ended up at, in my mailbox with no attempt at even knocking at my door.

usps is horrible, the one time i shipped fish they destroyed the box, opened the package completely.. didnt bother putting the lid back on and shipped it 3 days later. needless to say nothing made it. its why i just wont ship fish anymore. i did literally every step i could. dbl bag, slight chems to keep em safe, even wrapped the top and bottom with diapers to suck up any leaked water.

My LF bristlenose came usps and they were great. 3 days total from Ohio to my post office. But this one is different.