LiveHermitCrabs.com

[Eugooglizer]

Haha, figured you would definitely want to keep the pink one. But yeah, I'll definitely check back in the spring to see if Wolf decided to take them or if you end up having some available.

[Temeriki]

Have you ever ordered from them? A lot of the complaints on this thread seem to be things out of the owner's control. I personally don't want to take advice from people who haven't ordered, since they have as little experience as I do with the site. Almost all of the people who I've spoken to who have ordered from LHC (crabs or just supplies) have only had good things to say-- and the ones who didn't, well, it seemed like they may not have been the nicest in some of their replies.

We understand theres shipping delays and the such, it happened when your shipping exotic animals around the world. The problem was her website would say shipping on a certain date, 16 days past that date, some of us got the notice that there was another delay, something about a holiday in teh shipping country (which sounds fishy cause the crabs come from multiple countries and I know no country with a month long holiday), month after that still no update, site still lists last months shipping date. Most of us were getting our shipping updates not from the seller, but from this website, from some of the other members. Going by the history is seems the seller has a history of doing this, dropping the customer service ball.... hard, then picking up the slack to get customers back. I sent 4 emails to the seller regarding my order over the two months I waited to get receive, only one of them got a response(that my order was processing and would arrive in two days, giving me very little time to arrange to have someone here to receive my crabs), she was logging into the website daily, apparently just not answering customer emails. In retrospect would I order from them again (I ordered 6 E's got a 7th for free)......... If I had other options I would use them first before going back to LHC. The crabs themselves were in excellent condition just the customer service was atrocious.

[Rocky]

Have you ever ordered from them? A lot of the complaints on this thread seem to be things out of the owner's control. I personally don't want to take advice from people who haven't ordered, since they have as little experience as I do with the site. Almost all of the people who I've spoken to who have ordered from LHC (crabs or just supplies) have only had good things to say-- and the ones who didn't, well, it seemed like they may not have been the nicest in some of their replies.

You haven't ordered from her yet either I'm just going off of what I've seen with other people- some have awesome service, some have awful service, as are you.

[sugarselections]

As far as the sizing issue goes, that has been a problem with all three of the companies I have bought hermit crabs from online. It seems to be an industry thing that they size the crabs based on the stock they have or the species type, not any kind of universal sizing chart.

In addition to my hermit crabs, I've bought other animals online multiple times. The breeder I got my sugar gliders from is in Texas. I bought my gliders from her as soon as they were out of pouch, without their eyes even open yet. I paid her in full for the gliders, shipping via Continental Airlines, and shipping container, which amounted to about $750. Just days before she sent the gliders to me the breeder emailed me to tell me she didn't think one of the joeys I'd chosen was the right fit for me. She suggested a couple other joeys she had who were ready to leave their parents and I chose one. (Best decision I've ever made.)

Anyway, the point is that paid in full almost 2 months prior to my sugar gliders being sent to me. Also, there was no firm ship date given to me when I paid since it depended on the joeys being weaned and mature enough to leave their parents as well as the breeder having to book a flight from Texas to Ohio. That didn't work out so well either since she couldn't get a direct Continental flight to my local airport so I had to drive a couple hours north to the Columbus airport to pick up my babies. It's been my experience that buying any type of critter online and then having them transported to you is rarely a smooth road. When the priority is an animal's well-being instead of a speedy transaction, patience is often required.

By the way- All the crabs I receieved from LHC a few months ago are happy and healthy. None of mine arrived in bad condition or missing any limbs, just a couple missing a bit of leg tip. Also, my crabs were and are completely mite-free.

[Eugooglizer]

[quote="Temeriki]
....some of us got the notice that there was another delay, something about a holiday in teh shipping country (which sounds fishy cause the crabs come from multiple countries and I know no country with a month long holiday [/quote]

Its called Ramadan. Considering that Islam has an estimated 1.62 billion adherents which makes up 23% of the world's population and that there are large populations of Muslims established in many of the areas where a significant amount of the hermit crabs in question are found, personally I don't find it "fishy" at all.

[Temeriki]

@sugarselections Im assuming you paid in full but in agreement knowing the shipping date wasnt firm, Ive ordered lizards like that after the eggs were laid, knowing some might not make it and Ill be moved to the next clutch. Most of us were under the assumption of "Your live hermit crab is specially packed and shipped to you, usually arriving within 2 weeks of your order depending upon weather conditions." as the site said, waited well past that and werent getting responses to our emails, we then got updates from other members who happened to of gotten answers, not the seller herself.

@LaurenE For some reason I thought Ramadan was in February, I honestly have no idea why. (quick google search) Ramadan 2012 ran from July 20th-ish till August 18th-ish. Im sure the bulk distributor would of notified her when she went to place an order that they werent shipping on certain dates, it would of been nice to of received a similar courtesy. If I remember correctly her site didnt update the delay notice till after the beginning of August.

If Im reading this thread correctly some members placed orders back in June and didnt receive them till September, can anyone following this verify. That means the order wasnt even attempted to be purchased from the distributor till July. Im wondering if she has to save up crab species orders till she can make a purchase (otherwise shed have to sit on a lot of crabs)

[sugarselections]

Actually, no, many us did not order knowing she had the crabs in stock and would be shipped within two weeks. In July and early August she had a clear notice on her site saying that she was taking pre-orders and she didn't expect to get many of the species in stock until her distributor sent them. I don't remember the exact timing of it since I placed an early order, but she later placed a message on her site saying there would be delays because of a holiday and her distributor's country.

I've also ordered reptiles early. Once put down a $350 deposit on a tortoise many months before breeding even happened, much less the eggs. I got bumped out of the first clutch and some things happened with the waitlist that I found unfair. Despite the fact that it had always been my dream to own that tortoise, I cancelled my deposit and got a refund. It was extremely disappointing but I was unhappy with the transaction so I ended it and got on with my life.

[kip.rogers357]

June 19, 2012
2:18pm

finally was able to process my order! two small ruggies should be in within 2 weeks!

August 6, 2012
7:55am

Still no ruggies :-/
I hate to say this but I had to demand a refund. It was always something when it came down to my order. The replies to my emails were always short, rude, and lacked details on anything.
I asked for a refund and was given every reason in the book to not cancel my order. The problem is that I returned to work (at a school) this week so I'm away from home between 7:30am and 8:00pm on weekdays (due to class and extra rehearsals) so there was no way to safely get my crabs delivered to me. My closests neighbor is miles away, and my family also works crazy times causing them to be away from home for most of the day. I wasn't expecting to run into this problem as I was told by livehermitcrabs.com that my order would arrive by the middle of July, then I was told they'd arrive at the end of July.
Thursday (08/02) I asked what the status of my order was and was told today "It will be at least another two weeks before I can ship out."
There is nothing I hate more than people giving me the run around and not being responsible. It may just be that I'm upset or ranting but that is not how your run a business. It's ridiculous.
I was really looking forward to a few new rugs!

August 14, 2012
12:24pm

I placed my order July 13th. I emailed on August 1st to ask when she would be shipping out since I want to order H. Miles and time the orders correctly. ( I ordered 2 blueberries, 2 ruggies, and 2 straws).
This is what she said: "Hi. I held off on the shipment as my supplier didn't have blues in stock. Figured I would wait another week to see if they come in. I'll be sending emails when they are due to ship".

It's now the 14th of august and still no word on shipment
I hate having to dread emailing a company wondering if I'll actually get a response. I have to send another one today to see what's going on. I work 6am-3 most days through the week and need to time things correctly.

August 22, 2012
10:31pm

DUE TO A HOLIDAY IN THEIR COUNTRY, THEY ARE ON VACATION UNTIL THE 27TH AND WILL THEN BOOK A SHIPMENT DATE. CRABS WILL NEED TO DE-STRESS AND WILL NOT SHIP IMMEDIATELY.

There you go.... We're looking at mid-September then....

September 14, 2012
9:11am

So I asked for an update... this was her response:

I called my supplier last night. Interesting as he doesn't really speak English lol. He said he should be able to ship Tuesday! Fingers crossed!!! Slight issue... May not have blues to send me. Im pretty peeved about that. But we will see what he comes up with by Tuesday. Maybe you could post for me on the HCA?

Then I got a second email that said this:

Thanks. I'm sure the majority of my orders are HCA members. Just want to try to keep everyone in the loop. I am going to be offering a 50% off next order of crabs for anyone who keeps their order as a thank you for their patience in delay of responses and shipment.

September 20, 2012
4:09pm

Just when I thought it was getting better, I emailed her to ask if blues made it in the shipment. This is the "Auto response" I received:

**IMPORTANT UPDATED INFORMATION**

WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE DELAY. OUR SHIPMENT OF CRABS WILL BE ARRIVING ON SATURDAY 9/22. THEY WILL NEED 1-2 WEEKS TO DE-STRESS PRIOR TO SHIPPING. ORDERS WILL BE SENT IN THE ORDER THEY ARE RECEIVED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE.

Now that's customer service. Not even a hint that the email will be answered. Nice!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

September 24, 2012
7:02pm

**UPDATE**
From their website...

OUR CRABS HAVE ARRIVED AND ARE EATING, DRINKING AND DE-STRESSING! WE WILL BEGIN SHIPPING IN 1-2 WEEKS. ORDERS WILL SHIP IN THE ORDER THEY WERE RECEIVED. THE BLUEBERRIES DID NOT COME IN WITH THE SHIPMENT. WE WILL BE OFFERING AN ADDITIONAL FREE CRAB WITH A SUBSTITUTION OR WE WILL ISSUE A REFUND. AGAIN, WE THANK OUR CUSTOMERS FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND YOUR BUSINESS.

October 6, 2012
11:51am

Don't know how. The post office is closed for Columbus day.

October 11, 2012
4:16pm

New babies! I ordered 3 blueberries, but got 3 violas and 2 indos. All appear healthy. I did see a few red dead mites in the salt water bath. They are iso'd and I think I'll order the predatory mites. The violas are interesting. Two are red with gorgeous patterns. The bigger one is already lavender. I did snap two quick pics before I left them alone. One is hysterical.

Peekaboo!

Viola

Red viola
I'll post more as I give them a chance to settle in!

[Temeriki]

@sugarselections You only have 45 days to dispute a charge with paypal, after that youd have to take someone to court to get your money back. It was a scam used pretty frequently back when online shopping first started, delay the order with excuses such as it was shipped already, it must of been "lost" in the mail, theres a problem with the distributor. Eventually youd go to cancel your order and your credit card company would say you took too long to dispute the charge, so your only option is court, since you technically placed the order in the shippers state you would have to travel to file the claim making it not worth it at all. Thats why ebay gave us the ability to rate and comment on sellers and paypal gave us a 45 day dispute window, tools to protect from scams.

I remember the pre order notice, all her animal product descriptions still stated usually shipped in 2 weeks, she was also telling members she was going to be ordering on this date, then that date, then it was this date (apparently she waited till august to even attempt to place the order with her distributor). None of the information matched, honestly if people didnt actually receive animals from her in the past my scam-dar would of been going off at 100% (was only firing at 25%). Part of me felt like she was going to take the money and run, down the road shed justify it saying she needed it for medical bills or something and since she lives in another state it wouldnt of been worth it to go to small claims. This happens a lot more than you would think with online stores, they run for a bit then disappear with their last orders (which is why I always use paypal to order online, lets me dispute the charge through my credit card, and paypal)

I have my own small business doing computer repair, sometimes I need to order parts online to repair said computers, sometimes there are shipping delays beyond my control. When that happens I notify my customer immediately, maybe set them up with one of my loaner computers if they need one, but I keep them in the loop. And I think thats the problem, the communication was spotty and conflicting and coming from sources other than the seller.

Were my crabs healthy, yes, would I order again.... thats a tough one, theres not many other options out there for ordering crabs (unless you want 50-100 at once). And I think thats why she can continue to run her business like this, if theres no competition the buyer just has to deal with it.

[boxcat]

I'm not quite sure what the point of Kip's post was, but to me it shows that LHC was trying to fill the large amount of orders they had. I think it documented the LHC timeline fairly well. Kip also received his refund, which is good.

As for the issues with her suppliers, I think we need to take into consideration the context of the countries from where she is receiving these crabs. Religious holidays, customs issues, and both language and cultural barriers seem to be playing into problems receiving shipments (or at least that's what it seems like from what's been posted). Not to mention hermit crabs are harvested from the wild, so it's not as though they can just make more Blues or Indos or whatever if the supplier is running low. These are live animals, not books or watches or something-- and shipping live animals across borders is taken very seriously by pretty much every country there is.

Careyenz received an auto-response that updated her on the information about shipping. LHC couldn't answer a question as to which crabs were in the shipment if they had in fact not yet received the shipment. The website was later updated with the appropriate information. I'd bet a lot of money that the LHC email account was inundated with emails, all of them a top priority. I think almost every customer service email account I've contacted has an auto-response email, and not all of them tell me when my email will be read or replied to. I know I've had professors who I needed them to email me back right away with very important information... and sometimes they waited a long time or I just had to see them in person. Does it annoy me? Of course! But I also understand that they deal with hundreds of emails per day.

And Careyenz sure has some cute violas in her post. :3

[parrothead]

@ Jesicaaa

I just noticed you have started a site in which you intend to sell hermit crab supplies/products, I'm curious.... Do you think it is, or will be, acceptable to treat your customers the way many of us were treated by LHC? If so, why? If not, why?

[boxcat]

@ Jesicaaa

I just noticed you have started a site in which you intend to sell hermit crab supplies/products, I'm curious.... Do you think it is, or will be, acceptable to treat your customers the way many of us were treated by LHC? If so, why? If not, why?

haha Parrot, that's not my site and as far as I know there will be no hermit crabs sold on it.

And I'm not saying whether or not it's acceptable to treat customers this way, I'm saying that some of this seems to be blown way out of proportion. I'm also trying to put things in context, mostly for myself because I know how frustrating it is when things don't go my way, emails aren't replied to, etc. There seems to be a lot of negativity and bad experiences on this thread but as others have pointed out, there are also reasonable explanations.

[parrothead]

ah- I suppose it's not for you to decide if our frustations are valid is it? We are entitled to our opinions just as you are. As for "reasonable explanations"... I believe that's also subjective.

Thanks for all your wonderful feedback though

[sugarselections]

If people are allowed to post their negative opinions about LHC, it seems hypocritical to shoot down posts about positive experiences and make multiple snarky or sarcastic comments.

[sugarselections]

@sugarselections You only have 45 days to dispute a charge with paypal, after that youd have to take someone to court to get your money back. It was a scam used pretty frequently back when online shopping first started, delay the order with excuses such as it was shipped already, it must of been "lost" in the mail, theres a problem with the distributor. Eventually youd go to cancel your order and your credit card company would say you took too long to dispute the charge, so your only option is court, since you technically placed the order in the shippers state you would have to travel to file the claim making it not worth it at all. Thats why ebay gave us the ability to rate and comment on sellers and paypal gave us a 45 day dispute window, tools to protect from scams.

But LHC has been around for many years (longer than I've been crabbing) and although there have pretty much always been complaints about poor customer service, I've never heard of a case where a customer did not eventually receive their crabs or a refund. If you were worried about the 45 day Paypal expiration you had the option to cancel the transaction and either immediately place another order with LHC or wait until you knew she had the crabs in stock and was shipping before re-placing your order. I'm not ignorant to internet scams, but no one has actually been scammed by LHC and you're speaking only in hypotheticals. I know I personally ordered a blueberry and when LHC didn't receive them from the distributor I was offered a generous substitution or a refund. I chose a refund, which I got.

I also own my own business and have for many years. All I can say is that I'm glad I work exclusively in wholesale now and don't have to deal with retail customers.