Passive Agressive me...

[Jezah]

So, I went into Wal-mart today and decided to look in the fish section. Phew, it smelt soooooo bad! I kinda figured it was coming from the bettas. So I go over to the female bettas and they are all dead or half-dead. Obviously some employee had stuffed the dead girls in the back. So, I, being the not so ready to confront kinda gal....take all the dead bettas and stack them in a solid row in the front. So as someone passes all they see, and smell, are 15 dead bettas. Maybe, just maybe....this will inspire a wal-mart employee to remove the dead girls and clean the cups? I dunno, all I know is that was all I felt comfortable doing.

 

[BettaMomma]

I'd really like to call that store - if you don't mind.
Lemme know what the store is, and where it was.
I can find the phone number.

 

[Bettabelieveit]

Seriously, that's disgusting and horrible, and neglectful to the fullest extent to have THAT many dead fish, of any kind, especialy betta, who don't share water. those fish people at the store should be shoved head first down a toilet. grr

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Lol, i think you did exactly the right thing and hopefully it will discourage people from buying the bettas, although that is realy bad behavior of walmart

 

[Ember]

This is worthy of a flood of protest letters to the main office.
Unfortunately, telling a clerk that doesn't care anyway might not get you anywhere but frustrated.

See if you can find out the branch number.

 

[Jezah]

Its in Manchester NH. The number is (603)621-9666. Feel free to call and complain, I just didnt feel comfortable doing it. It was pretty horrible conditions though, and they also had male bettas in with tetras in their tanks. The poor bettas tails were like shredded.

 

[jols]

Jezah-I know how you feel...
I went to Walmart yesterday, bought a boy betta....and whilest I was making my decision, there was in fact a person in the fish section...this short guy who looked shall we say...like he was 'all that' or something.
Well, while I was deciding for sure on weither to 'rescue' a boy...and my conflicting emoitions on actually speaking out, the manager of the store came over and asked if the fish were still alive!? I wish I would've had the guts to go over and lay some 'smack-down' on them.

Obviously shows how cold-hearted and stupid people are.
A woman came over with her kids to buy some fish and asked the 'I'm so cool' boy if they were 'fresh' he said, you could say that.
I didn't look in many other tanks as my main buy power went to bettas and goldfish...and there were baby 'pond koi' in with the little 'fancytails' and there was an oranda in the bubble-eye/oranda tank that had mouth fungus, and another had such bad swimbladder, I thought he was dead...but his eyes were moving.

The bettas weren't too bad, but one boy was so beat up....he had to have been in a fight, because his top fin, anal, and 'tail' fin were all chewed up so badly, *but healing* I thought he was a female! I picked him up to actually look closer to tell.

Needless to say I chickened out and wrote BettaMomma about it...but when I had to go back and get some gravel, a lady was buying some goldfish, and when I walked away *I have no idea if I said it loud enough* 'I hope your fish live' Bill, my boyfriend was like wtf? I said, remember how many fish 'I' went though?

 

[BettaMomma]

I most definitely will be calling there to complain.
There is NO excuse for that - NONE.

I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[pseud]

BettaMomma - I liked your post about rescuing bettas, and I think you should write another one on how to complain. Like, what people should say, what facts to tell the stores, common rebuttals that you should use etc. I'd certainly call some places up about stuff like that if I just had a little more guiding on what to say...

 

[wrs]

you have a lot of guts to call Betta Mama, I would be to shy and nervous to call. Good for you!

I hope your call will help change the stores out look on the fish.

I think it would help if you called as well Jezah, two calls in a day must mean that the store sucks. Hey others should call as well. The more calls the more it would help.

 

[Jezah]

Well, I am going back today to check on the bettas. I will let you know how they are doing!

 

[BettaMomma]

BettaMomma - I liked your post about rescuing bettas, and I think you should write another one on how to complain. Like, what people should say, what facts to tell the stores, common rebuttals that you should use etc. I'd certainly call some places up about stuff like that if I just had a little more guiding on what to say...

Great idea - maybe I'll just go add it to the original one.

 

[Jezah]

Well, they removed the dead female bettas....and thats it. The cups are still dirty, and to top it all off...they had put a male betta in with tinfoil barbs. The betta was nearly finless and bleeding. I tried to get someone over to get the betta out but he died before I could. I am so peeved right now, and dont know what to do. The conditions these fish are in are horrible and I am STILL too nervous to call and complain.

 

[BettaMomma]

Hi there -
Well, I finally had some time to give this store a call last night.
I got ahold of a really cool manager. He and I talked for about 15 minutes, and when I told him how many dead fish there were, he said he was horribly embarrassed and that should NEVER EVER happen. I told him about how it's sort of become an epidemic across the country, yadda yadda.

He told me he's a fish hobbyist himself, and that while he normally doesn't patrol that section of the store much (as no one does at that store, much like other WMs EVERYWHERE) but he was going to go make a run thru the department last night, and he was also going to bring it up at their staff meeting today. I also gave him a suggestion (like I do every time I call WM and complain about how fish are kept) that they should type up some kind of fishy care sheets - just for the employees - so that if/when the person who knows how to take care of the fish is out or gone or sick, or on vacation or something, whoever is covering will know what to do for the fish and they don't just get left unattended. I also told him that some training for those who work in that department would be a really good thing, but I think that's asking for a lot.

He gave me some REALLY good advice. He told me to get on the phone and call the WalMart home office 1-800-WALMART and lodge complaints - and that the home office has the power to send out announcements to every WM store in the country. He said that if the head office gets enough complaints about something, they'll contact all the stores and threaten them to clean up their act. People - you know what you need to do now.

So, I know I will be making that call - but I'm going to gather my facts, and get a list of stores that I have made calls to and rattle them off to whoever has the misfortune of answering my call.

OH - AND VERY IMPORTANTLY - he made a comment that I wanted to pass on to everyone... he said (and I'm quoting him as nearly as I can remember) "Thank you for calling, I appreciate it - there is no way that we, as store managers, will ever know that there are issues with this unless you customers call us..."

 

[Jezah]

Thanks BettaMomma! I will check Wal-mart fishes next time I go, and hopefully he is true to his word. I feel bad I didnt call...but I am just not that brave kinda person. I will though call the main home offices, cause that is a little more impersonal. Cause its not like I will be walking into their home office alot...lol.