swordfish
Tue, 19th Aug 2003, 04:15 AM
Someone around here posted a few days ago (last Thursday) that Aquatek on Burnet rd. in Austin had some southdown sand. Apparently this stuff is the hot item in reef sand these days since it's cheap and fine in the literal sense. Problem is you can hardly ever get it west of the Missisippi. I called Aquatek to comfirm this and they said yeah, they had some 50 lb. bags selling for $10 each. Great. I asked them to hold one for me. They said "You don't need to do that, I always have plenty of it here and we're expecting a new shipment this coming week as well.". Even better.
Well when I got there on Monday, after driving well over 45 miles in the simmering heat from San Marcos in my truck which does not have AC, apparently the story had changed drastically. About the only southdown the manager said he had ever seen there lately was "a few bags someone bought in on consignment" which had sold about as soon as they were set on the shelf. There had not ever been a regular stock of the stuff there, nor was there going to be, according to him. I told him someone who I talked to on the phone assured me they had it virtually stacked up to the ceiling and had more being airlifted in by the C-37 load soon. The manager said he had no idea what I was talking about, his employee "didn't know what he was talking about" and none of that was true. Before you ask, yes I was sure I had called Aquatek in the first place.
I said to him "Do you stand behind what your employees do on the job here or do you not? If they work for you then I think you should maybe start doing that. How about giving me a bag of aragonite at a discount after all this hassle I had to go through?". He said he wouldn't do that. As he was just then standing in front of a woman who was enthusiastically talking about setting up her first reef tank with him (which I am assuming she was going to buy there) and who had taken all of this in, I said "Well, your customer service is pretty disappointing then.".
True, he did have aragonite at a decent price, but I may as well have tattooed "stupid bait and switch victim" on my forehead if I had bought it there. I guess they don't think this kind of thing ever catches up to them or......anyone would ever get on a local aquarists web club's site and say something about it.
Jeff
Well when I got there on Monday, after driving well over 45 miles in the simmering heat from San Marcos in my truck which does not have AC, apparently the story had changed drastically. About the only southdown the manager said he had ever seen there lately was "a few bags someone bought in on consignment" which had sold about as soon as they were set on the shelf. There had not ever been a regular stock of the stuff there, nor was there going to be, according to him. I told him someone who I talked to on the phone assured me they had it virtually stacked up to the ceiling and had more being airlifted in by the C-37 load soon. The manager said he had no idea what I was talking about, his employee "didn't know what he was talking about" and none of that was true. Before you ask, yes I was sure I had called Aquatek in the first place.
I said to him "Do you stand behind what your employees do on the job here or do you not? If they work for you then I think you should maybe start doing that. How about giving me a bag of aragonite at a discount after all this hassle I had to go through?". He said he wouldn't do that. As he was just then standing in front of a woman who was enthusiastically talking about setting up her first reef tank with him (which I am assuming she was going to buy there) and who had taken all of this in, I said "Well, your customer service is pretty disappointing then.".
True, he did have aragonite at a decent price, but I may as well have tattooed "stupid bait and switch victim" on my forehead if I had bought it there. I guess they don't think this kind of thing ever catches up to them or......anyone would ever get on a local aquarists web club's site and say something about it.
Jeff