# Onlive Vivarium Store



## Joecoral (5 Sep 2008)

Anyone have any experience with this website?
I ordered a 25kg sack of unipac gravel off them a week ago, they happily took my money and that is the last i've heard of it. No gravel as of yet, no confirmation that the item has been shipped, emailed them 2 days ago enquiring about my order, no reply as of yet. Fortunately I paid via Paypal so if worst comes to worst I should be able to get the money back
JC


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## aaronnorth (6 Sep 2008)

did you get confirmation that they recieved the money?

I was going to order quite a bit of stuff off of them the other week (viv and all the othe equipmnt needed for a gecko)


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## Joecoral (6 Sep 2008)

no confirmation that they received the money, just the order confirmation i got several minutes after placing the order. 
Money left my account on september 1st via paypal, I emailed them septermber 4th asking what was going on and where was my order, and as of today (6th) have not heard a word from the since the inital confirmation on august 27th


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## Joecoral (15 Sep 2008)

One thing I have learned through all this is to NEVER AGAIN order from onlinevivariumstore.com are they are absolutely useless
Here's a brief synopsis of my relationship with them so far:

*27th august:* order placed, email confirmation received
*1st september:* money for item leaves my bank account
*4th september:* no sign of item, no confirmation item has even been shipped, order number not recognised by their order tracking facility so email sent enquiring into status of my order
*8th september:* no reply to my email, so phonecall to customer service line made. After initally being unable to find any record of my order, after 15 mins of searching operator finally finds my order, informs me it has somehow slipped through the system and has not been processed. Assures me he will chase it up and email me with the details
*15th september (today):* no email as promised, so service line rung again. Female operator unable to find my order, says mostly things like "oops", "oh dear", "stupid computer" and even "help" before finally locking herself out of the system. Says she needs manager to unlock it for her, and will ring back in a few minutes. She finally rings back an hour later, we go through the whole process of being unable to find any record of my order again, takes my details and says she will get the guy who deals with their web orders to contact me ASAP. Still waiting to hear from him...


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## Dan Crawford (15 Sep 2008)

Hi mate, that sounds harsh. 
What gravel did you want? MA's and WoW's seel Unipac stuff. I have loads of their stuff, you need to check out their fossilised wood. mmmmmmmmmmmmm


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## Joecoral (15 Sep 2008)

tis a 25kg sack of the 2-3mm black gravel I was after. I tried a local MA first, they didnt have it in stock and when I asked if they could order me one the girl said that it comes in by the palletfull so they couldn't get me an individual one, hence me looking around on the net


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## Dan Crawford (16 Sep 2008)

Hi mate, the black stuff is the business! i use it in most of my tanks.
It surprises me that MA said that they have to order a pallet load in, thats not true, that have to order a pallet load of stock but it can be a pallet full of one of each bag in the range if they want?
Unipac have said "We DO NOT have any direct dealings with the Onlinevivariumstore. I presume that if they stock UNIPAC products, then they must be purchasing them from a wholesaler."
Are you going to be at the festival and can you wait a month? i can sort some out for you if you like. All the MAs round here stock it. We're also likely to use it when Graeme and I do the display tank for the show.
Cheers
Dan


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## Joecoral (26 Sep 2008)

Thanks for the offer Dan, but due to financial constraints I unfortuantely cannot make it to FoF (damn!   )
STILL waiting for the gravel, was told on tuesday it was "processing" and I will have it within 7 days. Whether or not that remains to be seen. I have spent more money continuously ringing the helpline chasing this up than the value of the item I ordered


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## Joecoral (1 Oct 2008)

Well it's got to the stage now where 5 weeks have past and I'm fed up of waiting and continually being told they can't find my order and will ring me back, then never ring back
So I've filed a dispute with paypal (as fortunately this was the only method of paying which would work on their website) so I should at least get my money back, if not the gravel


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## Joecoral (9 Oct 2008)

Well after 6 weeks of continually phoning the helpline and continually being promised someone would ring back only to for no one to do so, I finally said to myself enough is enough, filed a dispute with Paypal today, had my money refunded within hours!
Should have done this much sooner
Moral of the story: NEVER EVER EVER order anything from these people!


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## howardish (9 Oct 2008)

Joe, i have a 25k bag of black gravel 1-3mm sitting in my room. was gonna use it for my tank but changed my mind and never returned it.

I will post it for you for the cost of the postage if you want??
I live in essex so delivery/pick up isnt really reasonable.

havent got an idea how much it will be. will look on royal mail site to find out.

interested?
Howard

Edit: i have just checked and it is a UNIPAC gravel, the one with a big goldfish on the front. DHL do delivery for packages of 25kg and under for Â£9.99. I might be required to remove some from the pack, to take it under that but wouldnt take anymore than 250g.

Let me know
Howard


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## Joecoral (9 Oct 2008)

Thanks Howard, but I got some from a Maidenhead Aquatics store in the end, was Â£16.99 for 25kgs, as I got fed up of waiting for it to turn up from these people


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