The iFISH StoreReviews of theifishstore.com

Response from The iFISH StoreSep 1, 2021

Hello Brad; We are very sorry to hear that all of your Cichlids perished. But we have to wonder how 24 Cichlids perished in 19 days and you did not reach out to us at all in that time frame. We are more than happy to work with our customers when the fish they receive from us are not doing well so that we can discover the root cause and address it. Whether it is tank parameters, diet, tank mates or an illness spotted upon arrival, we would have worked with you. At his point we have no details whatsoever and can only say we wish your experience with us was better. However, we really do rely on our customers to contact us immediately when they spot a problem.

Response from The iFISH StoreJul 22, 2021

Hi Breona; We apologize for the delay in your shipment. You had specified that you wanted female Kenyii Cichlids and unfortunately, at the time, we wouldn’t have any of the 3” in stock until the following week. However, we did give you the option to receive 2-2.5” females with a refund on the price so that you could receive your fish for your community tank sooner. You seemed pleased with the offer in our email communications. You can rest assured that your Kenyii are females since females are blue and males are yellow. Even as juveniles this significant color difference is clear. We hope you are happy with your new additions to your aquarium and we certainly appreciate your business.

Response from The iFISH StoreJul 16, 2021

Hi Chevy; Thank you for responding to our email concerning this matter. You should see your refund we’ve issued within a few business days. We’re glad the others are doing well and certainly wish your first experience with us was a better one.

Response from The iFISH StoreMay 21, 2021

Hello Tim; We're sorry this was your experience with us. When we receive a review like this we look back to try and associate the exact orders and communications associated with the orders. We, of course, want to look into this but this is where it goes a bit sideways. We could not find your name in our system but went to Order #18334 which was delivered to a Margaret Gates. We did receive a very polite email from an Ella Noonan on May 14 inquiring as to when the order would ship. There is an order from 9 months ago, also to a Margaret Gates, that we are assuming is the first order you were addressing in your email. But there was no communication with us surrounding any problems with the Cichlids in that first order. Nor was there any for your most recent one. We really rely on our customers to contact us when they have a problem. As you can see from many of our reviews, we have worked with customers to rectify the situation. Nevertheless, with what you are reporting here, we would typically have started by asking for the appearance of the fish upon receipt, some photos, behavior after acclimation process, tank parameters, tank mates and feeding regimen. We are sorry that some of the fish appeared to have ich. We can say with confidence that no fish has any visible ich when they are shipped from our facility. We have incoming inspection, acclimation into treated tanks, quarantine and outgoing inspection during packing/shipping. If there is any indication of ich in any of those 4 steps, there is a whole replenishment and treatment process we go through. But ich only becomes truly visible when a fish is stressed either from the shipping process itself, tank conditions, not acclimating well to their new environment and more. That being said, it is very treatable and we have worked with our customers to achieve that. We really wish you had contacted us immediately after you had problems back in October and now with this second purchase this month. We would have been happy to assist you. Once again, we're sorry this was your experience with The iFISH Store and wish we had been alerted to the details to work with you.

Response from The iFISH StoreFeb 26, 2021

Hello Valerie, We are not out of business. We are genuinely sorry for the delay in the shipping of your order. It’s certainly not by design and does not reflect how our business typically operates. We’d like to at least explain how the events of the February snowstorms that hit the Northeast have had a major impact on our operations. They caused a major kink in our ability to maintain our usual shipping schedule because they affected our ability to receive stock from our suppliers and our ability to reliably ship live fish out to our customers through our carrier. Our normal shipping schedule is 7 - 10 business days. However, for us, on top of dealing with inconsistent delivery of stock from suppliers abroad during the pandemic because of flight restrictions and facing limited supply of fish because of the high demand (hobbyists are quarantined and focusing on their aquariums) that presses breeding capacity, the Northeast got hit hard with not one but two major snowstorms. One pounding us from 1/31 - 2/3 and the other hitting us again from 2/6 - 2/10. As a result, we have been faced with flight cancellations and delays from suppliers abroad and also could not ship because of serious delays with our shipping service right here in the U.S. Even though the weather finally broke on 2/11 and flights were beginning to open up, we continued to deal with the aftermath. All along, we have sent multiple emails to our customers keeping them up to date and also posted updates on our website. We have also been inundated with phone calls and are returning them as quickly as we can. We completely understand that this is a long time to wait for an order. Under normal conditions, you would have had them in your tank by February 24th or 25th. We certainly understand if you would like to cancel the order and receive a refund. As a business, we have genuinely been trying to deal with the impediments we have been facing and still provide our customers with healthy fish for their aquariums. Please let us if you would like for us to cancel your order.

Response from The iFISH StoreFeb 25, 2021

Hello Frank; We are sorry to hear that 9 out of 12 of your cichlids perished since receiving them on January 26th. All of our juvenile cichlids are listed as ~2 inches and do run from 1.5 - 2.0 inches as you stated. We have been shipping these juvenile cichlids for quite some time successfully. They are a hearty fish and typically do very well. That being said, we understand that ich is a rather insidious illness and can sometimes lay dormant with no visible signs until the fish are stressed. Our Live Arrival Guarantee is pretty comparable to other online providers. Although some LPS' may have a 2-week guarantee, we just can not extend the same coverage. However, we do like to work very closely with our customers when they contact us after acclimating their fish and they are confronted with a problem. We very often can provide support in re-establishing the health of the fish, determining the root cause and when necessary, provide a credit on a future order. But we can only engage in this approach if the customer notifies us of a problem at the onset. We would have been happy to assist you as things were unfolding in your separate tank where the cichlids were housed. We're very sorry this was your experience with us and do hope you will be willing to give us another try knowing, should there be a problem, we will work with you if you reach out to us,

Response from The iFISH StoreFeb 18, 2021

Hello Sadiya; We apologize for what happened with your order. At the same time, we'd like to share with you what happened behind the scenes just to shed some light on why both us were a bit baffled and disappointed. You had placed your order on January 24th and we sent you an order confirmation email that day. On January 26th we shipped your order via FedEx and emailed you a shipping confirmation email with your FedEx Tracking Number. The next day, on January 27th, we received notification that your order was delivered. On February 10th, we responded to a dispute on this order through PayPal. We responded with documentation that the order had been delivered. On February 12th, we were astonished to receive your unopened package back at The iFISH Store. Without any communication from PayPal, we issued a refund even though PayPal did not even yet make a decision on the dispute. You did not have a telephone number listed so we opted to call FedEx first to find out what happened because this was obviously a delivery problem. They reported that the package was delivered to your complex but apparently because of the complexity of the address as it was listed, the box must have been delivered to an incorrect Unit. We still don't know the details on how the package was returned to us. Unfortunately, we have gone back over our voicemails and emails in The iFISH Store systems and do not see a communication from you. We also checked email we would receive from you through the PayPal platform and don't see an email there. We're very sorry for this whole tangled situation and it does not reflect how our business typically works. We are happy you received your refund and would hope that you're willing to give us another try.

Response from The iFISH StoreFeb 17, 2021

Hi Jay; We'd like to take the opportunity to clear a few things up here. When you placed your order on February 11th, everyone in the Northeast (we are located just outside JFK Airport) was contending with a major winter storm that had caused hundreds of businesses, carrier services and major airports to either close down or substantially delay business. Since you are located in Florida, we doubt that the real severity of these conditions are relatable. Regardless, the impact on us was no delivery from our supplier and halted or delayed pickup of shipments by our service carrier. We sent a communication to everyone that had placed an order to let them know of the delay and posted this on our website. Matters became worse when the Northeast was hit yet again with a severe snowstorm. Again we sent out a communication to everyone that had placed an order and updated our website. All along, for any customers that did not want to wait until we were back up and running, we were very happy to issue refunds. That has always been an open option for us when there is any reason that shipping is delayed. Our normal shipping time, as listed on our website, is approximately 7 business days. After fish are quarantined and packed, we use an overnight shipping service to minimize the amount of time the fish spend in transit. Our initial communications with you were quite friendly and when you asked for a refund, we issued it immediately and understood. But then, you became extremely creative in your accusations as to why we did not ship out your fish immediately. Both via email and in your reviews. Honestly Jay, trying to sell fish that are not even born yet? What Aquarium Fish operation could possibly even stay in business with that strategy? And if that were our "gimmick", wouldn't we have an overwhelming number of bad reviews on Google and TrustPilot not to mention registered complaints to the Better Business Bureau? We sell fish that we have in inventory and when we don't have inventory replenished due to an unforeseen event such as a winter storm we notify our customers of the delay and issue refunds if that is what the customer wishes. Yes...the timeframe for shipping we are working in right now is NOT NORMAL. But it is when the entire Northeast has been buried in snow. And just as a reminder, we are located in NY State...not outside the country. Something you pondered in one of your theories in your email. Something else for you to consider...LiveAquaria is owned by a large international corporation. We are a family-owned business that has been providing freshwater aquarium and pond fish for the past 20 years. Comparing shipping capacity between our business and LiveAquaria is a stretch but we invite anyone to compare our customer service and pricing. Or our reviews for that matter. We take great pride in our personalized service we give to each and every one of our customers. We really do take exception to you stating that we did not "offer any kind of customer service hospitality". We have read every email communication with you and our responses are completely friendly and accommodating. We wish that your experience with us was a better one. We also wish you luck with your new additions to your aquarium.