I bought a GIANT Star finch today :)

Anneka · Post by **Anneka** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 1:20 am

Another visit to Petsmart and another fid came home with me. A pretty Star finch.

The girl who was assiting me with this purchase, was either very new or just not a bird person.

I asked her to catch two Star finches for me so that I could inspect each and then decide which one I wanted.

1. The cage was small and I understand it is not easy to catch a finch, but you need to be quick. She was just taking her time, waving at the finch, which to me looked as she was hoping that finch would sit on her hand.

2. 10 mins passed by and finally one was in the box. Another 10 mins passed by and she had 2 in the box.

3. I told her I would inspect each but would take them out myself, but she insisted she would do it for me. I knew what was going to happen next and I was right. One Star flew out of the box

4. When getting my paperwork ready, she said she needed to weigh my finch

She is probably the only one that follows that store policy, because I bought a few birds from them and that was the VERY first time someone weighed a finch.

5. I went to a cash register and the computer was not able to located bird's number. As they found out, that girl wrote the number incorrectly.

6. I came home and read my receipt again and noticed that she wrote under bird's weight: 9-1/4 oz.
Don't you think this would be a GIANT finch

I bet their scale is in grams.

Both Star's were so exhausted by the time that chase was over.

My little guy is sitting on the top of their bamboo nest, and won't even move.

EmilyHurd · Post by **EmilyHurd** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:16 am

That's funny....

I don't know when they are going to get their staff trained properly, but I also purchased two finches from petsmart today too. I looked everywhere for an owl finch, and everyone wanted between $150-$200 for a single owl finch. Well I found a nice looking one at Petsmart, so I bought it. Then, I saw a really pretty Indian Silverbill. Well, it was in the cage with the societies, so I was charged the price of a society for the silverbill.

I wonder if that is really bad for me to get away with that

Maybe if they would hire people that knew what they were doing, they wouldn't lose profit.

Anneka · Post by **Anneka** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:07 am

Emily, you are so lucky they charged you such a low price for your owl.
It is not a good thing to do, but ... I would be happy if it happened to me.

kenny · Post by **kenny** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:37 am

the people who work in those places should be trained up properly as they obviously dont know about the stress birds go through just to get caught they should at least be bird lovers as most of them have no clue whatsoever what to do with them

ken

kittani79 · Post by **kittani79** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:07 pm

Let's not say "all pet store employees are crap" please, I will be highly offended. Even though I will agree that it's more the case than not.

It's hard to find a bird lover that wants to work at a petsmart. Most are a liittle "too good" for *that* kind of work.

You never know when you'll get part-time guy who passed the certification just barely, or full-time bird lover person.

Incidentally, we only have to weigh hand-fed birds when we sell them. Probably a new employee.

EmilyHurd · Post by **EmilyHurd** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:34 am

I definitely don't think the pet store employees are crap or anything... I just think that many are not properly trained, especially on finches. Sometimes they seem a little more knowledgable on the parakeets, perhaps because they are more popular?

But the fact that they don't know which species is which can be taken advantage of. Especially by finch people who don't want to pay as much for certain finches.

kenny · Post by **kenny** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:47 am

emily
i did not say all or any of them where crap...as i said they should all go through training and not be allowed to touch the birds until they know the species and how to care for them so that they can give people who want to seriously get into bird keeping good advice and not just a generalization i know a few are good at what they do but the majority need retraining

ken

Christopher Smith · Post by **Christopher Smith** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 3:31 pm

EmilyHurd wrote:
I wonder if that is really bad for me to get away with that

Yes, it was really that bad. If you didn’t know the difference between the two birds and you happened to get the more expensive bird, it wouldn’t be so bad. But you did know the difference and took advantage of someone else’s ignorance and defrauded the store of a few bucks. Would you think that it was OK if they had sold you the Society for the Silverbill price and took advantage of your ignorance? Maybe you could of been a bigger person and taught the sales person the difference?

In the big picture I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. But you did ask the question.

kenny · Post by **kenny** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 8:33 pm

hi christopher
i think that was a bit too much,after all emily did not set out to defraud them them..they made the mistake so its thier loss

ken

Gunnar · Post by **Gunnar** » Sat Oct 20, 2007 11:25 pm

I used to work at Petsmart. I think it was about 10 years ago. I had been breeding finches for about 5 years prior to having the job. I thought it was alot of fun to share my knowlege with some of the customers. It was a little frusterating to deal with the people who came in X-Mas eve to grab a bird and wouldn't even give you the time to explain the care for it. Then they'd have the balls to come back with a dead bird 3 days later to get their 15 bucks back. They did have a bird training program. It included a modest sized easy to read book on general care for general species, like a finch catagory a budgie chapter and a parrot chapter. People would have to take a test on the book to get "Bird Certified" which added about 7 cents an hour to near min. wage they where paying. They had other training courses very similar for small animals, (hamsters, mice) Dogs, Cats, Reptiles, and maybe a few others. When you got them all done you where about a quarter an hour over starting pay.
Don't know if this is still the case but thats how it use to be.

Info if you want it,
Getting ready for the show,
Gunnar

Anneka · Post by **Anneka** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:52 am

I don't think they still have that bird training program because I bought at least 4 birds from 2 different Petsmart locations w/in the last few months and was never asked about my knowledge about pet birds neither was I offered such a training.

But it would be fantastic if they had it. There are many people who have no clue what they are getting into by buying a bird.

kittani79 · Post by **kittani79** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:27 am

Actually, they do still have those training materials but there are no longer incentives to go with it, which is a bit disappointing.

Makes me want to go quiz all my people now.

Normally the bare minimum is to make sure someone buying a bird is also buying (or already has at home) a suitable cage/setup, proper food, and a care guide for their animal.

I have happily refused to sell animals that I *knew* were going to come back dead the next day due to people being stupid, and am generally absolutely thrilled when someone comes in who knows what they are talking about

.

It's just that you'll find different levels of skill depending on what store you go to, whether you get the new part time guy, or the veteran. (And this is so for all pet stores)

Post by **Sally** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 9:59 am

kittani79 wrote:It's just that you'll find different levels of skill depending on what store you go to, whether you get the new part time guy, or the veteran. (And this is so for all pet stores)

This is so true. And it's not just for pet stores, either, you find the same thing at most retail stores today. Unfortunately, there is not always a lot of incentive (like better pay) to become more knowledgeable--many employees look at their job as a temporary thing instead of a career. I always appreciate and respect those employees who make the extra effort.

trevorama · Post by **trevorama** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 11:46 pm

funny story-a few years back I bought some societies from Petsmart. Went back a few days later and bought a sad and lonely looking bird, no friends, looked wild, no color-I thought "who would buy this bird?". I felt sorry for it. They sold it as a Strawberry finch or something, the sales person didn't know what kind it was. Charged me about $40.00. I took it home and she was not happy. I had them all in a cage while my aviary was being completed. Anyway, she picked on everyone and we were all miserable so I took her back. I then researched like crazy, which I know I should have done in the first place, and found out she was an orange weaver. After my aviary was finished, 2 months later, I went back and she was still there (I kept my eye one her) so I bought her again, this time as an orange weaver, about $20.00. Anyway, she's a great bird and I was glad I took her back the first time because I had paid way too much and I also felt so stupid because I should have known what I was doing before I bought her. She was unhappy in the small cage.

Anneka · Post by **Anneka** » Tue Nov 13, 2007 1:15 am

Wow, what a great story trevorama.
Funny though that it is usually the other way around, that is we luck out with a more expensive bird that is sold for less d/t unknowledgable sales associate.

Glad you took her back and then bought her again for less.