EBay fish? Your thoughts

[sanchoy]

My friend recently purchased a fish from a EBay at a very low discounted price, let's say at 1k lower then vendor prices. The seller claimed to cut the middle man and offered whole sale up front pricing, private, purchases. Sounds way to good to be true. Gem tangs at $500-400. Price is nice.

I always lived by the facts of "'you get what you pay for" in life. And 9 out of 10 times this theory holds true. In my friends case, his fish he purchased haven't accepted any food for 2 weeks. Of course the seller claimed that the fish was skittish.

My intuition is :
The seller may have used cyanide or similar tactics to capture the fish. I observed his fish and noticed the appearance to be sick, malnourished, lethargic, and lack of appetite.

Your thoughts, experiences?

 

[rogersb]

I bought a fish once off ebay but it came from RT Distributors and they are a reputable source. The fish was awesome. It was a crosshatch trigger and I think I paid around $250 with shipping.

 

[Dmorty217]

My intuition is :
The seller may have used cyanide or similar tactics to capture the fish. I observed his fish and noticed the appearance to be sick, malnourished, lethargic, and lack of appetite.

Your thoughts, experiences?[/QUOTE]

Your "intuition" pretty much sums it up... If you noticed these things then you would be taking a huge risk. Live arrive only or is there any secondary guarantee? Cyanide typically isn't used in fish that fetch a high price on the market since retailers will have to sit on these fish, plus you would read about it somewhere on RC. Also retailers who get fish from whole salers that use cyanide would have massive death/people complaining about dead fish so you would hope that would make the retailer stop ordering from said wholesaler. With that said a Gem tang for 4-500$ is half price of what a "cheap" Gem is

 

[Lucky Lefty]

Sounds way to good to be true.....
"'you get what you pay for" in life....

Your thoughts, experiences?

Words to live by right there. More times than not, there's a catch with that good deal. Perhaps here, the catch is that the fish has a 25% chance of making it.
perhaps the middle man he cuts out is the middle man that properly houses or feeds the animal properly.
who knows house this animal was kept while he had it, could have sat in what should have been a temporary/inadequate setup for quite some time.

Either way, good luck to your friend.

 

[DasCamel]

For EBAY, reviews are extremely important. If all the fish sent die quickly, that vendors reviews would be horrible. So, chose carefully.

 

[sanchoy]

For EBAY, reviews are extremely important. If all the fish sent die quickly, that vendors reviews would be horrible. So, chose carefully.

Who is to stop the seller from creating a new account and having his over sea friends give him positive reviews? Don't get me wrong, the price is nice. A gem, is really a gem at that price. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm sure the fish will wither away if it doesn't accept any food soon.

 

[Dmorty217]

Who is to stop the seller from creating a new account and having his over sea friends give him positive reviews? Don't get me wrong, the price is nice. A gem, is really a gem at that price. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm sure the fish will wither away if it doesn't accept any food soon.

Cyanide caught fish either accept food but can use it properly because of liver problems associated with cyanide or they don't eat at all. A lot of places will get fish in and try and ship them back out the next day, therefor never even really attempting to feed them. Most larger fish that are wild caught will survive a month or more without ever eating a thing

 

[DasCamel]

Who is to stop the seller from creating a new account and having his over sea friends give him positive reviews? Don't get me wrong, the price is nice. A gem, is really a gem at that price. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm sure the fish will wither away if it doesn't accept any food soon.

Accounts with over 100 good reviews cost time and money to create, so good sellers start to value their accounts very quickly.

 

[NarakuAulonocar]

I bought a fish off ebay before and fish was healthy and still is. The seller is great but no longer active.
That said, paypal does not cover fish so if something happens, the buyer is screwed. You have absolutely no assurance from paypal or ebay unless you call your bank for a chargeback. As long as the seller provides tracking, he is off the hook. Theoretically, he could send you a goldfish for a black tang and be off the hook.

I bought a pair of lemon jakes off aquabid (similar to ebay) and both fish came in sick. They were delayed by USPS for overnight shipping. Paypal gave me the runaround, stating that live fish is not covered. Luckily I was able to save them and track them down at my post office. But the seller denied everything and was not even interested in helping me treat the fish or getting the fish in my hands when they were delayed. He stated that he shipped them so he has no responsibility for shipment delays. Turned out that the pair was two males. The female colored up in my care. I guess they didn't breed for him and they got sick so he sold them.

Oh and prices were the same as LFS. So "you get what you pay for" does not always hold true.

So bottom line is it is at your own risk.

 

[fearyaks]

Who is to stop the seller from creating a new account and having his over sea friends give him positive reviews? Don't get me wrong, the price is nice. A gem, is really a gem at that price. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm sure the fish will wither away if it doesn't accept any food soon.

Good eBay investigation. If I find a price that's too good to be true and the user is new, I look at all of the feedback. Account feedback for buyers, purchase prices, ages of accounts.

And usually (unless there's a weird spelling error or something), prices that are too good to be true are usually just that. I mean on eBay you can expect maybe a 40% off discount at most... anything else is just greedy.

 

[o2manyfish]

Having bought several gem tangs directly from the collectors, I can tell you that that price doesn't happen.

However, someone that bought a gem tang, which is a pretty hardy fish and easily adjusts to captivity, is telling you that the fish isn't eating, may be trying to cash out on a dying fish quickly.

 

[sanchoy]

Here is the latest update:

Fish is barely alive, very lethargic, and constantly hiding in the same area. My friend claimed he witnessed it gobble down a few pieces of Mysis on one occasion. but when I was present during feeding, his fish just remained in the same area pretending to be blind by the Mysis that float by it during feeding time.

The belly is sunken in and looks malnourished. I give it a week or so, then RIP. Too bad, I knew the price was too good to be true.

 

[snorvich]

In general, buying "cheap fish" is not going to work out very often if at all. I know a fairly popular seller with cheap prices. The problem is that the fish are not in good health a majority of the time.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Here's the thing to remember... as far as I know, nobody of is getting rich off collecting or selling fish. It's a way to pay the bills but not a way to retire early. What I mean by this is that vendors who charge more for fish aren't pocketing that extra money as profit... they are using it to acquire a higher quality item. The extra money charged goes towards taking better care of the fish along the supply chain between the ocean to you. Places that charge less for fish aren't being "nice" and pocketing less money... they are cutting corners that results in a lower quality item for you.

 

[Betta132]

I'd never buy a rare fish off Ebay, unless I can look through the seller's page and they have a few thousand good reviews and lots of stuff up for sale. I have seen things like unusual waspfish up for sale that I'd consider buying. The real warning sign is if the fish is much cheaper than it normally would be.
There's a bunch of freshwater shrimp for sale from different buyers all over Ebay. That's because this type of shrimp breeds fast, and people want to sell them. Ebay is a good place to do so.