SuperSaiyanGoku
New member
I wanted to share my recent experience with Christian Scott at Happy Coral which was not a "Happy" experience. During Black Friday I placed an order with Happy Coral. Happy Coral was offering 40 percent off and shipping for $30. I wanted to see what kind of corals Happy Coral had to offer. I have ordered from other venders in the past (Live Aquaria, Cherry Corals, etc). Upon placing my order I had a problem checking out. I was ordering at 3:00 a.m. and for some reason my order did not go through using paypal and was having problems checking out. I emailed Christian and let him know that paypal wasn't letting me check out for some reason. At about 3:30 am my phone rings and it is Christian calling me to tell me to try my order again. While startled that he called me at that time of hour I did what he asked. Just a note that this was the first sign that Christian's company was not very proffessional. I did read the reviews of his company and there was only one person that gave him a bad review stating his corals had red bugs but didn't have proof to back it up. So I really didn't worry about anything. So I had the money payed directly to Christian's paypal account through verified email. It was about $130 order. I emailed Christian to see if he had received my payment and if the corals that I ordered was the WYSWYG corals I ordered from the website. I didn't hear back from him. I actually didn't hear back from him for two days, when I proceeded to cancel my order and notified him through email. An hour later after emailing Christian, I received an email saying he couldn't cancel my order because my order had already shipped and was on its way. I subconsciously questioned myself because when I sent out the email, it was on Sunday during the day that I cancelled my order and he called me on Monday to tell me that my order couldn't be cancelled. This was the second break down of communication with Christian. Again, I emailed him and let him know that this was not a problem and was looking forward to my recent purchase. My corals arrived on Tuesday morning around 10:00. It was about 30 degrees here in Wisconsin and the corals were coming from Michigan. So the temperature should have been about the same. More importantly, Christian was well aware of the weather up here in the North. Upon opening up my package, I noticed that all of the corals (11 of them total) were all shipped in a 8x10 box. I was very surprised that all of the frags were shipped in such a small box, but didn't worry. That is until I opened the box and discovered all of the corals were shipped in individual small frag bags, which were all stuffed into one larger bag. The box had styrofoam lined on the inside and a heat pack at the top. I was a little concerned because of the lack of water the the corals were each in. Regardless, I removed the first coral from the tiny frag bag, and noticed it was bleached considerably. I place it in an acclimation bucket and opened the next one. Coral after coral, they were all bleached. Eight corals total, and the others showed signs of bleaching and may not recover. So over fifty percent of my order arrived D.O.A. I called Christian and let him know that most if not all if my corals arrived dead. He stated that he ran out of regular bags, and used the frag bags instead and this may have been the reason why they were bleached because of the lack of water in the bags. He asked me to take pictures. I took some pictures with my iPad and sent them to Christian. I had problems sending them to his email provided. The pictures were too big to send all at once which I figured out after they were sent back undeliverable. So I sent them each individually. When Christian received the pictures, two days later, he emailed me back and stated that I would receive "points" on future purchases because of my blundered order. I questioned his good faith by issuing me points and asked him what these points meant. I actually had to go and read the disclosure on his website where I had to explain to Christian that there was no point system explained but only a credit issued. I might add that one of the stipulations to receiving my credit was not to bash Happy Corals on any forum, or that would nullify and void my credit. This was clearly explained on his website. Christian emailed me back and made it clear that points were the same as a credit and that I was confused somehow. Again this was another red flag that this order did not seem right. So a day went by, and I received an email from Christian that he wanted more pictures of the corals lined up because he couldn't see them properly. The first pictures that I sent were of the corals lined up in my quarantine clearly showing the corals bleached out.
The second grouping of pictures were the corals placed in my Display tank which I put in there hoping they would recover from the stress of improperly shipping them. I emailed back Christian and told him that I have wasted enough time on this and let him know I felt very patronized by him. He proceeded to call my personal phone which I decided at that point to contact paypal and open up a claim and dispute. I let Christian know that this situation was going to be handled through paypal and that the "point system" was not a fair way to correct his blunder in shipping. I requested a full refund through paypal. Upon review Christian refused to refund all of my money and offered me $73 back of my money. As part of Paypal's terms and agreements, they stated that if the decision was in favor of the seller and I didn't agree on the current terms that I might not get any refund back. I had ten days to decide. After a couple of days I decided to accept the offer and cut my losses. This definitely was a lesson learned. So this is why I have decided to let others know my experiences with Happy Coral. I didn't come here to bash Happy Coral. I wanted to let others know the experience that I had with a company that has a lack of appreciation for the hobby or the care of the live organisms that are used to make a profit from. I am sure that others have gotten corals from Christian and have been highly satisfied. As an avid saltwater enthusiast and work at a family run fish store, I know all to well how customer satisfaction is important. No matter what the situation, you always want to make the customer feel important and not belittled. I know that this is not true at many stores that depend on marked up prices and sales people that are rude to run the business. I wanted to protect others from this kind of irresponsibility and neglect. I currently would not recommend Christian and his company Happy Corals.
The second grouping of pictures were the corals placed in my Display tank which I put in there hoping they would recover from the stress of improperly shipping them. I emailed back Christian and told him that I have wasted enough time on this and let him know I felt very patronized by him. He proceeded to call my personal phone which I decided at that point to contact paypal and open up a claim and dispute. I let Christian know that this situation was going to be handled through paypal and that the "point system" was not a fair way to correct his blunder in shipping. I requested a full refund through paypal. Upon review Christian refused to refund all of my money and offered me $73 back of my money. As part of Paypal's terms and agreements, they stated that if the decision was in favor of the seller and I didn't agree on the current terms that I might not get any refund back. I had ten days to decide. After a couple of days I decided to accept the offer and cut my losses. This definitely was a lesson learned. So this is why I have decided to let others know my experiences with Happy Coral. I didn't come here to bash Happy Coral. I wanted to let others know the experience that I had with a company that has a lack of appreciation for the hobby or the care of the live organisms that are used to make a profit from. I am sure that others have gotten corals from Christian and have been highly satisfied. As an avid saltwater enthusiast and work at a family run fish store, I know all to well how customer satisfaction is important. No matter what the situation, you always want to make the customer feel important and not belittled. I know that this is not true at many stores that depend on marked up prices and sales people that are rude to run the business. I wanted to protect others from this kind of irresponsibility and neglect. I currently would not recommend Christian and his company Happy Corals.
