anyone who looks at this thread please do NOT deal with these ppl

I ordered a clown fairy wrasse and the first one died after one night after following his protocol to the T
Now these fish are supposed to be a fairly hardy type so I called him up and told him about it and he gave me such a problem with even thinking about replacing it because he claimed his arrive alive garantee was only for the first 2 hours that the fish was in your home!!! WTF??

so this put a very bad taste in my mouth after he put all the blame on me and my tank and what i did. And after asking him to just credit the account about 100 times he completely ignored that and tells me he'd just send me another fish (witch i told him i didn't want at least a dozen times)

so the second fish arrives, I acclimate.....and it again dies the next day....now this got me thinking that maybe it is my tank....but then i thought to myself......I have 6 clams in there......none of my other fish have even been remotely sick......never had a problem with ich or any other disease the tank itself is grounded to prevent any stray voltage and there are NO aggressive animals in the tank at all

so i send him an e-mail telling him about the fish and offer to send a water sample and detailed pictures of the tank to show him that everything's well

he's been giving me the run around for a month now and he's been a very difficult person to deal with

now normally 45 bucks i could let go.....but it's just the way he's been going about things that makes it very not right and that's why i've been trying to get the money back from him....and all i asked him for was the money back for the first fish (as he charged me shipping for both packages after i told him i did not want another fish and please credit the account)

PLEASE do yourselves a favor and do no deal with Michael Stern @ NYaquatic.com.......he's not a fair man at all

why did he ship it to you? arnt you guys both located in NY?

anyways thats beside the point.
im very sorry this happened to you, but when i first took a look at his site it looked kind of out of order which made me think it would not be a very good place to order my blotchy anthia...he also copy+pasted the pic he has up for them...
again, sorry for you loss.

Sounds like a real D-bag. I wonder if they are affiliated with aquacon

You're probably better off his diseased a** fish isn't in your system. Sucks.


Thanks for the heads up and hope you get a healthy wrasse soon

thanks....he's threatening to sue me for slander now.......LOL......when are people gonna learn that when you own a store the customer is always right???

ohhh and just i case just to cover NR butts this is me saying that in no way shape or form is this website involved in any way with what's going on......you guys have been too good to me to have anything happen

Thanks for the heads up....sorry to hear that you're running into these issues. It's never fun.

I would do the same thing that you are...pester the crap out of them until you get a refund. Like you said, in the grand scheme $45 isn't a HUGE deal but in this case, I would certainly push the issue until something happens.



Slander? Haha

I quickly learned in my younger days of bagging groceries that the customer is ALWAYS right, even if they drop a bag of groceries and blame it on you

yup.....he's a jerk......and very unprofessional......i feel bad for the animals he's selling to be honest

I'm a firm believer in helping the stupid overcome their condition, so in the interest of charity I offer Michael Stern @ NYaquatic.com these helpful definitions

slan⋅der
–noun
1. defamation; calumny: rumors full of slander.
2. a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report: a slander against his good name.
3. Law. defamation by oral utterance rather than by writing, pictures, etc.

o⋅pin⋅ion
–noun
1. a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.
2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.
3. the formal expression of a professional judgment: to ask for a second medical opinion.
4. Law. the formal statement by a judge or court of the reasoning and the principles of law used in reaching a decision of a case.
5. a favorable estimate; esteem: I haven't much of an opinion of him.

Now once you have those down, move on to this one:

truth
–noun
1. the true or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth.
2. conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.
3. a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
4. the state or character of being true.
5. actuality or actual existence.
6. an obvious or accepted fact; truism; platitude.
7. honesty; integrity; truthfulness.
8. (often initial capital letter) ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience: the basic truths of life.
9. agreement with a standard or original.
10. accuracy, as of position or adjustment.


Lots of reading, I know but with hard work and dedication you sir, can master these words. Once you have done that how super easy will it be to raise healthy fish!!

Your welcome

there were a lot of b/s emails that got sent back and fourth that confirms his unprofessional additude and there were a bunch that prove my point....in the spirit of not coming down to his level i will not do that

I am just cranky with online vendors lately and NYaquatic shafted somebody else not too long ago

I'm so tired of getting it up the rear by online vendors and lately it seems like more and more people are getting shafted. It's not enough to send a sick animal that you paid a butt load of shipping ON TOP of paying for the actual livestock, they have to be a complete jerk about it as well. Then when you make any kind of comment your a lying SOB out to ruin the poor little fish breeder.

Vendor's gotta make a living, I'm awesome with that, but if you can't sell healthy livestock, you need to find a new living. Meh.

And to insulate OP as well as N-R this and my snotty post up there ^ are me and my opinion. Rockfish has doodly to do with my intense dislike of nyaquatics

well he's threating to sue me perosnally if this thread stays up here so in the spirit in not being a little worm like michael stern i'm asking a moderator to please close or delete this thread......my apologies to NR and obviously you can't express opinions about a vendor without him threatening to sue you if they find out and don't agree

so PLEASE delete this thread......sorry again for any trouble

and he also wanted me to post this staement on this thread before it gets deleted but after anyone reads this thread i don't think it's gonna help his cause any because you have to think why is he so crazy about me deleting this thread and posting what HE wants ME to say unless he knows he's wrong right??

But, i sure don't wanna get sued because some one else is in the wrong but i guess that's the world we live in now.....sad really

this was the e-mail he sent to me (this is over a 35 dollar fish btw)

and i quote:

This will be my final communication with either of you, via email or telephone.
You have 1 hour to get this done.

You either need to contact NR and get them to remove the thread, or post the following:

"I apologize to NYAquatic for my inflammatory comments.
The scenario I portrayed in no way accurately described the situation.
I did have 2 wrasses die on me.
As per their policies, they were not covered by any guarantee.
I don't know whose fault it was.
NYAquatic did work with me to fairly resolve the situation, and even though they were under no obligation to do so, did make restitution.

Mods, please close this thread"


again.....his words not mine......and not entirely true but it's gonna save my ass not someone PLEASE take this thread down!!!

google cache don't forget buddy :|

In my non-expert opinion, there are no grounds here for a lawsuit to actually proceed. Plus, NYAquatic's owner has no authority to put a time limit on a removal of a non-slanderous comment - only a court order can do that as far as I know. This guy is just trying to scare you, in an illegitimate way. (I know a lot of lawyers!) You even posted this in the correct forum for this sort of discussion.

Don't be afraid of people 'threatening to sue'...99% of the time they're not actually going to pay the thousands of $$$ to proceed!

Allow me to recommend LiveAquaria as an alternative?

I completely agree with Mike's post.
And this thread is resurrected!

I would chill out a little if I were this guy. Threads like these find a life of their own.

Go work on your business and save a little face.

Piece of advice rockfish: don't ever respond to threats of a lawsuit. And don't ever post a retraction or an admission of guilt (luckily you sort of dismissed it anyways in your post). The guy doesn't have any grounds for slander, so call him on his bluff. If he wants to take it further, let him spend the $$ on a lawyer and contact you through him/her. Any lawyer would tell him that there isn't a case there anyways.

And any business owner (especially in the fish business which isn't exactly the most lucrative business, especially in a crappy economy) should be more worried about their PR and the damage they do to their own reputations than going after a guy for a $45 fish deal gone bad and making themselves look foolish on a fish hobbyist website.

NOTE: I'm not referring to anyone in particular, just the hypothetical situation mentioned above. Also, I'm not a lawyer.

*runs back to the lounge before I run out of air*

Seems to me it would be cheaper for a business owner to refund than spend an hour + even arguing about it, let alone getting an attorney involved.

very true guys....i just didn't want any issues but i'm also very interested in everyone's reponses to this....

he told me his wife's a lawyer.....sounds a bit too convenient if you ask me

I don't know the whole situation but it sounds like a case of too much ego and too few customers = too much time on his hands to waste threatening customers and alienating potential customers.

And THAT is just bad business sense.

an hour plus?? i've been back and fourth with him for over a month now

this was just sent to me via PM......out of respect i will not say who sent it.....

Hey there,
Just read your thread ... As much as it sucks as to what happened ... this is not something new with Michael Stern ... there are numerous threads and friends that I have that have purchased from him, all with the same complaints. Thousands upon Thousands of dollars have been lost. He was recently booted off of the local site ... Manhattanreefs.com for his horrible acclimation process and care of this livestock (although they did not state this ... we all knew what happened.)

So, why isn't the guy posting on here to defend his honor?

As lame as it sounds it never hurts to file a complaint with the BBB.

Hmm. The whole thing sounds fishy to me. (HEHE pun intended)

Reminds me of aquacon, I learned the hard way with them. Anyway, sorry about your fish and thanks for the warning, I will be keeping my business away from that site, along with all my friends.

well in the case of full diclosure i did ask a mod to remove it for the fear that he would sue but after talking it over with that mod we thought it best to keep it up here to prevent anyone esle from having a bad time of things like I did

now 9 times out of 10 i'd call some one's bluff when they say something so dumb over something that could have been so simple to correct however I have all the original e-mails that were sent back and fourth between us and he told me that he'd edit them to make me look like a liar

let's be clear one something

i don't lie

and i wouldn't be making such a fuss about a total of 45 dollars even if i was lying but the way this man went about things was very very wrong and i needed to let you guys know b/c there are a lot of ppl on this site that i have a lot of respect for

I sincerely doubt he'll sue, even if his wife is an attorney....seriously, 1. Truth in an absolute defense against libel or slander and 2. It would cost him way more in time and money....if he wanted it to go away, it would have been much cheaper for him and his reputation to refund the purchase price and shipping to resolve the issue.

+1

Even if he would change his emails he sent you it wouldn't matter.

Emails are stored on your email clients servers. All you need is to show the email in your inbox and that is all the proof you need.

not worried about it at all......let him have fun.....he's a cheat and a dishonest salesman

You better get that money back. Who cares if its $45 or $1000. Aside from all of the unprofessional things he has done the simple fact remains that he has not provided you with the product that you purchased. This guy doesn't belong being in business. You should contact a BBB and file a complaint with his actions and responses.

already done

WOW. this guys is a sicko...
KEEP THIS THREAD UP!
oh and lets let go of NYaquatics as sponsors.

i don't think they are.......

oh...well they used to be...

Glad to see this thread back Rockfish.

As much as it pains me to lend credibility to Rockfish's thread, I feel I have no choice but to clarify a few things:

In terms of the sequence of events:
1) He bought a clown fairy wrasse from me. when he got it, he emails me thanking me for such a beautiful specimen. Amazing. Out and swimming from the getgo. A number of hours later, he emails me again, saying the fish died, and threatening to bash me all over the internet. "If I know what's good for me, I'll refund his money". Now it certainly would have been easier just to pay him off, but I don't answer to threats. My policy is clear. If the fish arrives in good shape, then turns south in your tank, it's not covered. This was not a casual policy decision. A certain percentage of fish will die in a customer's tank. 9/10 times, there's no way to tell why. A business can cover these losses (ala Live Aquaria), and simply build these losses into their prices. I do not. I feel that forces people who take better care of their fish to subsidize people who don't. The vast majority of my customers are more than happy to take responsibility for their losses, in order to get prices that are typically 1/2 what other online stores charge.

2) ultimately, he begs me to help him out, and I agree to send him a replacement, no charge. All he needed to do was pay shipping ($17.50).

3) about 2 weeks later he, (or his father, it's never clear who I'm emailing), emails me telling me the second one died the next day. Would I refund the cost of the first one (which I already replaced).
After several back and forths, I ultimately agree to refund 1/2 the cost of the first one, which I explained was a gift. I had already done much more than required by my explicit policies, and the fact that he continued to threated me with these sorts of garbage posts, would not coerce me to do more.

Now I'm sure many people would have just paid him off.

Again, I don't deal well with threats, especially when coming from someone like Rockfish (again, it's unclear whether I'm dealing with the father or the son). I would happily post some of his emails, but they are all so laced with profanity and bile, it would be inappropriate.

Just to let you know whose post your jumping on, my final communication with the father was one of the most vial, disgusting, horrific conversations I ever had the misfortune to hear. The highlite being when he called me a F$$$ing K$$$(derogatory profanity towards Jews) Jew Ba$$$$$.


So, anyone wants to join this guy in a slamfest against me, just know the type of person you are dealing with.
Anyone wants to get top quality livestock at prices nobody can touch, you know where to find me.

(you can also check my feedback on Ebay, if you want some offsetting opinions

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?...tab=AllFeedback

then why did Manhattan Reefs let go of you?
why did N-R let go of you too? x2

Oh yeah and please copy+paste the emails to this thread NYAquatic.

The heart of this matter, is you sold not one but TWO sick fish and were a complete @** bout it.

I don't care how many foul words he used. Your attempt to bully him with fear of a groundless lawsuit says all anyone needs to know about you sir.

THanks everyone for the friendly warning. i almost took the wrong path.. glad i didn't haha.

i need to take him off my email update fish list. haha

+10000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Customers are always right Mr. Stern. No matter what.
i too learned this in my summer days at the LFS

Hey genius, your most recent feedback may be green, but it says

"Some fish died DOA"

so thanks for further evidence of Rockfish's case.

LOL i was about to say that!

APOCALYPTIC FAIL.

lulz


So why did you choose to threaten him about his rather tame post on here instead.

Bullsh­i­t.

As best I can tell, MR let me go because one of the other vendors, who's buddies with the owner, got tired of members compaining their prices are 2-3x what mine are.
I stopped being a sponsor here because it was too expensive.


Here's one of Mr. Charmings emails:

the posting has been deleted....now go *** urself ***hole......i'm going to write another thread about you on another site and use to emails and see what everyone else thinks about your action......but don't worry....this one will be 100% truthful with every email intact and unedited.......i'm curious to see if ppl take ur side ***hole


Yes, the customers are almost always right, except when they are seriously wrong.
this guy is bad news. End of story.

And yes, the person on Ebay bought 10 chromis, a couple were DOA, and it was dealt with.
Happy customer.

I cant believe that the filters didnt get that...

@NY.
Rockfish is very trusted on this forum.
anyways what about your threat of Suing?
where did that come from?
why would you even do that?
theres no grounds for that here
why didnt you respond to Orphicdragons statement?

No sir, a happy customer is one who gets live healthy fish the FIRST time.

Lets say I buy all the horrid things you have said, how in the hell does that affect anything? I have a tendency to call a spade a spade, or a butthole a butthole, you still jacked his money and effed around for a month before bald face lying about a slander lawsuit.

Lets take rockfish out of the equation all together, how is YOUR behavior acceptable?

Convenient how it's everyone's fault but your own.

yeahp. i agree totally.

so your saying you didn't have anything to do with the transaction?
YOU didn't sell him the unhealthy fish?
YOU didn't immediately give him his money back
YOU didn't send him another fish when he didn't want you to?

i wonder where he disappeared to..

Of course I did.
I sold the fish.
Healthy, well acclimated fish.
NO clue what he did to them.
And again, my policy is clear.
You want to pay $70 for a $35 fish so you can have a guarantee, that's fine.
Most people I know are happy to keep the extra cash for themselves.

And yes, he wanted the replacement for free, which was sent right away.
He contacted me weeks later that the second one died.

Ha, after going back and forth for a month my email would have been a hell of a lot worse than that! (and I would have filed a chargeback immediately)

You probably are a big chocolate starfish like he said anyways...

Ebay : I GUARANTEE THAT I WILL NOT SELL ANY FISH THAT IS NOT FULLY QUARANTEENED, HEALTHY, AND EATING IN MY TANKS. PERIOD!

5/2009
As you can see, Mike was receptive and very responsive to my questions. They have no QT procedure, basically doing what they have to to get the fish in shape for a quick turnover (revive and resell) to the consumer. This, of course, puts the burden of survivability risk on the consumer

Source:
http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?show...rt=#entry252862

pampee, i have heard horrible things about them. I was really tempted to order from them and read about 30 different people say the same thing about them on Reef Central. I actually called and talked to the guy and got a bad vibe from him about what he was telling me so i backed out. I think they have great prices but if the fish come out horrible and die, i could not justify the price. Just my 2 cents. Take it for what it is worth.
http://dfwmas.org/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=58397

I think my clowfish may have died from brooklynella, from an Anthias that was bought on-line =(. Does anyone have experience in treating Brooklynella? We bought the Anthias and a clown fairy wrasse from nyaquatics.com.

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/genera...lease-help.html


All your "positive" reviews seem to be from 2007 that's sad.


Sir, you are not only a cheat, but a liar. You should be ashamed. I wonder now how many people you and your "lawyer" wife have bullied into being silent about your deplorable livestock.

Edit: Forgot to mention that these quote's are edited to some degree, wording is NOT changed but entirety of post isn't there. Source link follows every quote