bigalsonline.com

[angelstiger]

I guess I have been lucky. I think part of the delay problem is the fact that they are based on the east coast. UPS ground can take more than to 2 weeks to cross the country. It is weird though that some of us have such good thing to say about them, and some of us have had such bad experiences with them.

[xander]

The longest UPS ground takes is 5 days. All packages are guaranteed to be delivered within a certain time period. Even ground. It makes no sense for UPS or any shipping company to hang onto packages longer than necessary. If you ask for tracking on a shipment you can track it and see how long it is in transit. The ppl don't realize is that the stuff need to get to the shipping company in the first place. 2 weeks is ridiculous. Nothing should be in transit that long. Even stuff going through customs doesn't take that long. (unless customs has a problem with it) I find it annoying when ppl think that the shipping company is actually holding up their package. What you all need to realize is that packages need to get shipped in order to get anywhere first.

[Bearfan]

I agree, it's not UPS, and I'm not across the country. Bigalsonline is just horribly set up. You can't get a tracking number until 48 hours after they assign one, then they give you one that was assigned 48 hours earlier and UPS still hasn't received it yet because it's in their warehouse.

The price is right, but like I keep saying, I am still waiting for my replacement actinic bulb which has been an open issue since 12/11/2003.

[Bearfan]

I got the bulb today, and typical, it's broken also. The morons wrapped the light in bubble wrap and put it in a box, but didn't pack anything around it. It broke, and I'm not surprised. I hope I can get this bulb before I move, but it's almost been a month to date, and it's still wrong.

[Thaiboxer]

Hey Bearfan -

I was going to order from Big Als, but today will be ordering from thatfishplace.com because of your experience. Though it wasn't your intention to take one for the team, I appreciate that you've shared your wonderful experience so we can avoid the same.

Thanks, and I hope you get a light soon!

[Bearfan]

No problem. I called again today and they're going to send me another replacement bulb. This is a bulb from the custom sealife fixture, otherwise I would probably send it back for a refund and order from somewhere else. Tank looks a little lopsided with an actinic only on 1/2 of it.

[xander]

Finally got my order from big als today. I don't know how they got my first name wrong since i ordered online. You know where you type in your name and all. Well its not like they spelled it wrong. They gave me a whole new name. And I was suppose to get double points, which they didn't give me. If this can be resolved in a timely manner then I may opt to use them again.

[Bearfan]

One of my 10K bulbs went out last night. I now have 1 10K and 1 03 and it looks strange as a half and half tank. I also have an outright loathing for bigalsonline.

[smooth_rivers]

Hmmm..things like that can happen with anyone though Bear. I've ordered stuff from Big Als for 3 years and never had a problem with them. They are a bit slow with shipping, I will admit that. So if I need it in a hurry I go somewhere else. But I have yet to see anyone beat their price for the things I have bought from them.

[Bearfan]

I emailed Custom Sea Life about the bulb this morning and they responded about 2 hours later and are sending me a replacement bulb.

Score:

Custom Sea Life - 1
bigalsonline - DNF

Originally Posted by smooth_rivers

Hmmm..things like that can happen with anyone though Bear.

I disagree. Whatever moron packaged a light bulb like it was should be drawn and quartered. I placed my order on 11/11/03 and am still trying to get it resolved.

[Bearfan]

Got the replacement bulb from Custom Sea Life Yesterday (8 Days), Still waiting on the bigals bulb (9 days).

[Bearfan]

I got the bulb from bigals yesterday. 22 days from the time I called to get a replacement. These guys are horrible.

[ferret]

Well, I'll post my experience so far..

Placed order Saturday night. Sunday morning, they called my father (I'm shipping it to his house, I don't want to stuff left at my apartment doorstep. Its happened before), told him they only had 3 of my 5 eco-complete bags, and would send what they had.

Tuesday, I get an email about shipment. My Filstar XP-3 is on the way, should arrived today (Thursday) or tomorrow. But lo and behold, no bags of Eco-complete. Not a one.

Due to other people's experiences once an item is backordered, I can only assume I won't recieve these for upwards to a month. I'm giving them one more week, then cancelling the order. I'll drive from lfs to lfs until I find enough bags.

On the other hand, I must give all thumbs up to Atlanta Light Bulb and AHSupply. AHSupply ships Tuesday (Ordered on Sunday), and should also arrive today/tomorrow. I ordered my bulbs from ALB on Saturday, shipped Monday, and I recieved Tuesday. Of course I'm local to them, but I'm still happy that they got the order out the door quickly.

[Allivymar]

Might as well add mine too.

Placed an order Jan 19th; figured I'd give em a go as the prices are so good. As of Jan 29, no delivery, not even a shipping number or an acknowledgement of shipping on my order page on the site.

Called em up and spoke to Jessica. She told me she'd look into it. Turns out the warehouse packed my order, but NEVER shipped it! Idiots. She got right on it and shipped it out the 30th; I got it today (the 3rd). Everything was there; the bottle of Kent Zoe had opened and had spilled somewhat, but it was bagged and didn't leak all over the box. There was also a little fishtank ornament that I didn't order and didn't pay for; I'm guessing it was an "I'm sorry" giftie.

I strongly suggest if anyone has a prob with an order to call and ask for Jessica. She was polite, apologetic and did a great job getting my order out.

She also mentioned a coupla other things:

The person in charge of the emails was canned (I'm guessing for not doing the job properly).

They are redoing the website again due to the problems with it.

[TheMadNucleus]

Recently got a shipment from them - xlnt service - a little slow on the shipping take but otherwise I highly recommend them.

Electrobes - Just added a good size Oscar to my 55 - he's become the center of attraction at my house

Always Hungry.

[ferret]

An update:

They ended up sending me 3 bags of eco-complete anyways. I had recieved a blank email from them, labelled "Email deleted, empty contents" which must have been meant to be my confirmation email.

I still haven't figured out how to get the last two bags cancelled without calling them, so I'll have to do that today. They seem to have deleted the account I created when I ordered.

A note about AHSupply. For some reason they shipped to my billing address instead of my shipping address. Which was just fine in the end but a little odd nonetheless.

[coolreef29]

Big Als really sucks!! I also had lousy service dealing with BigAls. I ordered twice with them only because I gave them the benefit of the doubt the first time I placed an order. The first time I ordered around $120 worth of items, approximately 6 items to be exact. After waiting 10 days from the time I place my order(on a Monday), I became agitated and thought it was lost in the mail. I called BigAls only to find that they didn't know why my order was not shipped yet. They gave me some lame excuse that it should be going out today because of an out-of-stock item they were waiting for. I clearly told customer service that your disclaimer mentioned that orders will not hold up an order being shipped!!! So, to make things worse, it took another 3 1/2 weeks to receive my shipment. I was sooo pissed. But I took it in stride because of the great prices. I placed a second order only to have missing items, leaking chemicals, wrong product, and only took a total of three weeks this time. I took me forever to clear this up, not to mention the countless calls to customer service. If I would have read all these complaints before I ordered with BigAls, it would have saved me undo stress, wasted time, a mild heart attack, stomach problems, and migranes.

The funniest thing to come out of all this was that my friend also ordered from BigAls and low and behold, the same thing happened to him. I must have laughed for hours on his misfortune. Cheered me up!!

[Ciddian]

Hey Beer,
I am really sorry for what happend with your order and all of those who have had bad experiances. What can i really say? If i could babysit the order all the way from southern canada to your front door i would simply because (and you may not belive me) I CARE about what goes on with these orders.

Why? ****.....i have fish, I have been a hobbiest most of my life and yes i would be very tee'd off if what happened to all of you happened to me. I have lost $100 live fish because of bad shipping and bad timing....but you know what? I did not scream at the first person who picks up the phone because most likely it was not thier fault.
But i do empathize with you all.

And heck....Call ask for me... I will work my numb butt off to find out why you have not recived your order....Just ask for Jessica.

Here are some updates... You would not belive how hard it is to sort out our website and i apoligize, I wish i could spend my whole night going through and fixing it...but i can't. It's not my job. However...I am aware of how bad the e-mails are and i would like to let you know i have taken them home and work on them (I have 600 today ).......off the clock mind you. (because i care... Sometime in June we will be linking up with UPS and tracking numbers should be e-mailed automatically to you and other little plus'

This is not a plea, This is just my way of telling those who have been polite and patient with us that I am sorry and Thank you!! we are working on things to make shopping with us better. Give you more of a reason to shop with us that just "great prices"

Thank you for your time...now back to work ^_~

[William]

Originally Posted by ferret

An update:

to be my confirmation email.

I still haven't figured out how to get the last two bags cancelled without calling them, so I'll have to do that today. They seem to have deleted the account I created when I ordered.

They did the same thing to me, I've had to register for new accounts twice.

[dralarms]

Well I for one will order from Big Als again. I have only had 1 slow order and that was also the one that they were out of stock on some "castle" thing my wife wanted, glad they were out . Gave me an excuse for getting some other "decorations". Give you an "for instance", Ordered 200 gal bucket of IO, cost 33.99 shipping little over 21 bux. say 55 bux to the door, my lfs has the same bucket for 75 bux. I'm not gonna spend 75 when I can spend 55. HMMM need another bucket , dang with 3 sw tanks it sure takes the salt.

Ciddian

Welcome to AA, I hope you enjoy your stay. On a side note you might speak to the site admin to see if you can become a sponsor.