ThRoewer
New member
The 14-day warranty had worked for Fosters & Smith for a very long time so I don't think the "loss ratio" explanation is correct this way. More likely the Quality Marine is no longer capable or willing to only ship healthy livestock to LiveAquaria customers. Or the Petco management just wants a higher return rate and doesn't give a damn about quality and customer satisfaction...
Most LFS I know have a "no warranty once it left the store" policy on livestock. Though good customers who they know well enough may at times get a refund for a same/next day loss on a case by case basis.
But the key difference between an LFS and LiveAquaria is that you can observe and select the fish you want and decide based on appearance and behavior whether to buy it or not. And pretty much every LFS will feed the fish if you ask so you can see if it is eating or at least interested in food or if it is not reacting at all.
However, with LiveAquaria (and most other online vendors) all purchases are blind, even Diver's Den just gives a (staged) picture that really doesn't tell you much about the fish's behavior or overall condition. That's where the warranty came in to compensate for this "bought unseen" and to ease your mind and also make sure the staff at Quality Marine would pick healthy fish that stand a chance to survive at least 2 weeks.
But now they can send you everything as long as it is just strong enough to survive shipping. And I have seen precisely that in recent shipments where I got fish that were so malnourished that even with expert care and live food there was no way to rescue them. The last ones were two bluestripe pipefish of which one was healthy and well-nourished (and still alive) while the second was so emaciated that it was just "skin and bones" and died within hours of arrival. I tried live tigger pods but the fish was already too weak to feed. I still got credit because it was just before they rolled out their new warranty restrictions. Today things may have gone differently
To me, this isn't a sound business decision but rather a lazy way to shed responsibility. If they really want to make sure finicky species get only to qualified people, there are other ways.
I've done a lot of business with LiveAquaria in the past was overall satisfied with what I got. But with the new warranty restrictions, I will think twice now before ordering an expensive fish.
