To those of you planning on having fish shipped over the next couple weeks please rethink that decision until after the holidays. USPS is super slow right now. My VT from Chard was shipped express on Monday and as of last night still wasn't here. The tracking hasn't been updated since Monday either. I have no idea where my betta is. I'm fairly confident he'll be here today but It's hard to say. Just keep this in mind....
oh, don't worry, hun. my girls aren't here yet, but i know Chard packs them SUPER well. when i got Sniper, the night time temps were in the upper 40's, but his baggy was still warm, the heat pack was still warm, and he had, like.... wrapped them in paper, layered the box with thick padding, and lined the outside of the box in Styrofoam. i'm sure your boy will be fine.
but, yes. i think PewPewPew's story's proof of how shipping fish in cold temps can go wrong. D: i'm SO upset about that! she was super excited about getting him, too. if you DO get a fish shipped, if you can, do it Express. and try to avoid getting them around this time. x-x mail's super slow, with x-mas being next week.
i think this time of year stinks for getting bettas in general. my cousin has been admiring my fish for a while so i asked her if she wanted me to get her one for chistmas and set up it's tank and everything and she said yes. so we went last week to petsmart and the betta were right by the door and cold air was blowing in on them. the cups were all freezing. i picked 5 healthy ones for her to pick from and as soon as she decided i stuck the betta in my coat not caring if people thought i was stealing him. i complained loudly while in the check out line about how cold this tropical fish's water was, lol. her car isn't heated so he sat between my legs the whole ride home. it was 10 degrees that day... luckily he made the trip home, let him float in some hot water in the sink as soon as we made it home, still kicking today! but i think i'm going to be more careful with how cold it is when i go and get fish from now on...
USPS Express is super bad. I had an envelope shipped Express once from across town and it took 3 days to get there.
FedEx Express is much better, never had a problem with it. If you're not sure if you're going to be home, you just have to have it shipped to a FedEx Office and they will hold the package for you. Great thing about it? MOST of the time your package will arrive at 9am even if you pay for Standard Overnight (afternoon delivery)... little secret not a lot of people know about
The problem with the holidays is that NO shipping company will guarantee service, so even if your package didnt arrive on time you will not get your money back.
I used to work for USPS and, even though Express is given top priority, nothing is ever 100% guaranteed. There are a lot of Express packages going around, especially during the holiday season. Last Christmas, we were working 16-hour days just to get everything out, and we still couldn't get them all out on time. And then there are the transportation issues. Packages are loaded onto semis, and we all know how well those move on icy roads.
Edit: This isn't just limited to USPS. I worked for UPS as well, and we had similar problems. The biggest issue is to consider which company works best in your area, as they all vary nationwide. For example, when I lived in California, our FedEx guy was the bees knees. When I moved to Colorado, our new FedEx guy couldn't even find our house.
Last edited by Scruffy Nerfherder; 12-18-2011 at 09:26 PM.
i'm glad i got into bettas after we moved. the mail lady at the old place was a.... ugh. if the trash can was too close to the mail box, she wouldn't give us our mail till the next day. if we complained about her, we wouldn't get our mail for DAYS. then, we never knew when she'd deliver. it was, literally, anywhere from 11am to 5 pm with her! no lie!
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