PFO bulb runaround?

[Baalz]

March 5th I ordered several items for the new 180 im setting up. I was told the two iwaski 6500ks bulbs i needed were backordered and they would ship the following Monday.
Well a week after the monday my bulbs were supposed to ship I called and spoke with Jeremy and was told PFO keeps telling them they will ship the next week and so on etc etc..

Well after thinking about this it just ****es me off.
I was charged March 5th for some items that i havent received and don't KNOW when i will receive them.
Being how important lights are to a reef tank. Don't you think PA would be a little considerate to a customer by telling them they CANT get the part?

I'm just totally frustrated at this point.. Two weeks after i paid for something I still dont have it.. plus I dont know when I will get it.
I have an order of rock coming in for my new tank and I dont know if I will have my bulbs.

Ive spoken to other vendors and was told they don't have any problems getting supplies from PFO overnight..

 

[JT]

Unfortunately, this mix-up could be the result of the fact that PFO is currently, or just recently finished, moving to a new facility.

- JT

 

[MickAv8r]

About the time you placed your order Baalz PFO Lighting was in the middle of a move to a new warehouse. They were in chaos the entire week of the 5th, phones not working properly etc.

Last week they had things under control again and were set up in the new location.

Now - as far as your own situation is concerned, Jason is at the mercy of what PFO tells him. He charged your card on the 5th because he more than likely immediately placed your order with PFO, who will immediately charge him. Now if PFO is giving Jason the runaround there is not much he can do other than pass on what he learns to you. It's a problem that can happen when you run out of stock and try to expedite an order by having it drop shipped. Also for instance I have quite a few ballasts backordered from PFO because they are out of extruded aluminum for the dual ballasts and expect them sometime towards the end of this week.

I personally have never ordered anything from Premium Aquatics (never had the need, and well he is a competitor) however I think his reputation speaks for itself. This is the busiest time of the year and sometimes things are out of stock.

Your liverock will be fine if it goes a few days without light.

 

[jasonfrey]

Hi Baalz,

This really isn't the place for check on orders, please email me at sales@premiumaquatics.com I don't even know what your name is too look up your order.

If we had a dropship for from PFO for 65K bulbs and they haven't shipped yet, we can ship from our shop, we have them instock now.

This has been a trying year, all the manufactures are running low or out of stock and all the online dealers are doing the best they can to keep customers orders filled, so please bear with us.

thanks

jason

 

[Baalz]

I can understand the problem with your suppliers..
BUT when i called and spoke with Jeremy TODAY he told me that PFO has been leading you on for a month now about when they are going to ship to you. Jeremy also said that IF PFO sends your shipment today that you will be able to ship mine out friday. Now here you are saying that you have them in stock?
Ive always been happy with PA and im not trying to bash you in any way.. I just want the truth when im dealing with money I work for. Now whats the truth? do you have these bulbs in stock or are you getting them Friday (maybe if PFO hasnt lied to you again <-- according to Jeremy).

15 days later i dont know when im getting my bulbs. Jeremy told me he doesnt know when or if PFO is going to ship anymore because they keep telling you next week and so on..

By the way i did email to check on my order last friday and still have not gotten a reply.

 

[jasonfrey]

Hi,

PFO is taking a long time to fill our house order, which is two huge pallets of inventory. I still have no idea who you are though to help you with your order.

If you email me your name, i can look up the order and help you. I don't know what all you are waiting for or anything. WE have 65K bulbs instock, we are out of stock on reflectors and sockets, so if you are waiting on those, we are still waiting from PFO, but we got in our 65K's from another wholesaler.

thanks

jason

 

[Baalz]

I have emailed you three times to date and still havent gotten a reply.. that is not how I like to do business.. PLEASE TELL ME HOW I CAN GET A REFUND?
This is even after you asked me to Email you so that you may try to help me

 

[LiquidShaneo]

Dude, post your friggin name so Jason can help you.

Shane

 

[jasonfrey]

Hi,

You are just going to have to call the store and talk with Jeremy or Cory, i have never got any email from you that i know of, i answer all my emails. I'm not going to go back and fourth on this board anymore.

jason

 

[Baalz]

sure not a problem.
I'll take all my future business elsewhere..
I have emailed you three times from three different locations and you tell me you didnt get my emails.
I think that is a crock cause you could have emailed me from this thread if you truly showed any concern.

I just hope that who I speak to when I call is honest with me this time and truly refunds my credit instead of the kinda of crap i've gone through. I should have made you explain to my ****ed off wife why you billed me 2 weeks ago for something your unable to ship.

 

[jasonfrey]

Hi,

I'm sorry about your order, if you would of let me know more info i could of taken care of it a long time ago. No one is lying to you or being dishonest. It sounds like we shipped 90% of your order, so not like we have all of your money and you have no product. We will be happy to refund you your money. When we backorder a product, we are the ones who has to pay shipping, not you, so it's costly for us to backorder rather then cancel the item. We do that to save customers money on shipping. We do not have control over manufactures either. We have been waiting on reflectors for several weeks and each week we are told they will be shipping. So we pass the info along to our customers with the best info we have.

So i'm sorry we couldn't work this out. We are not out to rip anyone off and i've never really understood why there is so many people with this X-files outlook. I guess that comes with the Internet.

thanks

jason

 

[Baalz]

well..
I guess it all stems from what Jeremy told me when I made my order and when I called asking what happened to that. He wasnt totally honest with me. If he had told me that you are having problems getting your pfo shipments then I could have ordered from somewhere else.. instead he told me that my items would ship three days later on the following monday which wasnt true.

 

[jasonfrey]

Hi,

He was totally honest. That is the information he was giving from the manufacture, so he passed the info he had along to you. If we would of know these reflectors were going to take this long we would of not even taken the order. We were told at least 3 different times that they would be shipping out "this week" and found out later each week that they didn't. Our shipment was suppose to finally ship monday, 18th, we haven't got confirmation on that either, so probably was delayed again.

It's not just PFO, PFO is usually excellent at filling orders. We are having problems with just about every manufacture, Seachem, Aquarium Systems, CPR, EuroReef, PFO, LN VHO, Eballast. We have backorder items on almost every one of these manufactures. They didn't plan for this hobbys big boom this year and now all the online dealers are having to deal with it the best they can.

If you knew how hard we work around here trying to get orders out and keep our customers happy i think you would appreciate it much more. Hard to see the behind the scene work on the internet though. We have build a very good customer base with happy customers and that is our main goal. Problems will arise due to mistakes on our part and manufactures part and we try to fix them best as possible. I think you'll find over all we do an excellent job with very few exceptions.

If you take time to think about it, this is a great time for any reef keeper. You have several choices of good low priced mailorder companies with huge selections of products. Just 5 years ago you would be paying 10 times the price at your local pet shop for equipment that was half as good. So things are pretty good for the buyer but people need to remember there are reasons mailorder is so much cheaper. High volume, low mark up and quick turnaround with least amount of labor and cost as possible. That's one big formula for mistakes. Our record is probably 98% mistake free even with all of those variables, so even though we might of dropped the ball on this order of yours, the odds of us making another mistake is very slim. I doubt you'll find too many other dealers with high volume like ours that can say the same, except a couple of our friendly competitors.

jason

 

[nofilter]

i, too, had some problems with an order for PFO reflectors. i placed my order with ocean encounter on feb. 19, got 1 reflector (drop-shipped from pfo) on 2-22, my icecap ballasts and AB bulbs (note - 2 ea) on 2-20 from ocean encounter.
so i was short a reflector/socket. it took awhile to get because of the pfo move and whatever other stuff was delaying their ability to communicate their shortcomings with ocean encounter. finally got it, ocean encounter was apologetic (as much as they could be, since it was not their fault) and to make a long story short, it sounds like PA has been doing their best; since OC had the same problems.

 

[Baalz]

Jason,
On the 18th I called and requested a refund on the bulbs you could not send because you were still waiting on PFO to ship you several pallets.
Jeremy was very nice and told me on the phone that he had just credited my account and I may have to wait until that night for it to show up in the system. I never looked I "trusted" what he said.
That night the other fellow who works with Jeremy called and told me the parts had already been dropped shipped from PFO and when I get them give him a call so you could have an UPS pick up on it.

Well today the bulbs showed.
Out of curiosity I called and checked my credit card account. Guess what? Jeremy "LIED" to me and did not credit my account.

Why is that? did you not trust that I would send the bulbs back like I had promised?
I originally trusted your company to send me the bulbs and mogul on the following Monday after I made the order like Jeremy told me he would. Then I trusted your company again to credit my account like Jeremy told me he did.

Do you not trust me ? did you not think I would send the bulbs back so you didn't refund my money? Im shocked I trusted you to send them to me after I paid for them yet you couldn't do the same for me.

I guess you just decided to stick me with the bulbs anyway. Well thank you Jason but I did not want them from you anymore. I have already bought them from another vendor who was able to have them shipped "that day". Is it common practice for your employees to "lie" to customers when they tell them they had just credited their credit card account.

This might not be an issue if the employee that called that evening to tell me the bulbs were sent would have told me that you were going to not credit my account until after you received the bulbs back. But that wasn't the case.

Oh by the way the package was left at my door and I did not sign for it.. But I was honest enough to call your shop and tell them that they were here even after I had discovered my account wasn't credited.

 

[Baalz]

Cool I got an update from Reefcentral Email.

"We just completed issuing a call tag for your package. According to UPS it will be 2 days before they process the call tag. The driver will make 3 attempts (3 days) to pick up this package. The driver will leave a note if the package is not available for pickup. So unless they are lying to me you should hear from UPS on Tuesday. Have a nice weekend.


Sincerely,


Cory
Premium Aquatics"

Jason,
Gee no mention of crediting my account? I sincerely hope UPS isn't lying to you like Cory happens to mention in this Email or I may never get my money back.

I address this in the forum because it seems you are unable to answer the many emails I have sent you and as Cory said today.. You are unavailable and I have to wait for you.

When you see fit in your excellent control of your business to refund my money I will be forever greatful.
Hopefully that will happen, but I can no longer believe that anymore.