Petco RANT

[zenn]

Originally Posted by crazyred

To say nothing of the fact that, as the owner of this website, if fishfreek is seen as endorsing blanket allegations about certain corporate, chain petstores that may prove to be untrue, he could be left wide open for a libel or slander lawsuit by said corporation.

That's why he wants you to limit your allegations to individual stores that you've been to and not be so general about Petco overall. They could have a fabulous store just the next town over where they take VERY good care of thier fish....you can never be too sure. It's also why he seems, as you say, to defend the corporates. You can't say that they do that in every store and that Petco is a horrible coporation. Have you been to every single Petco that there is? My guess would be no.

Just FYI....I don't work at any pet sotre anywhere. I work for the City of Harlingen, just thought I would let you know.

i'm not an attorney, but i'm not sure if it's correct to say that fishfreek can be sued for libel because of what someone else wrote on his forum. I'm not familiar with any laws governing forums etc., but that sounds a little far fetched to me. It seems he woudl have to make the post a sticky, or endorse what is being falsely claimed to be even close to liable. It's not like he can control everything said on this forum at every moment.

People are made at some of the Petco's in their areas, and some of us went over the line and made a few generalizing statements. Shame on us. We shant do it again. My appologizes. The only Petco's i can account for are the two in the Lincoln, Nebraska area.

[geckofrog]

Originally Posted by fishfreek

unanswered or not taken care of take it to the national level.

I've already did this

Originally Posted by fishfreek

If you would go back and read the terms of use on this site linked here for your convience http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=26 everything I said in regards to making sure ones comments are factual and are statements of truth an not making general unfounded statements about the organization as a whole is covered under these rules and regulations of using the site.

If i was you, i would make it a policy not to post on my own forum, obviously this was a RANT and I was unhappy about the treatment of saltwater fish at my local PETCO, its best to have your members comment about it, then you yourself personally-its more professional.

Originally Posted by fishfreek

As far as training. Its corprates responsibility to train regional managers and its the regional managers responsibility to train more local managers and thus local managers responsiblity to train store managers and then finally store managers to train employees of a given store. Simply stating that its corporate responsibility to train the floor sales staff is a quick and easy out.

No its not. Here's why:

If the employees can not take care of the own fish, then of course the store manager should train them how too, obviously they did a crappy job at that. IT IS the responsibility of corporate to have a system in place that if a fish gets sick that they should setup up a quant tank if they are not smart enough to have each tank have their own filter, instead of them all going into one large sump. Thats my big pet peave.

not threatening anyone here, just making sure that this forum isn't like 95% of the forums out there...

[crazyred]

Originally Posted by zenn

i'm not an attorney, but i'm not sure if it's correct to say that fishfreek can be sued for libel because of what someone else wrote on his forum. I'm not familiar with any laws governing forums etc., but that sounds a little far fetched to me.

When it comes to suing people in court for anything these days NOTHING is far fetched. An argument could be made that, by not directly challenging blanket statements about said corporation, and by allowing any false allegations to be promulgated on his wesite, fishfreek is promoting libel on Aquarium Advice. I agree he can't controll everyone else's opinion, but he can say exactly what he has said.....that this site does not necessarily endorse said opionions, and he can ask each member to limit said opinion to just the stores where they have witnessed problems.

If a lady can sue McDonalds for millions and win because she spilled hot coffee, that she bought from there, on herself, then anybody can sue anyone for anything and win.

[fishfreek]

We will run this site as we see fit. If your comment about 95% of all the other forums is implyting that this topic will get locked down simply because of a clash in opinon your going to be disappointed as we dont shut topics down for simply disagreeing but if one cointinues to make blanket unfounded statements about a corporation in general we may elect to discontinue the discussion as a basis of potental slander/libel.

Who is to say that petco does not have some established corporate policy on what to do when something occurs in the stores tanks as far as disease prevention or QT after an outbreak. They very well may have such a poilcy but the employee you spoke with or even the mangement of said store may have not known about the poilcy or may have elected to not follow the policy.

If we where privliaged enough to have someone whom worked in petco upper management as a member we might be able to estalibsh if such policies exist or not.

With that said a little google searching will turn up online petitions for petco to discontinue the sale of live animals. So your not alone in what you have seen but placing general comments toward the corporation as a whole is incorrect and should not be done as it can open you up to significant issues.

All I have to say is search the internet for lawsuits as a result of what someone posted on a web forum. I cant give more information than that as even mentioning the suit by name could open myself up to a suit.

[BillyZ]

Originally Posted by geckofrog

... if a fish gets sick that they should setup up a quant tank if they are not smart enough to have each tank have their own filter, instead of them all going into one large sump. Thats my big pet peave.

That really isn't feasible for any large aquatic seller. Go to any LFS (not just a big chain store) and you'll see the same thing. Any number of tanks connected to the the same sump and filter system. To have a sperate filter, heater, UV, etc on every single display tank would cost a fortune in both equipment and maintenance labor. It's in your best interest as a fish buyer to be aware that pet stores do this. When you are going to buy fish, it is not only important to see if the fish in the same tank are healthy, but the fish in the same section/store are healthy in general. personally, if I see more than a few ill-looking fish, i won't buy any form that store. There are a few stores in my local area that I trust. Those are the ones that I occasionally see "Treatment in progress, fish not for sale" signs on them with a HOT filter hanging off the front. yes, all pet stores should do this IMO. But that's just my opinion.

[zenn]

Originally Posted by crazyred

When it comes to suing people in court for anything these days NOTHING is far fetched. An argument could be made that, by not directly challenging blanket statements about said corporation, and by allowing any false allegations to be promulgated on his wesite, fishfreek is promoting libel on Aquarium Advice. I agree he can't controll everyone else's opinion, but he can say exactly what he has said.....that this site does not necessarily endorse said opionions, and he can ask each member to limit said opinion to just the stores where they have witnessed problems.

If a lady can sue McDonalds for millions and win because she spilled hot coffee, that she bought from there, on herself, then anybody can sue anyone for anything and win.

It's frustrating when tort law is so out of control like this. Aren't they supposed to be restructuring it soon?

And I don't want to get too far off topic but the McDonald's coffee case was a little more serious than people think. That woman had 3rd degree burns all over her lower abdomen. If that would have been a child spilling their hot cocoa, i think popular opinion on the case would be different.

[crazyred]

I agree on the tort issue. As for the McD's suit.....hello, don't put coffee, which you should expect to be hot, between your legs. 'Nough said.

Fishfreek summed it all up in his last post....there is a liability and it is open for lawsuit.

I can agree with some of the frustration that is encountered when we see our beloved fishy friends suffering at chain stores, or any store, for that matter. I just want to take drastic measures sometimes when I go to a certain chain store in my town and see the way the fish are kept. I agree 100% that if a fish store, whether it be mom & pop or chain, doesn't have the resources to properly train their employees to care for the fish, then that store should not sell fish, but, alas, in this world that is too idealistic. Our only option is to report any abuse that we see to proper authorities and protest their policies with our wallets.

[tbonem91]

I will vouch that every fish I've bought at my local Petco has died within a week or two in my tanks while fish from Petsmart or reputed Fish Stores thrive. I don't know the internals of training but it is painfully obvious that the people who do take care of the aquatic departments in large chain stores are more often than not minimally trained. I do agree that it is a local issue but like FF said, with low pay and high turnover, even among management, quality training cannot really be maintained.

[zenn]

Originally Posted by tbonem91

I will vouch that every fish I've bought at my local Petco has died within a week or two in my tanks while fish from Petsmart or reputed Fish Stores thrive. I don't know the internals of training but it is painfully obvious that the people who do take care of the aquatic departments in large chain stores are more often than not minimally trained. I do agree that it is a local issue but like FF said, with low pay and high turnover, even among management, quality training cannot really be maintained.

I have a different experience. Both my yellow tang and yellow watchman goby are from Petco. They have done looked and acted healthy since day 1. But i hand picked them and made several trips before i decided to buy the two fish i did. They have really good deals on yellow tangs in my area.

[Ricky@3rdshift]

I worked for my loacl petco , and I can tell you a few things in defense of the store I worked for.

#1 Petco has a regional Companion animal specialists which dictates the types of meds used, SG level, substrate, etc... t be used in each situation.

For example eash SW display is to have at least 1 Tang, 1 DF Puffer, 4 tanks of c lown in diff variety. The rest is as sales allow.

I finally convinced the GM to use Live sand in the tanks and ditch the CC which has helped I also wached fish on my days and kept a notebook between me and the aquatic specialist to help keep up with any problems.

#2 Medications is used as a last resort. 1st treat ment for ich is a partal water change and salt added in a cup to the tank. If this does not work over a few days we can used Rid Ich or a compareable prduct in the FW only. In the SW tanks Ich has not been a problem with 2 or 3 exceptions and in all cases was caused by bullying in the tanks and was fixed with moving in habitants to other tanks in the system.

#3 Most fish as I understand it are shipped UPS ground to the stores with a max of 3 day travel most getting 2 day service due to dist location. Our store got Fish from Seagrest which in my opinion was poor quality fish. Just before I quit we were checking for alternatives for fish.

This is all personal experence from my employment, and may vary from stre to store.
However as mentioned low pay and keeping payroll down to minimum plays a key roll in tarining and knowledge. All the managers usually get monthly inspections in my area, and get wrote up for animal violations. This includes poor quality Fish and lack of tank maint.