Buyers Beware - Mr Coral!

[Tinpanva]

First off, let me start by saying once you read the following timeline, it will become incredibly clear that not only myself, but the club which put on the group buy have demonstrated the patience of job. Since I can’t speak for everyone that was involved in the group buy, I will only lay out my personal experience with Sunny (Mr Coral).

My original order was placed online through his website and payment confirmed via paypal on March 17 2014. On March 19 I added an additional coral to my existing order and included the group buy code and a note that this was in addition to my original order, again, all confirmed via paypal. On March 27 due to storms, & weather and such, we received the group buy order. My corals with packed extremely well, marked with my name, and at this point, was quite impressed. Once I got home and realized I was missing the additional coral I placed on the 19^th, I immediately sent Mr Coral an email to that effect and to confirm he in fact received my second order. Keep in mind, it’s about midnight at this point and I was not even expecting a reply at that hour, but to my amazement Sunny replied to me email and indicated he would look into it. Meer minutes later I received another email from Sunny that said he had overlooked the order as the volume of our group buy was pretty big. Sunny indicated he could do 1 of 2 things for me, a refund or send my frag down with a few extra frags for the mix up. I was very understanding of the mix up and was promised a few extra frags as well, it was a no brainer, send the frags in a few weeks! I sent another email confirming the particulars, 5 emails in fact, and Sunny stated “Weather looks to be turning around. Week or 2”.

April 2 – I sent another email to Sunny, one of the other corals he sent me was dying, sent pictures of the corals. Following day I got an email with “thanks for the update”

April 8^th – Coral now dead, Sunny indicated he was out of SPS but could offer me palys. I declined, I’m a milli fan, I’d wait.

June 21^st – I notice on My Corals Ebay site he is back to selling SPS (High end Milli’s to be exact), so I sent him and email asking when mine would be shipping. He indicated he just got them in and they needed to heal. I got fed up, waited long enough, felt this was a complete sham because at this point, I’m the one initiating all the emails, and finding out he’s still selling on ebay. I asked for my money back, I was done. He asked me to PLEASE read the fine print, I admit, I overlooked it. “****Given the sensitivity of SPS corals, we are going to be holding on to all SPS frags for at least two weeks before shipping in order to give them ample time to heal.**** Needless to say, a month later, no corals. I’d be willing to bet, those other order went out just fine.

July 21^st - I ask for yet another update, I haven’t heard anything after your last update of shipping in two weeks. Sunny indicates he’s ready to ship! Yeah! What’s the time frame? Is this just my order or a club shipment? All questions went unanswered and didn’t hear a work from him.

July 28^th – Another email to Sunny, haven’t heard anything, can I get an update. Sunny’s reply; “Hey Paul, sorry I’m heading to xxx my son won his state tournament” etc etc etc . I replied on the 31^st, congrats with your son, guess my stuff will ship next week? No replies.

Aug 6^th – Here we are another 15 or so days since you were “ready” and I haven’t heard anything.

 

The rest of the club has given up, but for some reason, I won’t. I feel you stole from me, took my money and didn’t deliver the goods. The corals that you did send were bleached out and tiny, all of which died in short order. You [at that time] listed them all as WYSIWYG which was complete crap, no ones corals were WYSIWYG and everyone called you out on it. IMHO, you’re just a puppy mill except you push corals. In the 4 months, 19 days and still counting, I could have walked to Fiji myself and plucked my own corals from the sea. Oh, and one last thing, since it didn’t happen to my corals, I won’t go into details, but if I were a perspective buyer, I’d dip and quarantine the corals, just ‘sayin.

 

[basser1]

Man a little time researching this forum would have saved you guys a lot of grief!!

 

His corals are wild caught and the frags are freshly cut with little or no time to heal.

 

I was offered store credit, but guess what? You have to buy more stuff from him to use it, no thanks.

 

Let this be a lesson learned.

[Paandemonium]

Guy seems like a butt head to the max! He and Reefs2Go should all drink a zoa smoothie

[Tamberav]

Its well known this guy sucks, be sure to avoid aquacon too. Another sham.

[Lawnman]

Man a little time researching this forum would have saved you guys a lot of grief!!

 

His corals are wild caught and the frags are freshly cut with little or no time to heal.

 

I was offered store credit, but guess what? You have to buy more stuff from him to use it, no thanks.

 

Let this be a lesson learned.

This!

[basser1]

 

Its well known this guy sucks, be sure to avoid aquacon too. Another sham.

 

 

This.....

 

The words "Aqua" and "Con" should be a tip off.....

[farkwar]

Its well known this guy sucks, be sure to avoid aquacon too. Another sham.

Its funny, his google placement is high for tons of stuff.

 

Easy catch for the reefer noob net.

 

There should be a sticky for both Ron the Con and Mr Coral. Are they the same guy? Anyway then we can google bomb them to the sticky, knock his placement down.

[GHill762]

Seems like a few people get good stuff from him but the vast majority get screwed.. It's all over pretty much any reef forum

.

[Tinpanva]

Several of us in the group buy did in fact search out reviews on this guy, agreed, most were negative. The big selling point for us was that a very well known and respected moderator on "another forum" was basically hosting this group buy. I personally knew this "moderator" and respect him greatly. He's also an active member in our local reef club. So my thought was well, if "x" trusts him and is willing to lay down cold hard cash, dude must have just gotten a bad rap or something. Boy, was I wrong, and yeah, even the moderator hosting got screwed.

[tibbsy07]

We really should put up a thread of a list of vendors who are known to con customers. A bad customer service rep or a couple of poor experiences is one thing. But review after review of Mr. Coral and a few other big vendors have shown that there are some really bad companies to work with in this hobby.

[Tinpanva]

Update: I got a reply from my email to Sunny yesterday, "I'm still away" Ayup, that's all it says, pretty impressive communication there. SMH

[StevieT]

I want to make you happpppppy

[Lawnman]

I want to make you happpppppy

https://youtube.com/watch?v=pnChutdGtOY

[Dramad1]

 

Guy seems like a butt head to the max! He and Reefs2Go should all drink a zoa smoothie

Did you change your screen name? ClayLeona... or am I tripping

[Paandemonium]

 

Did you change your screen name? ClayLeona... or am I tripping

Yes changed my screen name lol Clayalaleona was the old one lol

[Dramad1]

Awesome. Though your pic looked familiar

[Tinpanva]

Sonny has reached out and indicated my frags are healing . I've requested an anticipated ship date. I'll keep you posted.

[malady]

How many times will this company rip people off >_<

 

Most of the time when I complain in other forums the posts get deleted because he is a vendor.

 

Stupid loop hole If you ask me.

[GlassHouse]

Sonny has reached out and indicated my frags are healing . I've requested an anticipated ship date. I'll keep you posted.

 

You paid him in April and it's going to be September before your frags come? Have you checked with Paypal to see when the last date is that you can get a refund? I'd hate for him to run out the clock so that you have no recourse. You might be beyond that time already.

[Tinpanva]

How many times will this company rip people off >_<

 

Most of the time when I complain in other forums the posts get deleted because he is a vendor.

 

Stupid loop hole If you ask me.

HA I know, I;ve posted the same complaint in every forum I'm a member of, there are several

[Reefbox25]

This guy is still in business?

[patback]

This guy is still in business?

 

Yes because other forums push him and censor anything bad. One of the few reasons I stick to this forum and this forum only.

[Builder Anthony]

Well tiny frags are to be expected and I don't think ordering sps is a good idea.So I would expect a die off rate if I ordered something like that.I'd say its a poor choice by both party's since he's shipping spa and your buying it.I can't understand why people buy things without the actual picture of what your purchasing. I would drop the pursuit of your money lost and take it as a lesson not to do it again but if you want to get grey hair over it that's up to you but I think the stress and time you put into it won't be worth it.

[Reefbox25]

It's vendors like this that make legitimate online businesses look bad.

Fortunately, it doesn't take much to provide an overall better experience than the majority of shady vendors .

 

Yes because other forums push him and censor anything bad. One of the few reasons I stick to this forum and this forum only.

Which forums ? I can't imagine it'd be top sites like ReefCentral or R2R..

Also , don't forums exist to assist hobbyists? Why would a site remove negative reviews of bad vendors/sponsors?

[WickedBear]

Yes because other forums push him and censor anything bad. One of the few reasons I stick to this forum and this forum only.

 

Haven't been here in awhile. Glad to see he's no longer a sponsor of this site... Got into an arguement regarding his deceptive pricing practices and "sales" and was told I need to drop it by an administrator and that I was just dragging a sponsor through the mud just as soon as Mr. Coral appeared!

 

To be fair to the administrator, I had no hard proof mr. coral was doing this (as I don't have access to his financial statements, it would be impossible for me to prove) other than everytime I checked his site it was consistent sales across his entire inventory. However, the conversation seemed productive to the facts of the sales and regarding whether or not Mr. Coral seemed like he was following FTC guidelines for deceptive pricing or not. I had never even ordered from the guy, I just wanted to discuss whether or not I was interpeting his prices correctly as his after sales price of 50% was competitive with every other site I had seen which was amazing to me. Just taking a quick look at his site -- looks like he stopped doing site wide sales for whatever reason (so maybe I was right, or extremly mistaken).

 

I also realize nano-reef has to sustain itself, and the issue wasn't that important to me, I would just shop somewhere else, so I left it. Nonetheless, I had a very high respect for NR before being felt like I was censored. I still like this place more than anywhere else as it seems more personal, and hope I either had a one off expereince, was in the wrong, or things have changed!