Buyer beware on Aquabid

Hello,
I recently purchased what were supposed to be 12 2" Red Shiners on aquabid. When the fish arrived, not one was 2" and the rest were less than half of that. I contacted the seller and he said that he thought that these fry would have grown to 2" by the end of the 14 day auction. Wonder what he was planning on feeding them? I would have let it go, but just days later I see the same fish advertised again on aquabid, also listed at 2". Now, if he actually has 2" shiners, I wish he would have sent them to me since he has my money and all. If he doesn't, he is knowingly commiting something that looks and smells a lot like fraud.

I'm irritated for a couple of reasons. First, he advertised and sold a product that he didn't have. Second, there is a big difference in appropriate tank-mates between a 3/4" and a 2" shiner, and I had to scramble to find somewhere to put these small fish. Third, they're basically fry, and a 3/4" fish has a different survival rate than a 2" fish. The real capper for me though, is that he is right back at it again...

It's worthwhile trying to communicate with sellers before you send money. There's one guy in particular that sell natives on AB that basically just sends a script when you win an auction and don't respond to questions at all. I would love to get some banded sunfish, but I'm not inclined to trust the guy's ID when he throws up a stock photo and doesn't communicate. Pretty shady stuff.

Where are you located? Red shiners are pretty widely distributed and common, would've thought you could catch them yourself.

Well, I assumed (foolishly, it turns out) that he would be shipping me fish that matched the description that he had posted. It seems a bit beyond due dilligence to have to confirm that the seller isn't lying each time you make a purchase, but I guess that's what it has come to. I'm actually curious now, if I would have asked him to confirm the size of the fish, would he have told me the truth? It sounds like he was counting on them doubling in size over the two weeks that the auction was posted. Pretty optimistic if now downright ridiculous.

I would have let the whole thing go and chalked it up to doing business on the internet, but when I went to Aquabid today and saw he was doing the same thing again, still claiming to have 2" fish, it really chapped my backside.

As far as collecting them myself, those of us on the west side of the Rockies are greatly limited both in species available and collection regulations.

...I'm not inclined to trust the guy's ID when he throws up a stock photo and doesn't communicate. Pretty shady stuff.

I agree. It's one thing to have a stock photo of a stable breeding colony. It's quite another to have a stock photo of fish you're collecting new each time. There's this one Elassoma evergladei seller I have e-mailed several times telling them that's not what they have. The seller insists that they are Elassoma evergladei because that's all their collecting guide shows is present at their location. I e-mailed them the Snelson paper on Elassoma gilberti and okefenokee that has their distributions, but they just ignore me, post the same stock photo every time, and call them evergladei.

http://biology.unm.e...et al. 2009.pdf page 18 of 28. Yes they are at their location. Do I get listened to? No.

Then I got contacted by someone who asked, "I ordered the Elassoma evergladei from the person above but they all got fungus and died. What did I do wrong?" And I was like, "You bought recently captured fish who were stressed out, lost a lot of vital salts, and were susceptible to fungus. It's nothing you did; the seller didn't hold the fish long enough after capturing before shipping them."
There's no reason to kill those fish. They're very easy to keep alive and even to breed in captivity. I don't see why anyone would prefer to repeatedly venture into alligator and snake infested swamp water when they could just have maybe three 10 gallons, rotate the fish, and generate as many Elassoma as they want. It just seems more difficult their way.

So, yeah, beware. Check their feedback. A good seller will have either perfect or near perfect praise feedback. A person with 15/20 you might want to reconsider. If you have a bad experience, leave them a negative review. It really does help the next person decide not to buy from them.

Edited by EricaWieser, 27 June 2012 - 10:42 PM.

Another thing not mentioned: there's definitely a 'seller beware' too. I've been scammed twice by unscrupulous people who were all like, "My fish arrived dead!" or "I never got fish". That's how I learned to always get a tracking number (yes they did arrive, the tracking number says they were delivered at so and so time) and be clear on my DOA policy (they're dead? Take a picture. I want to see their bodies in the bag they arrived in before I send you new fish.)

The scammers can be buyers, too.

But most of the time people are nice, and aquabid.com is a great place to get native fish not from your area. With USPS priority shipping it makes it really easy to trade our native fishes across the continent. We have a smaller market than tropical fish enthusiasts do, so sometimes the large audience that aquabid receives is the only way to make breeding a native species worthwhile monetarily. If you try to breed and sell to the people local to you there is extreme competition and price undercutting from your neighbors who can go out and catch the fish for less than it costs you to sustainably breed it. Nationwide shipping reduces this local undercutting and allows people to get a fish not from immediately around them. This is good for the fish, as in-tank breeding is sustainable and does not stress the local population. And it's good for the buyers because people breeding the fish can select for color and tameness while people catching the fish can't. So all in all as long as you're careful aquabid.com is a great way to buy and sell native fish.

Edited by EricaWieser, 27 June 2012 - 10:45 PM.

I went on last night to see whats new on ab & I see he removed his ads (or atleast didnt repost them). Hopefully he'll be more honest if he tries it again. I had that happen when I ordered cherry shrimp from one guy. My fish ate them all since they were 1/2 the size as posted.

I wonder if its the guy that sold me "adult" creek chubs? WHen I got them they were an inch long and I don't think they are even creek chubs. Had I put them in the tank I intended they would have been eaten by the adult longears or the 6 inch horny head chubs. I emailed him about it but never got a response.

When I saw that the seller had re-posted the same auction I wrote to him and called him out, again. He agreed that his ad copy was inaccurate but claimed that he had just changed it to be more accurate. The ad still prominiently features the claim that he will ship you 2" fish, but at the very bottom he included a note to say that the 2" fish will be 1"-2" 'because they ship better that way.' It's a step in the right direction, but seems odd that after getting static about his auction being misleading, he only corrected his ad copy after I wrote to him again to complain. I guess if no one said anything he would have just kept doing it. Or maybe will keep on doing it.

As an update, most of the smallest shiners have been eaten by the 2"-3" (actual size) Banded and Blue Spotted sunfish that were supposed to co-exist peacefully with them. They were so small they could have been crushed by a quarter. Doh! As I sat typing that another one just bit the dust, eaten by a Banded sunfish that was supposed to be slightly smaller than him. At this point I don't even think I'll remove the rest of them, as I don't have an aquarium ready with any smaller tank mates. I'm probably just going to have to write off all but the 3-4 fish that are actually close to (but still short of) the advertised size. Would have been great to know what size the shiners were really going to be.

The "corrected" auction will be up for about 10 more days, if anyone needs very expensive feeders...

Sorry about that. Contact me and i'll send you a few adults on the house. thanks!

I wonder if its the guy that sold me "adult" creek chubs? WHen I got them they were an inch long and I don't think they are even creek chubs. Had I put them in the tank I intended they would have been eaten by the adult longears or the 6 inch horny head chubs. I emailed him about it but never got a response.

No. I don't even carry those.

No Rainbowrunner it wasn't you sir.