Garnelio Reviews 

Everything arrived safely and in the delivery was quick.

I can't recommend this company at all, at least internationally.

First problem with them was their lack of communication about the package being sent. I never received a tracking code or any sort of notification that the order had shipped which led to me thinking it hadn't shipped yet. Only when I went to cancel my order with them after almost two weeks did they say that the order had shipped already. Then I had to ask for the tracking code seperately which said the package had actually arrived 10 days ago. Never recieved any info about package being sent or it arriving, so maybe some of the fault is also on the shipping company UPS.

So at this point the shrimps and snails had been in their shipping bags for about 10 or so days. Upon arrival several snails were already dead. Thankfully the shrimp were alive but altogether there was 4 missing shrimp that I had paid for, and all three nerite snails were of the wrong colour.

Customer support was not very helpful about this and they only answered in German despite me e-mailing them in English. Why sell internationally if you can't help customers in English?

In the end I did receive some money back but even then not the full amount. I had ordered two different shrimp, one of which cost more and they only compensated the 4 shrimp based on the cheaper shrimp, and they only compensated for 1 dead nerite and not also the other 2 that were the wrong colour as well (these two also died a few days later from being in the toxic bag and starving for so long).

Because of their customer support in German I didn't bother trying to get the rest of the money back but hopefully with this I can help sway people away from buying from them.

All live animals arrived well and in good healh as usually. Very well acommodated as usual.

Do you wonder why Garnelio.de and their related sites don't allow for photographic reviews, let alone negative revies, to be posted on their website? It's so they can control the narrative on how satisfied their customers are. Even here, look at this page and notice how many of the glowing 5 star reviews have one and only one review. WEIRD, right? Then you have the negative reviews, of which mine will be one. Notice how they are all in agreement: the company sent the wrong items, sent them too slow, was rude when contacted to make a correction. There is a consistency in these reviews that should not be ignored because it is fact.

I made an order that had just over 100 euros worth of items in it- a mix of plants and snails. None of the plants arrived as advertised. I ordered two XXL pots (9 cm) and received 6-7 cm pots. I ordered a trident fern and received a narrow java fern. Then, on top of it, the plants were in bad shape, esp the xxl java fern with it's brown leaves and clear potassium deficiency! Has this company never heard of dosing fertilizers? Or how about packing the bottle of fertilizer I ordered UNDER the plants so it doesn't crush the leaves during shipping?
Then the snails. I love tylomelania mini snails. They are small, cute, vibrant snails. I ordered 4 mini yellows and 3 mini blacks. I received 4 mini "grayish brown" tylomelanias, and 3 speckled fleshed mysterious type of tylo that is def not mini- not only are they quite large already, but the shells are all wrong! Tylos have shells that have a brioche type hump each segment, these mystery snails have straight shells. Sure, it might seem like a small difference to the uninitiated but I can not ethically keep these 3 larger tylos in the initial aquarium I intended. They will easily grow too large for that! These "young snails" are larger than the 3 year old tylomelania minis I already have and I don't know how large they will grow to be.
Of course, when I received my order, I contacted the company. A man named Dennis refunded the trident java (probably because they had literally written on my receipt that they substituted it) but claimed rest of my order was delivered as ordered. Excuse me? I guess Dennis might fudge his numbers and claim 6 cms is an easy 9, but I am a bit more exacting. We all know how long it takes to grow big healthy aquarium plants and having about 1/3rd volume knocked off both xxl plants I ordered makes them a very very very poor size to price ratio. On top of that, how can this man who (presumably) has eyes, look at the two very very different species of snails I received, then look at the order I placed and be like "those are definitely 7 of the same snails in the right colors". 3 of them are polka-dotted giants! There's no way not to notice this!! My point is- they are willfully playing dumb. They treat refund requests maliciously and lie to keep your hard earned money.

As a recap: they subbed the wrong plant without asking, sent smaller (bad) quality plants, one of which got crushed due to bad packing, sent the wrong types of snails... all of it sent late (placed an order on Sunday with overnight shipping but received it Friday), then had the audacity to claim it was "delivered as ordered" about it when presented photographic evidence that it was, in fact, not.

Let me summarize my experience from 5 orders made from this company.

1st order was fine.

2nd order disappeared and despite DHL confirming that the package had been destroyed, when I emailed Garnelio they insisted that I had received package. When I emailed again and explained, again, what had happened, I receieved an angry 2 page essay about stopping my emails to them. This email also failed to recognize and address the missing shipment and my refund, which were the 2 things I had listed in my email. Ultimately they said they would refund me, and even though I had to remind them two weeks later as they still had not done it, I hoped this was a one time occurence and since I, ultimately, received a discount code, I tried again.

3rd order was sent later than guaranteed on website and got stuck in warehouse over weekend, resulting in all animalas dead on arrival. No problem with refund this time.

4th order was never sent, and when I emailed about it they did not respond, but instead sent an incomplete (because of changing stocks) order the following week. Because of shipping costs I would have never ordered a small shipment like that and payed full shipping for it, but they did not contact me or ask me if I would like to follow through on it despite large parts of it being missing at the time that they, because of their mistake to forget my order for 10 days, sent it.

5th order was made the same weekend (for "guaranteed" shipping on Monday) as the 4th, as I realised I had forgotten some things. This order was sent later than guaranteed, but was not forgotten like the 4th. This resulted in all but 2 shrimps dying (total of 15 animals originally). They refunded the dead shrimps but let me pay for shipping and the 2 live shrimps. This means the shipping is more expensive than the shrimp, and because of them not holding their guaranteed shipping dates, they made me pay full shipping and full price for 2 shrimps that now live without any mates of the same species. Furthermore, on both the 4th and the 5th shipment, they chose to ignore that I had discount codes on both orders. This means that they used my discount codes to cover their own expenses; they did not use them to pay for what little shrimps that survived the shipping, nor did they refund me the worth of the discount codes, nor did they give me a new one. This order was late because Garnelio doesn't hold their own stated guaranteed shipping dates!

The 4th shipment arrived today without half of my order. They emailed me and said they had refunded me on paypal. They do not have my paypal, as I have not used it to pay. Either they have payed someone else, or nothing at all. This is the second time I have to remind them

Through this entire farce, they have not once responded on time as guaranteed within 24 hours with an actual response to what I was writing them. If they did respond on time, it was with some automated answer that the customer service staff chooses from a list. I have continuously kept it constructive, short and kind, and have received nothing but disinterest or aggression from their customer service.

Update: after emailing that I should not have to pay shipping for 2 shrimps when all the others died because Garnelio does not hold its own guaranteed shipping day, they blocked my email completely without reply.

I ordered live animals for delivery with overnight shipping (extra 9+ euro). I was informed that since I had ordered Thursday night by ten p.m. that the order would be delivered the following day. The order did not come on Friday - and I contacted them via email and phone to ask for delivery confirmation. No answer. The order also did not come Saturday. Again no answer from my emails or phone calls. In fact the order did not come until the following Tuesday and there was no apology, explanation or anything. This caused extreme inconvenience for me since I had to arrange for someone to be home to accept a Tuesday delivery. I contacted them again to ask for a refund for overnight shipping and they blamed it on the shipping company and said no. I will not be ordering from them again , because this is a red flag for customer service. Why give this company more money when there are other similar companies operating in Germany, as well as local stores. Additionally one snail is barely alive which I didn't notice at the time since it is living but it seems sick so I will have to dispose of it after less than 2 weeks since delivery.

I have real experience with this company since I have ordered a large number of various Cardina and Neocaridina shrimps from Garnelio, many of which usually arrive dead even with short shipping. Because of lack of shipping care and dirty water. Others also complain Garnelio sometimes ships with horrendous water quality. The shrimp should also have been shipped in more individual bags. Most shrimp on my last order were sent with very dirty water so they didn't last a mere 2 days shipping! I had to write to the support many times to even get a response (I literally had to use their obligatory claim form 6 times that only supported the German language). They even left out a few shrimp in some bags of the number I bought, with no refund given!

The Bloody Mary I ordered were sent with lots of tiny pests that even ate, swam from them in the bag. I had to contact the support per email and presented photo evidence with the seals on the bags intact. Despite that I had to write again and again for several days before I even got an answer (most support members seem to only answer if you write in German). I did not receive a refund for the Bloody Mary shrimp either, even though they arrived dead because of their lack of care.

In the end I only got a 9 euro refund through Amazon without a single word of feedback of my last big order. How’s that for support when you really have to hunt down the customer service for days? I really feel scammed and an ill taste of my treatment. Because the support has to be hunted down and don't want to give you any feedback.

Garnelio's claim form and local variant websites didn’t support their local languages they advertise to sell products in. Then it’s their refunds that are almost non-existent and without any legal specification given through a new receipt upon receiving a symbolic sum. Their websites also did not accept my honest feedback unless they were given a full 5 star review - highly unserious censorship if you ask me!

For those reasons this company seems semi-legal. I would highly suggest customers instead go to a local breeder of aquatic pets. Instead of risking getting everything from pests, murky water, non existing support or refund, I got the times I ordered from Garnelio.

Support local breeders instead with better care if you ask me.

In their confirmation email, they ask you to write a positive review. If they think it’s good enough, you can win 200 euros. That should be illegal.

I ordered three different types of shrimp. There were issues with ALL of them.

Red Rili shrimp are made by mixing red and blue shrimp. There were red/blue shrimp in my shipment.
There were shrimp with blue in them, which had nothing to do with Red Rili.
I bought some "reddish" shrimp, which were definitely not reddish, and one was blue.
I bought Blue Bolt Caridina, which was nowhere near as blue as shown on their website. Instead, I received Ice Blue Mix, which is significantly lower in quality.

I have videos and pictures of everything.
So I sent my materials to them and tried to explain my situation, that there must have been a mistake. Dennis Dietrich suggested he would refund the "reddish" shrimp, which I do not agree with. He ended the message by saying he wouldn’t do anything more about it.

Now, five weeks have passed, and I still haven’t received the money.

STAY AWAY FROM THEM!

I deres bekræftelses mail, beder de en om at lave en god anmeldelse. Hvis de mener at den er god nok, kan man vinde 200 euro. Det burde være ulovligt.

Jeg bestilte 3 forskellige arter af rejer. ALLE var der problemer med.

Red rili laves ved at mikse rød og blå rejer. Der var rød/blå rejer i min sending.
Der var rejer der havde blåt i sig, det har intet med rød rili at gøre.
Jeg købte nogle "rødlige" rejer, som bestemt ikke var rødlig og den ene var blå.
Jeg købte blue bolt caridina, som på ingen måde var blå som vist på deres hjemmeside. I stedet var det Ice blue mix jeg havde fået, som er betydelig dårligere i kvalitet.

Jeg har video og billeder af alt.
Jeg sender derfor mit materiale ned til dem og prøver på at forklare min situation, at der må være sket en fejl. Dennis Dietrich foreslår at han vil give penge tilbage for de rødlige rejer, hvilket jeg ikke er enig. Han afslutter beskeden med at han ikke vil gøre mere ved det.

Nu er der gået 5 uger og der er stadigvæk ikke gået penge ind.

HOLD JER VÆK FRA DEM!

In ihrer Bestätigungsmail bitten sie einen, eine positive Bewertung zu schreiben. Wenn sie denken, dass diese gut genug ist, kann man 200 Euro gewinnen. Das sollte illegal sein.

Ich habe drei verschiedene Arten von Garnelen bestellt. Bei ALLEN gab es Probleme.

Red Rili-Garnelen entstehen durch das Mischen von roten und blauen Garnelen. In meiner Lieferung waren rot/blaue Garnelen.
Es gab Garnelen mit blauen Anteilen, was mit Red Rili nichts zu tun hat.
Ich habe „rötliche“ Garnelen gekauft, die definitiv nicht rötlich waren, und eine davon war blau.
Ich habe Blue Bolt Caridina bestellt, die überhaupt nicht so blau waren, wie auf ihrer Webseite gezeigt. Stattdessen habe ich Ice Blue Mix erhalten, die qualitativ deutlich schlechter sind.

Ich habe Videos und Bilder von allem.
Ich habe ihnen daher mein Material geschickt und versucht, meine Situation zu erklären, dass ein Fehler passiert sein muss. Dennis Dietrich schlug vor, das Geld für die „rötlichen“ Garnelen zurückzuerstatten, womit ich nicht einverstanden bin. Er beendete die Nachricht, indem er sagte, dass er nichts weiter tun wird.

Jetzt sind fünf Wochen vergangen, und ich habe das Geld immer noch nicht erhalten.

HALTET EUCH VON IHNEN FERN!

After reading some of the earlier reviews, I was a bit worried. But all went well. Lovely little crabs and shells came in good shape, very well packed, shipping was fast. Maybe just more informaton about shipping would be appreciated, but otherwise no issues. I can recommned them.

Good quality shrimps and cpo. Good packing also.

No customer service, does not respond to emails, delivery times of several weeks, obviously the animals are dead, wasted money that I will never see again, or else go through paypal to be reimbursed

I ordered using more than a hundred euros online. Never got confirmation of my payment. I found out they are selling something they actually don't have in the store. Waited weeks but got nothing. They also give no answers by email. Terrible customer service, no apologies. They don't speak english. What's sickening is you can watch Instagram live videos where they tour markets in Asia where animals are sold in terrible conditions. I would not want to support that.

I got what I wanted and in top conditions

Sent my package with feeder insects before a weekend, delaying delivery and causing some of the insects to arrive dead. Furthermore, one container was completely empty apart from soil (was supposed to be earthworms). No email response.

Doesn't feel acceptable nor professional, especially considering the fairly high shipping costs.

The order was as expected, the delivery from their side was good. I am happy also with their support when I asked them a question totally recommend them, i am actually making my 2nd order already.

Small recommendations use “go” delivery option even that it is little bit more expensive it is safer and better

I like the site, it's easy to navigate and find what you're looking for. Good pictures and great description of plants. The supply is excellent. The order arrived as expected and there were no unpleasant surprises.

Gammarus Oceanicus all dead at reception. Sent pictures and opened two complaints but never got any feedback on those.

Fast and secure shipping, snails alive and in great condition

I bought shrimps and snails twice already with Garnelio, they always made sure the animals are well taken care during shipping. They send them in a styrofoam box, with packaging material and even a heating pad to insure temperature is stable. Animals arrived healthy and are happily living in my aquarium