Crickets Direct (Bad Guy)

I ordered 2000, 1 week old crickets. Their website is www.cricketsdirect.com. It was a nice layout, so i thought that they were a big clean professional wholesaler, along with the fact they had reasonable prices. I saw that the 1 weeks were pretty big and that was a selling point for me, just the right size for baby geckos but not too small for adults. I feed mealworms but many of you know theres a shortage going on. Well, heres what i got

Now i have 2000 pinheads that are pretty much worthless to me, i have no food i had to resort to ***co and the local pet store, which were expensive. So now even better news, some weird millipede roach like bug is in with them, theyre sealed in a Tupperware, i don't know how those could get in. Biggest 30 dollar waste of my life. And to top it off they havent responded to my numerous emails. I waited a good while (i don't feel like checking its been more than a week) for them to respond, i hate jumping the gun, especially on this forum. Sorry for the long post, but ill get pictures of the roach like things ASAP.

Sorry you did not get what you were hoping for. Did you attempt to contact them to get something worked out? Have you notified them about this thread?

Just as info the "weird millipede roach like bug" is probably a Dermestid Beetle Larvae. I get them once in a while when I buy crickets. They are harmless and feed on dead crickets.

Thanks for the picture. That actually clearly shows 1 week old crickets. Maybe even 8 to 10 days old. Order some actual pinheads and realize what you are saying. Why would you bother posting about this company because you are ignorant and ordered the wrong sized cricket? 2 week old crickets are about 1/4". Those are ABSOLUTELY not pinheads, they are very clearly one week old!

What a waste of space. You should apologize to the cricket farm, and the board for this post! I have been ordering crickets for years and years, from almost every supplier out there. There are some bad ones. But in this case, the buyer is the problem, not the seller. Hopefully Rich or a moderator can see by the picture that this is a waste of space and removes it for the company's sake.

James Stevens

Yeah, i sent multiple emails and they never responded. Ive waited a week and nothing, i didnt want to have to post here, i would have rather them just fixed it. Thanks John, so those fuzzy things wont hurt the colony at all?

Originally Posted by chameleonsrus

Thanks for the picture. That actually clearly shows 1 week old crickets. Maybe even 8 to 10 days old. Order some actual pinheads and realize what you are saying. Why would you bother posting about this company because you are ignorant and ordered the wrong sized cricket? 2 week old crickets are about 1/4". Those are ABSOLUTELY not pinheads, they are very clearly one week old!

What a waste of space. You should apologize to the cricket farm, and the board for this post! I have been ordering crickets for years and years, from almost every supplier out there. There are some bad ones. But in this case, the buyer is the problem, not the seller. Hopefully Rich or a moderator can see by the picture that this is a waste of space and removes it for the company's sake.

James Stevens

exactly why i hesitate to post. The crickets pictured, on the egg crate, are 1 week olds that i bought from them, that is them out of the box. The sizing guide is their picture on their website. Now if they post that i would think i would get the size they have online.

Paul, one thing you do need to keep in mind is that their sizing guide is less than helpful. It may be that the week-old pic looks larger on your computer than it did on the seller's computer due to differences in resolutions. It would be more helpful if their guide contained an object like a ruler or even a coin. I'm looking at the cricket guide on two different monitors right now and each one is a different size. I don't think it's done to cheat the customer, I think it's just a general chart to say "hey, this is a rough comparison."

Next time if size is so important to you, you might want to take that into consideration and ask the seller for a visible comparison with a known object. Not slagging you or anything, and I don't have enough experience with small crickets to know whether those are truly week-olds, but it is something to be aware of when buying sized items on the internet going by only a photo.

Originally Posted by Jaybee

Paul, one thing you do need to keep in mind is that their sizing guide is less than helpful. It may be that the week-old pic looks larger on your computer than it did on the seller's computer due to differences in resolutions. It would be more helpful if their guide contained an object like a ruler or even a coin. I'm looking at the cricket guide on two different monitors right now and each one is a different size. I don't think it's done to cheat the customer, I think it's just a general chart to say "hey, this is a rough comparison."

Next time if size is so important to you, you might want to take that into consideration and ask the seller for a visible comparison with a known object. Not slagging you or anything, and I don't have enough experience with small crickets to know whether those are truly week-olds, but it is something to be aware of when buying sized items on the internet going by only a photo.

Yes, I understand that those are week olds. But also the fact they never responded to my emails really gets me, that fact would probably make an apology useless chameleonsrus.

CALL them then. Do they not have a phone number? That website is owned by Rainbow Mealworms. Just a separate site for their online stuff. Just seems to me like it is easier to figure this out on your own than slamming a company that, besides not emailing you back, did nothing wrong, and sent you the correct sized crickets, all alive. You actually have nothing to contact them about, as what you got was what you ordered. Typical jumping the gun. Seriously - think about it. If what you got was a legit 1 week old cricket (which I guarantee almost everyone on this site who gets crickets knows just by the picture), then why bother with the post? You can't undo it now...

Paul,
It is unfortunate that you did not get what you wanted, or expected. I would agree with an above poster that I would not call them "pin-heads" either, but also think that the supplier has erred with their size-photos. While the six-week "adult" is a good 30% larger in my resolution than an actual adult african grey cricket would be, in doing the same size reduction on the "pinhead", it would appear that you got what they call "pinheads", although in most folk's books, "pinheads" are smaller than what they have pictured. While cricket growth is very temperature dependent, I think that their pictured "one-week old" is larger than most crickets would grow to be in one week, even at optimum temperatures. So, regardless of what I and opthers think, their pictures set the standards for their product, you did not get what was advertised.

You can also get a smaller plastic bin, provide some dry grain cereal and fresh greens, keep it at 85 degrees plus, and have them to a better size in a week. It would also be better to deal with a cricket supplier that can sell you a size-range, rather than an age, point being you don't care how old it is so long as it is of the size that you need.

Of final note is just a personal comment. Cricket providers make a killing off of selling young crickets at the same price as adult crickets. I have seen a few that offer mild discounts, but still it is at a huge profit margin compared to selling adult crickets. All crickets hatch in about 10 days, give or take, depending on temps. You can figure your own cost to the cricket producer of whether or not they sell those crickets at roughly 1 cent each after only raising them 1-2 weeks, or 1 cent each after 6 weeks, but my estimate is that they make three times the profit selling small crickets, or put another way, only expend one-third the cost in producing them, as with larger crickets. Point being that cricket companies should be most attentive to their customers who buy small crickets. I personally produce about 20K crickets per week, and base my estimates on that, and years of dealing with cricket companies.

Back to topic. They owe you. And they need to hit their target sizes, which are their photos.

Jeff in San Fran,
Yes, he got one week old crickets. But he did not get the super-sized "one week old" crickets as advertised. The seller created the size expectation, and the buyer was under no obligation to know better here. In my view, contrary to your conclusion, the company did do wrong. I also found your assessment that since he got "legit one week old crickets", and therefore does not have a valid claim, to be somewhat confusing, as it implies that the photos provided by the company are not "legit". Help me out here.