# Just what are LFS responsible for?



## DeadFishFloating (Oct 9, 2007)

Hey guys,

This is a little gripe, so feel free to say what ever you want.

I am sick and tired of reading posts from people that they wish the LFS gave them some more information before they spent x dollars on such an such fish or equipement.

All I can say, if you buy something, anything, without some appropriate research into it, _more fool you_.

It's not the LFS's responsibilty to educate you. Sure, good LFS will help educate people, but that's not what they're in business for.

When it comes to fish, don't buy it on the spot. Go home and spend a couple of hours, to days, doing some research. If you're really worried that you'll miss out on a great fish, ask the LFS if you can come to some type of arrangement on it. Say a 20% returnable deposit for 24 hours, or something similar. At worst, take it home and put in quarantine, an hope the LFS will take it back if it's unsuitable.

It's not the LFS's fault if you buy a fish totally inappropriate for your set up. IT"S YOURS.


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## Donfish (Dec 24, 2007)

Seen a couple using their cellphone internet to research the different fish at "That Fish Place" this weekend. Made me smile. That was good.


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## Joea (May 25, 2004)

It's the LFS fault when they give spurious information and tell you that any information you may have gotten from the internet should be ignored. I've seen LFS employees and owners do this. On one occasion, I had to step in to tell someone that the Oscar that they were thinking of purchasing for their 29 gallon would outgrow it, after I overheard the owner tell them that it would only grow to the size of its environment, despite what this person read on Cichlid-forum. He also conveniently added that CF was a poor source for information on anything other than Africans.

LFS's aren't selling just filters and tanks, they're selling livestock, and all of us were neophytes at one time. You can do all the research you want, and you should, but if you've never kept fish before and come up against someone claiming to have _years _of experience, it's likely you're going to listen. LFS employees and owners may not have a responsibility for customers purchasing their fish, but they certainly have a responsibility to be educated in the fish they're selling - even if only moderately - and give accurate and truthful advice.


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## exasperatus2002 (Jul 5, 2003)

When I worked at an lfs, my biggest gripe was that customers either didnt want to hear it or they just didnt care. I even made free care sheets and they didnt want them. They'd spend 3-800 dollars on complete set ups & stock it but didnt want the information do to it right. Wet pets are expendable to most people in the city that I dealt with. The other gripe I had were from two particular individuals who'd pick my brain go to another store get told something different, buy from them, kill it & come back to me to say I was right about such and such and still go somewhere else.

Its true some stores will give bad info just to get a sale & that is dispicable. But theres far more customers whose ignorance causes the problems then lfs's.


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## Nathan43 (Jul 9, 2007)

exasperatus2002 said:


> Wet pets are expendable to most people in the city that I dealt with. quote]
> 
> I think this is the case everywhere, makes me sad :?


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

DeadFishFloating said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> This is a little gripe, so feel free to say what ever you want.
> 
> ...


Amen! :thumb:


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## Marconis (Feb 9, 2007)

Joea said:


> It's the LFS fault when they give spurious information and tell you that any information you may have gotten from the internet should be ignored. I've seen LFS employees and owners do this. On one occasion, I had to step in to tell someone that the Oscar that they were thinking of purchasing for their 29 gallon would outgrow it, after I overheard the owner tell them that it would only grow to the size of its environment, despite what this person read on Cichlid-forum. He also conveniently added that CF was a poor source for information on anything other than Africans.
> 
> LFS's aren't selling just filters and tanks, they're selling livestock, and all of us were neophytes at one time. You can do all the research you want, and you should, but if you've never kept fish before and come up against someone claiming to have _years _of experience, it's likely you're going to listen. LFS employees and owners may not have a responsibility for customers purchasing their fish, but they certainly have a responsibility to be educated in the fish they're selling - even if only moderately - and give accurate and truthful advice.


Yeah, this bugs me too. I buy all my dry goods in Petsmart. On at least three different occasions, I have overheard employees practically lying to customers just to make a sale. I really am not all that knowledgeable, but I do know a decent amount and the most basic information. One time I actually had to butt in and tell the employee he was so wrong (he was telling the customer he could put an Oscar in with Africans, Americans and various tropical fish without any problems...practically saying compatibility worked for everything). The guy really appreciated it, he pulled me aside and I told him better options and even told him he was getting ripped off with some stuff he was buying (such as a $28 20lb bag of sand).


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## Fishguy28 (Feb 5, 2007)

I have actually been banned from a few stores for telling other customers the truth and disrupting their sales. One incident a manager tried to push me out of the store after I talked a customer out of the Silver Dollars that were recommended to go with the plants she was buying. Just shows the trouble research can keep you out of or get you into.


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## LJ (Sep 12, 2007)

Yeah it would be one thing for the LFS to simply not educate buyers; it's the intentional miseducation that really sucks, and the LFS has incentives to intenitonally miseducate. Because of this, you have to figure that on average, a bit of knowledge attained from CF is more reliable than a bit of knowledge obtained from an inquiry at the LFS. Not that there is not some BS on CF, but on CF, most people only have the incentives to _unintentionally_ miseducate.

The bad part is that people have a tendency to believe that which they want to hear. So when buyers read some bit of information on CF and get conflicting information from the LFS, they will often believe the LFS, because the LFS has intentionally fed them the wrong information that they wanted to hear in the first place.


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## LJ (Sep 12, 2007)

LJ said:


> but on CF, most people only have the incentives to _unintentionally_ miseducate.


But on second thought this is probably not always true.


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

LJ said:


> The bad part is that people have a tendency to believe that which they want to hear. So when buyers read some bit of information on CF and get conflicting information from the LFS, they will often believe the LFS, because the LFS has intentionally fed them the wrong information that they wanted to hear in the first place.


I definitely get the feeling that some folks believe that CF has priority.... perhaps from the love for conspiracy theories.... that all LFS's have economic incentive to provide wrong information.

-Ryan


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## dogofwar (Apr 5, 2004)

Disrupting sales in stores is far from cool. There are ways of "intervening" that don't involve taking a sale away from the store.

Just the other day I was in an LFS and a guy told the clerk he wanted some feeders for his oscars. I asked him whether he'd ever tried live superworms with his oscar...he hadn't...and bought the worms and a container for them (probably $15 sale) instead of the feeders ($2 sale...and bad for the fish).

If the LFS are banning you...you're doing something wrong.



Fishguy28 said:


> I have actually been banned from a few stores for telling other customers the truth and disrupting their sales. One incident a manager tried to push me out of the store after I talked a customer out of the Silver Dollars that were recommended to go with the plants she was buying. Just shows the trouble research can keep you out of or get you into.


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## LJ (Sep 12, 2007)

RyanR said:


> I definitely get the feeling that some folks believe that CF has priority....


What do you mean by priority?



RyanR said:


> all LFS's have economic incentive to provide wrong information.


Imagine there is some set of information conveyed from LFS to buyer, and that each informational element in that set can be either true or false. I believe it true, that for most LFSs, the economic benefit associated with presenting an information set in which at least one informational element is false, is at least as large as the benefit associated with presenting the information set in which all elements are true.


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## Fishguy28 (Feb 5, 2007)

dogofwar said:


> Disrupting sales in stores is far from cool. There are ways of "intervening" that don't involve taking a sale away from the store.
> 
> Just the other day I was in an LFS and a guy told the clerk he wanted some feeders for his oscars. I asked him whether he'd ever tried live superworms with his oscar...he hadn't...and bought the worms and a container for them (probably $15 sale) instead of the feeders ($2 sale...and bad for the fish).
> 
> If the LFS are banning you...you're doing something wrong.


The only sale that I disrupted was the Silver Dollars. I did point the customer in the direction of some nice Tetras, Cories and Laetacara so the store did come out ahead. They just wanted to move the Silver Dollars which were marked buy 1 get 1 thus making the manager angry regardless. As the stores see it what they know is right whether or not it is correct info.
Should I have walked away when a chain store employee told a friend of mine that Oscars only get 10" and because of the 1" per gallon 'rule' he could put 5 of them in his 55? Come one if it's not a mom and pop store all the care about is making a buck.


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## dogofwar (Apr 5, 2004)

You said that you had been banned by a few stores...so it sounded like this is your MO...

Believe me: being adversarial with stores - large or small - will get you nowhere.

Want to know another way to piss off people who work in a fish store? Tell someone to buy a filter that they're about to pay for online because it's cheaper.


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

DeadFishFloating said:


> It's not the LFS's fault if you buy a fish totally inappropriate for your set up. IT"S YOURS.


 to cast blame, in any direction, is irrelevant to the fish. we ALL need to care, we ALL need to help, and we ALL need to chastise those in the hobby/business who are not actively educating the ignorant.


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## dogofwar (Apr 5, 2004)

There's a way to do it...and a way not to do it...


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## tankhead (Aug 8, 2008)

Every bought a car and not been given all the correct info? At least fish are much cheaper. Buyer beware doesn't just apply to LFS.


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## raggs715 (Mar 6, 2009)

1 for one feel like you have you good LFS's and your money hungry LFS's... as a Afican cichid noob i didnt know black from white, but i had a good idea of fish being i kept discus for over 10 years...

I feel you know when you talk to the LFS and hes says "yea, they should go together OK"... you know hes laying a line of BS... or you can tell when hes selling Danios for 4.99 (WAY TOOO MUCH!)

I got lucky i found a breeder in my area, and BOY i have leanre so much from him, his passion for Africans is unreal... he will tell me no dont buy those they are bad for your tank rather check out this guy hes got better coloration and will be good with your tank... but i know those are few and far between....

But they all try to push their products....just to make a sale....best i find is when you compair the two stores and then you come on here and get non sales people info you know who is BS'ing you


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## edouthirt (Jan 22, 2008)

> Every bought a car and not been given all the correct info? At least fish are much cheaper. Buyer beware doesn't just apply to LFS.


But your car isn't a living creature.


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