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Post by gerbie on Mar 13, 2010 11:57:26 GMT -8
Not sure if this is the right place for this thread, but wasn't sure where it fit in best...
Anyway, I have gerbil pups currently with their mother in a glass tank and am needing to split them within the next few weeks, so decided to go and buy some more tanks today. Went into my local Pets at Home store, which was ridiculously busy, so had to wait for a member of staff to become available to ask for my tanks. Eventually someone came over to help me and not thinking too much about it I said I was looking for glass tanks for my gerbils and asked what sizes they had in. Seemed straight forward enough to me, but she just laughed and said they were fish tanks! Then tried to sell me some tiny cage for them instead. I insisted I wanted glass tanks and she proceeded to ask the manager about their suitability for gerbils. He said they weren't at all suitable and gerbils need to be in cages... So they would not sell me a tank for my gerbils! I'm so annoyed, I will have to go to another store and say I have fish now just to get my tanks! Sorry for the rant, I just found this ridiculous! Has anyone else ever had this problem?
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Post by petal on Mar 13, 2010 12:15:25 GMT -8
hi
i to have had this problem from pets at home. i went in and baught a gerbil and they wouldnt sell me any tank or cage apart from their gerbilariums. everything else was 'unsuitable', so as i wanted the gerbil and didnt have a cage for him at home i had to buy the gerbilranium which was 45 pounds where there was loads cheaper and bigger! the next week i went out and bought a tank for 40 pounds thats massive and they love it!
i wasnt very impressed. but a glass tank is suitable!
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doug
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Post by doug on Mar 13, 2010 12:19:00 GMT -8
Just because a person manages a pet store doesn't mean they have any experience with animals, a local pet store owner is an accountant by trade and only owned dogs and cats prior opening the store, I was able to see him in action when a person asked about an aquarium pump, he picked up the box and read the info directly off the box. It is possible the same thing is going on with the people you talked to.
Doug
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Post by gerbie on Mar 13, 2010 12:34:14 GMT -8
Thanks for your replies  petal: Welcome to the forum! That's all they kept saying to me, the tanks are not suitable, it was so irritating! I currently have a gerbilarium and a tank, but want to replace the gerbilarium as they are so messy, hard to clean and smell far more than the tank does. Plus my gerbils which are in a tank seem much happier as they can dig more. I got the large gerbilarium, think it was £69.99 and the gerbils have chewed all the paint off the metal, it looks horrible now. I was just so surprised at being told I couldn't buy tanks for them. doug: I agree with that, they probably don't actually know the first thing about gerbils. They probably just push the gerbilariums and cages as they are about twice the price of the glass tanks. I am just going to have to keep my mouth shut about gerbils when I next go to buy tanks so they will actually sell me some. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2010 14:00:26 GMT -8
I've never told them what I want a tank for when I've gone in stores. But I can't imagine the ones I've been to refusing to sell me them. That's just wrong.
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Post by gerbie on Mar 13, 2010 14:57:23 GMT -8
Well with hindsight I shouldn't have said it was for gerbils, but I didn't expect them to stop me buying tanks for them. It is wrong that they refused to sell me them, I could see that if I was trying to house them in something that actually was unsuitable then they should refuse, but a glass tank? It's just crazy! I will try a different store and not mention gerbils next time and hopefully get my tanks.
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Post by laurie on Mar 13, 2010 17:29:24 GMT -8
When I bought my gerbils, I grabbed a plastic type contraption for their home. The sales lady at the store told me the plastic was not suitable for gerbils and told me to get the 10 gallon glass aquarium instead. This was a family owned buisness instead of a chain pet store.
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Post by gerbie on Mar 14, 2010 14:36:07 GMT -8
That probably makes a big difference actually if it's a family owned store, unfortunately I don't know of any near to me, the only local ones are Pets at Home, and I don't think they always know what's best for the animals, from my experience anyway, it may be different in other stores. The ones I've been to seem more interested in profits rather than animal welfare which is quite sad  |
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Lady Angel
Member
Gerbils are little angels that are always there for us... we just need to be there for them too. :)
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Post by Lady Angel on Mar 22, 2010 15:46:43 GMT -8
Don't think twice about it Gerbie... I had similar experience with pets at home (yes I wrote small letters on purpose) I rang the and asked them if they would like to buy some gerbils from an experienced breeder who actually bought one of the gerbils from them and the other was adapted trough their adoption centre. The woman nearly shouted at me down the phone that if she knew I was going to breed these she would have never sold them to me... I clmy told her that she has no right to refuse the sale to the customer unless he/she is uner the influence of alcohol is abusive or in any other way braking the law... otherwise it is entirely up to me what I want to do with them and I DID NOT buy them as snake lunch... I did mention at the time of buying that the male is going to be introduced to the female (DUH obviously there will be babies at one point) She called me IRRESPONSIBLE PET OWNER and slammed the phone down....    Complained against that store straight away... geesh some people... I think that P@H are overpriced anyway... I'm thinking about going and setting up ebay-pet-store specifically for gerbils and small animals. Anyone would be interested? |
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Post by ohmylokix on Mar 22, 2010 16:12:47 GMT -8
Well, PAH gerbils shouldn't be bred. They have had a LOT of serious issues with their suppliers-- they have been spreading a pretty gnarly gene in pied/spotted gerbils(called extreme white and white-paw-- causes deafness, etc.).. as well as some nasty diseases(someone bred exclusively PAH stock and lost a TON of babies). So I can see why she was upset, if she'd had complaints in the past about it, as she didn't want to be responsible if your babies died.
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Post by gerbie on Mar 23, 2010 1:28:44 GMT -8
I don't think Pets at Home have any right to refuse a sale unless they suspect say animal cruelty or something. It sounds very out of order the way you were spoken to, Lady Angel, and sounds like they deserved a complaint! I have had a few problems with them though, they mis-sexed my two 'males' so I ended up with pups. I wouldn't swap them for the world now but I think they actually cause a lot of problems themselves by making this sort of mistake. From my experience they caused me to have many more gerbils than I anticipated, then would not sell me a tank to keep them in! I wish I had a different pet store to go to. And yes, I agree with you, they are overpriced, if you set up an ebay store I would definitely be interested |
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Post by Powerpuffgerbils on Mar 23, 2010 14:15:26 GMT -8
Geez. O.o I would email the company and complain, but I can't imagine it would do much good. :S Sorry that happened, I can't believe that they would do that. They obviously have no experience whatsoever with gerbils. xD
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Post by gerbie on Mar 24, 2010 13:38:14 GMT -8
I was going to complain but figured they wouldn't take responsibility for their mistake, so didn't bother, it would probably only make me more angry with them anyway! Besides I adore all my gerbs and couldn't part with them now even if they offered to take the pups off my hands, its just a heck of a lot more than I planned to keep, at least they'll keep me busy I still can't believe they did it, you would think they would give their staff training on sexing ALL the animals that they have in store... Or maybe that's too logical haha! |
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Post by Powerpuffgerbils on Mar 24, 2010 15:04:59 GMT -8
Haha, who would ACTUALLY train their staff?! That's just nuts.  |
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Post by maxduo on Mar 24, 2010 22:14:16 GMT -8
Haha, who would ACTUALLY train their staff?! That's just nuts. Technically lots of companies do hate hiring new people due to not wanting to pay to train them....... I work at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and at some point we had about 6-7 people leave the company in a year's time. We had one person transfer in so we were still 5-6 people short. They denied us hiring privileges. We went like 2 months without enough staffing to get anything done. THey even authorized the store to give overtime to full time and part time employees that wanted it. Not sure how they saw that as a better option as they lowered the highering rate. I'm sure they'd rather pay some new person a few hours than pay me, a part timer who has had 2 raises, time and a half. Bed, Bath, and Beyond corporate is completely awful though. The tops of almost all big companies out there are awful though -_- |
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