Do you hold a Discus Grudge?

[brewmaster15]

Do you hold a Discus Grudge?

When I am considering new sponsors and explaining how best to succeed as seller on the forum and other social media channels I warn sellers that Discus Keepers do not forget. They remember bad transactions for a very long time. If you are a good seller and start selling bad fish it will catch up with you and you will destroy your reputation quickly. Even if you are a good seller and just have a bad transaction, which does happen to the best of us, depending on the customer and the way you handled it, you may wind up with a life long critic.

So my question to you is if you get bad quality fish or sick fish or poor customer service how do you deal with it? Most of us have been there..I know I have. For me, My standards are high and am clear about that with sellers. Fish should be great quality or I will be disappointed and if that happens, I may not say anything at all depending on the specifics but I will probably never buy from them again,nor recommend them. Sick fish I am more lax on, sellers can't always know their fish are about to breakdown and alot depends on the buyer there, Many buyers think they know what they are doing, but really handle the new fish in a way that increases the chances of illness. As for rip off artists, unethical sellers, and similar, I have zero tolerance as they are usually the ones that take advantage of novice discus keepers.

Often times when we do have an issue, the way the seller deals with it makes all the difference. Even the best sellers make mistakes, but an honest seller making a mistake and making amends for it as best they can is someone I would deal with again. I'm not perfect myself. I am human. I don't expect 100% perfection in sellers...I do expect 100% customer service just as they expect 100% payment.

How about you?

[jeep]

Mistakes are one thing, outright deception is another. When I'm given a photo of the fish I am to receive, then receive something entirely different, you bet I hold a grudge. As was the case with Uncle Scams. How did I deal with it? Since they ghosted me, I contacted my bank, explained the situation and they refunded my money. The I took every opportunity I had to expose them on social media. See photo's below.

I also hold a grudge on the behalf of others when it comes to scammers like discus.con, who claim to have every discus known to mankind in their facility when they actually have no facility at all. The way I handle it is to expose them as much as possible and warn potential buyers, as well as introduce potential buyers to our list of sponsors.

Accidents to happen when dealing with live animals. How the seller communicates and tries to correct things is a deal maker or breaker for future business.

Uncle scams promised vs received -

[brewmaster15]

Brian, you mean they aren't the same fish ??? surely thats from shipping stress? Just kidding, yeah thats a bad one. I didn't even know they sold severums

[jeep]

Actually, I was able to bring it around a bit. Its color was beautiful, it showed interest in spawning and almost didn't look like a severum before it eventually died of organ failure about 18 months...

[Discusgeo2]

Do you hold a Discus Grudge?
Oh I sure do, I been taken by a few sellers off this forum and to this day have not forgotten who they are and never purchased or recommend them to anyone. I will leave it at that but I do not see them here any more but I see them at other places.

[Ryan]

Being on the admin side of Simply, I saw the worst of sellers when issues arose on the forum and we had to deal with them. But then I started selling discus for a brief time and realized how much worse it actually was. Other sellers were messaging my customers and telling them outright lies about me even though I’d never spoken to or interacted with those people, they tried to reach out to the person I imported from and convince him to stop partnering with me, and then the whole discus dot com fiasco… it really burnt me out for good. I haven’t had the desire to even look at a discus since then. I didn’t realize it, but in that short time my physical and mental health declined really drastically.

My approach was to be like Kenny — do my thing and let others do theirs. Kenny and I stayed in touch even when I was selling and he let me vent to him about a lot of the drama going on. He always told me “there is plenty of room for all of us to sell our fish.” He was easily the most ethical guy I’ve ever met in this business, and I miss him.

So yes, I do hold a discus grudge, and it’s all the usual suspects.

[Iminit]

Well my biggest grudge is the 18 month or less organ failure! Doesn’t matter who the seller is the overseas breeders are just selling colors! Any way they can make them. None care about longevity of the fish and way to many of todays FB keepers don’t care and just buy more!

[danotaylor]

I am very cautious about online retail sellers. I have been burned by a couple, not with discus, but other fish. Still, those negative experiences have conditioned my thoughts & feelings about online sales of most live animals. I had the good fortune to be able to drive 3 hours each way to visit Dennis Discus Fish in person to select my discus when I kept them. For me, pics &/or video of the actual fish is a must, but even Brian got burned by false & misleading images. Typically I just choose to be content with whatever I can pick up locally or drive to collect myself. I drove 12 hours round trip to pick up my stingrays.

[mleibowi]

Yes- I hold a grudge and don’t forget when I get poor quality fish.

[LizStreithorst]

I have 2 grudges that I will always hold. One is from an importer whose fish gave me cryptobia. He knew that the exporter had a problem with his water but shipped the fish to me anyway. The other is with a former sponsor who both another member that I both she and I got fish from that gave both of us Discus Plague. Both times I was forced to euthanize all the fish, sterilize everything and start over from scratch. It's a miracle that I'm still in Discus after those 2 experiences.

My third grudge is from exporers who ship show fish that are for shows only but sell them as normal top quality fish. These poor fish are fed so much testerone that it not only makes the fish huge, but turns females into males. If you are lucky enough to get one spawn from a female who remained female long enough to spawn once before she dies you are very lucky indeed because she will die from organ failure shortly afterward. The males will be the next to die from organ failure. They loose their ability to osmoregulate and basically drown. These 3 things have happened to me. The first two things I blame on the importers. They knew, or should have. The third time it happened with the show fish, who were the most beautiful fish I have ever seen, I blame on the exporter. Yes the importer asked for show fish, but he had no idea what was done to the fish to make them so huge He was duped just as I was.

The silver lining to this third story is that although I had to buy a very good, but not show quality female from the same importer, I was able to get a spawn from her and one of the show quality males before he died. Those fish are the basis of the line of blue based SS's that I'm working with now