Friday 17 February 2012

Nicole Le of Shrimplab USA and Ebiken Wholesaling... the behind the scenes truth.

In another forum, I've already posted a summary of what has happened. There has been many MANY other things which has happened over the past year but just this past few months is an incredible amount of problems which has arisen. Here are some that has just come across my mind. I'm hoping this will convince you enough that Nicole isn't the same Nicole you first knew when Shrimplab USA first started. And the sooner you take action on your order/ case. The better. Filing a police report is one of the best things you can do right now.

1) A few weeks after her december 30th shipment had arrived. She had a customer that had ordered 200 golden bees. I shipped out 4 bags of 50 each with 5% extra in each bag. She disappeared for awhile and re-appeared and claimed that she only received 100 golden bees. Never have I made a mistake before in my orders because I triple check all orders before shipping out. Then she fabricates a little story and says she called fish and wildlife / customs and was told that the 2 bags were confiscated and destroyed because there was "plant matter".

First of all, there was no plant matter as I use netting for all my bags and they are packed in another tank of water which matches the tanks to guarantee they have fresh clean water.
Secondly, if it was confiscated, there would be paperwork indicating that there was a problem and the entire shipment would have been withheld.
Thirdly I called Fish and wildlife and they said there was no such case nor did anyone call about it and if there was a problem the shipment would have be withheld and there was no way no paperwork indicating such an issue had occurred to go along with the airwaybill and release forms.

2) Nicole was going to make a BKK order from me just a few weeks after the December 30th shipment. Yet she knew I wasn't going to send her anything until the invoice was paid off. The way I've set up the order list on google docs is I'm able to see who has ordered what to indicate to myself how much extras I should include whether it be 3%-8%. I contacted the person who was ordering the BKK's and found out she fabricated another lie saying that I told her I needed payment for the BKK order before I shipped out the shrimps. Total Lie. She was intending to get the payment to cover for the unpaid invoice. The December shipment she should have an estimated gross profit of over 6500 USD. This is after expenses. It was my mistake not to ask her for payment before I shipped as I'm pretty sure she used it for new years celebration.

3) Her acceptance of payments before items are shipped and her lack of communication with consumers has led to Kyle on TPT thinking how Nikki deals with things is the same with how I deal with things. I've shown kyle with the permission of Nicole the entire book keeping of Nicoles past history of payment status. Even then Kyle gave me a hard time and one of the mods had done something which I've print screened and caught and had proof to show Kyle that him and that particular mod was purposely giving a negative public perception of me when I didn't do anything wrong at all and refrained from rebuttals and reported the post. I had to fight for my own right the Nicole had caused while all she did was hide in the back and clean up the mess she had entangled me in. Her exact words were she was ashamed at what was happening so she was hiding.

4)  She sent false payments through paypal with an unverified paypal account and back charged it with the credit card that was linked and totally disappeared with all her accounts inactive and phone numbers other than her gmail account.

5) A week before she finally disappeared for good she made up another neat little story. I'm hoping after you hear this you guys will finally understand why I'm sure the orders will not be fulfilled. She said she did a major water change and the next day 90% of the shrimps were dead. Then she said only thing she used was Amquel plus. She claims she called Kordon and that there was a few batches of Amquel plus which was defective and that they would reimburse her for her loss. I asked her for the pictures shes using to prove to Kordon that they died. The pics I was shown showed a max of 30 shrimps. And most were blue pearls which was her own personal shrimps. I noticed as well in the background it was the same tank that she posted on TPT the next day after she got her shipment of a tank full of crystals. It was empty. My first thoughts are she sold it cheap to a fish store and took the money from others and ran away with it. But this is only an assumption. But I'm sure that the tank was empty.

19 comments:

  1. That's a shame. She had a goldmine just on TPT alone in customers never mind website sales, other forums, etc.

    I know a few people I've talked to via PM's that got screwed over and fantastic story after fantastic story of why they didn't get their shrimp and I only talk to a few people on TPT via PM's, so who knows how widespread it was.

    I'm sorry this has happened to you, I've talked with you over email for months now and you seem like a great person, always answering my sometimes noobish question when I haven't even had the money to order 1 shrimp from you yet. Rest assured, when I do make the leap to some more expensive shrimp, you will be the guy!

    Hope your vacation is well and you have lots of new shrimp to show us soon.

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    1. What vacation.... after this .... I need another one

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  2. Frank,

    How a person could do all this, I am not sure. It's totally reprehensible.
    Especially to a person who was just trying to help, for no reason beyond bigheartedness.
    When you came to me with this, It made me sick to my stomach. As I had felt for a while that something shady was going down, but I really had nowhere to place it. I was friends with Nikki for a time, but I can tell you right now, it doesn't surprise me as much as it should. She is, as I've said to you, loyal to no one but herself. Nikki, if you are reading this, I hope it hurts. Be a big girl and face up to the consequences of your actions.

    I made a bunch of acrylic lily pipe sets, and sent them to her at no cost so she could sell them on her site, take a cut, and send me a little back. I got maybe $20 bucks total back which basically covered shipping them to her and maybe one outflow. According to her, she had given a bunch of sets away.. but there were several people that I knew personally that had purchased them from her. So either she gave them away - which was screwing me over. Or she sold them, said she gave them away - screwed. Or perhaps a combination of the two? Who knows?

    So people out there who got the short end of it, Do file a police report, do contact paypal ASAP.. and while you are at it, report theshrimplab.com to godaddy for fraudulent activity.

    -Paul (onefang)

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    1. It totally blows me away what she did. Why she did it puzzles me even more.

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  3. Wow, just, wow. so sorry for you Frank. I wish you the best!

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  4. Also, if you got shafted and waited past your paypal action period, you should at the very least file a complaint here:

    http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx

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  5. A very sad and strange development :( @Nicole: It is not too late to take action and face the problems you now have. Go on and deal with them, don't fool the people being loyal to you for so long even more...

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  6. Wow is right! Well.. you know how I feel about the whole thing Frank.. I just hope this whole fiasco didn't hurt you too much though. It's massive BS what she has done/allowed to happen.. Not sure what an apology could do at this point.. It's a shame and a sad place to be at. Hopefully something(s) good will come out of all this, albeit I don't know what.

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  7. I waited 5 days then filed with paypal. I knew something was up because she was MIA from TPT. And I read a few feedbacks on her profile. She is a scam artist plain and simple. I dont care how good her past was with TPT, she can rot in a cave somewhere. Luckily I did get my money back.

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  8. Do you have pics of this Nicole?

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  9. Well, up until months ago I was proud to call her a friend. I stood up for her when others said she lied and cheated them out of their money. I said she probably made a mistake and she was a good person who'd try to correct it. I really did believe that she was just behind on shipping things or she was under a lot of stress.

    Then she swindled me out of blue bolts and TBs. I really didn't want to think I could be duped like this so I let myself believe her stories, that she wasn't getting her emails forwarded, or that she'd ship then Thursday. Finally I said enough and filed a dispute. This was a while ago, and paypal is still reviewing my claim.

    Frank, I was really excited to get shrimp from you because I knew they would be really high quality. I still want some Auras as I have for about two years now. It's a shame Nicole turned out to be what she was.

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    1. Paypal might not be able to do anything. She screwed paypal over as well. You may need to follow what Paul had suggested and report to :
      http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx

      As for shrimps contact Liam. He has them and also blue bolts as well.

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  10. Paypal is tied to either a bank account or credit card, so unless she closed her bank accounts, I don't know how she could screw paypal.

    These things happen frequently with people who run businesses from their home. They get in over their heads and with their chaotic lives it all comes crashing down. No offense to Frank, but this is his side of the story, and there is always more than one side. Things like this are always complicated. I think Nikki always had good intentions, she just got in over her head, and not real business savvy. There are lots of places to buy shrimp from now.

    Buy from well established companies who have been around a while. Nobodies service is always perfect, but legitimate businesses are held more accountable.

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    1. Your right, there is more than one side of the story. However, I have the truth in the conversations that I have backed up. She was given advice to slow down if she couldn't handle it and close orders early so that she can organize her already paid clients. No customer would think less of an owner but rather have more respect for an owner having to realize they are in over their head and tell their customer that in order to maintain quality of service they would need to stop and be given some time to prioritize and organize. Have you personally dealt with Nikki in her company as shrimp lab (this doesn't include any site building)? If not, then maybe that's why you don't understand the frustration that some of her customers are feeling. I understand her situation, I've told her if she couldn't pay me back then that was fine. But to have sent money to someone and then take it back, that's a criminal offense. This is what I think customer service is: http://www.scapeclub.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13624 an example of one of my public dealings. And starting from post 11 read this: http://www.scapeclub.org/forum/showthread.php?t=13539 I've provided evidence everything was shipped not only that. There was 1 person that met her in person at the airport that can verify that she got the shipment in as well.

      As for paypal. Can she not screw paypal if her account was linked to a credit card and then even for refunds be sent out via credit card payment? Then calling her credit card company and back charging it saying you never authorized such transactions and having all transactions reversed and end up closing the credit card leaving paypal with a bunch of livid customers? Shes not the only person which has done this. One other sponsor on planted tank has also done this before back last year and they know who they are which is why they've been so quiet lately.

      Nonetheless, whether people believe me or not doesn't concern me. I'm just providing closure to some people and not have them wait for months and months to come. People work hard for their money, I'm just getting them to realize that shes not going to come back and make it right.

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    2. Robert,

      First of all, I am not sure you knew Nikki as well as some of us did. I was a close friend of hers, and she still deceived me. I know of at least 3 other people who were close friends that she swindled - this isn't the actions of a person who was in over their head, but someone taking advantage of people's trust.

      And not to take potshots at you, but I am not sure you are in a position, business-wise, where you should be making any rhetorical assertions on the matter.

      -onefang

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  11. Just a note- don't think all you have to do is make a claim on paypal. I did that and for about 15 days they reviewed it then I saw it was closed without me knowing and I hadn't gotten my money back. Apparently she wrote paypal and the credit card companies a nice little letter saying she sent me the shrimps and I was lying.

    So I called paypal up like a crazy person (I was pretty furious) and now the case is opened again.

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    1. You should see if you can get a copy of that letter, before it disappears into the ether.

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  12. Is TheShrimpLab cheater?

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