Dan Grubb, Problem Customer

We recently sold an order of frozen pinkie mice to Dan Grubb in Irvine, California. Upon receiving them, he claimed that the pinkies were "discolored" when he received them and "turned to mush" when he thawed them out. These pinkies were fresh and pink when we sent them out. He claimed to have received them in frozen condition, so the problem wasn't a matter of the pinkies thawing out in transit.

We have sold these same pinkies to several other customers, and have had no complaints. We are also using these same pinkies to feed our own hatchlings. We have used several hundred of them and have had no problems with them at all.

We don't want our customers to be unhappy with anything they have purchased from us. While we questioned the validity of his claim that the rodents were no good, we agreed to take them back and give a full refund provided that we received them back in the same condition we sent them out, and asked that they be packaged for the return as we had packaged them to send them out.

We received them back today, improperly packaged, the pinkies warm and turned to mush, and definitely not in the same condition we sent them out. They are unusable and will have to go into the trash. We emailed him about the condition in which we received the shipment and the poor packing job and he emailed us back with the lame excuse that he "never shipped anything frozen and didn't know how to do it." No offer to waive his refund, not even an apology.

We went ahead and gave him a full refund, even though the agreement was that the refund would be issued on the condition that we received the order back in the same condition we sent it out. He didn't keep his end of the bargain, and we would have been in our right to deny the refund. However, we don't need this person trashing our reputation over a $115 transaction. So now we are out both the $115 and the 350 frozen pinkie mice.

Needless to say, Dan Grubb is now on our "do not do business" list. We will never do business with him again. Beware.

Isis Madec
Isis Reptiles

Isis, I don't think this is a BOI issue. This is a customer service issue.

A couple of questions though:

1- Why would you want them back? Were you intending on sending them to someone else?
2- How could he ship them back to you in the same condition as you sent them out when his complaint was that they turned to mush?

Actually expecting customers to purchase dry ice and repack frozen rodents is a lot IMO. Also, IMO, if you're going to refund his money do it with a smile. Why blow the goodwill you're getting with good customer service by upsetting your customer even more. So now your out the mice, the sale and still have an unhappy customer.

Originally Posted by kmurphy

Isis, I don't think this is a BOI issue. This is a customer service issue.

A couple of questions though:

1- Why would you want them back? Were you intending on sending them to someone else?
2- How could he ship them back to you in the same condition as you sent them out when his complaint was that they turned to mush?

Actually expecting customers to purchase dry ice and repack frozen rodents is a lot IMO. Also, IMO, if you're going to refund his money do it with a smile. Why blow the goodwill you're getting with good customer service by upsetting your customer even more. So now your out the mice, the sale and still have an unhappy customer.

Very well said!

Did he defrost them improperly? If you defrost pinks in too hot of a water temp for too long they will turn to mush.

From my perspective you did the right thing, other than demanding that the pinks be returned and possibly posting a bad guy thread on them.
Sometimes you just have to take your customers word and do the right thing.
I feel the right way to have handled it would have been to simply refund the money or replace the bad shipment.
I know that is how at least one rodent supplier handles it. When a shipment was delayed by the carrier for 5 days and arrived here thawed, warmed and rotting all it took was my notifying the supplier and they sent out a replacement shipment, no questions asked, via another carrier.

If I may ask, how do you keep your rodent shipments frozen in transit?

While I don't doubt that your situation is frustrating for you, I have to say....in the very few times that I have had issues with frozen feeders, I have never been asked to send them back, I have always gotten replacements on my word. Honestly, I would have no idea how to do so either, and wonder if the cost for me to send them back to arrive still frozen would be prohibitive? Instead of having him send them back for a refund, perhaps you could have offered replacement pinks, which would cost you less than the monetary refund, I would imagine?

I agree. While your other customers may have not had any problems with the pinkies, it's still a tall order to conclude that the customer was lying to you or otherwise wrong in some way. It's your right to choose not to deal with him, but I don't see how he could have done anything wrong.

Plus, as someone else stated, were you planning on reselling the pinkies? Why did you want them returned in the first place? That's something I would have a big problem with.

*should read, I don't see how you can just assume he did anything wrong. There's always the possibility that he could have.

What makes him a bad guy?

I'm not sure where to get DRY ICE or if I even can. The fact that he sent them back seems to show he didn't want them for some reason and proof is on you to prove he was trying to rip you off. Maybe it was his fault they turned to mush but can you prove it? If you can then you have a case. (Whose dime was it on to send them back?)

No one likes to loose money but things happen. (Part of doing business I guess) I think you should have held your tongue and not posted this here maybe in another part of this forum asking your best course of action instead.

Have you emailed him to show him this POST? I think he has a right to know you have posted this about him (tried to give him a bad name) and allow him to answer back. If you have not or do not want to inform him about this post I think that is pretty crappy on your part.

Did you ask for any pics? He might not have known what good pinkies look like, and then, would have sent back perfectly useable pinkies, that went bad during the return shipping.

Dave