Pond pump / dodgy security on website

lynneinjapan

Not sure where best to post this one - mods please move it you deem it more appropriate elsewhere!

We bought our house about 18 months ago with a pond full of fish in the garden. The pump (an Aquamax 5500) has just given up the ghost and, knowing nothing about pond pumps, we're looking at replacing it with another of the same model. Far and away the cheapest retailer I can find (if you don't count the second-hand ones on eBay) is All About Koi, so I was going to get it there... but when I got to the payment page I noticed an exclamation mark against the little padlock and when I clicked on it Firefox told me that the page was only partially encrypted. MS Explorer won't even let me add the item to the "cart" without flashing up a warning screen questioning the authenticity of the security certificate and advising me not to proceed. And tonight when I add it to the cart in Firefox and then click on "Checkout" it tells me there are no items in my shopping cart.

Has anybody had any dealings with this company and are they legit?

wallbash

No nothing about the company , but that looks like a very expensive pump.
May I ask . how big is the pond ( roughly) how many fish , and their size and are you happy spending that sort of money?

I also moved to a house with a pond , its not a cheap hole!

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

Hard to say if the site's legit or not. The address on the site is the same as the registration address on the WHOIS database, but using Google Streetview, it is just a house on a street in St Albans.

Can't find any reviews either.

If he is running the business from his house, it could just be a poorly designed website.

Maybe someone else may be willing to do a bit more digging.

Nile

Hello lynneinjapan

I'll move your thread to the 'Techie Stuff' board, where the techie experts will see it.

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com"]forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Regards

Nile

Eridani

Hi there, I keep tropical fish indoors so don't know anything about outdoor ponds/pumps etc, however I get most of my technical information from tropical fish forums where groups of enthusiastics get together to swap info.

Perhaps you could find one of these groups for outside fish/koi - yahoo groups are a good place to look

esuhl

Phantom_Flan_Flinger wrote: »

Hard to say if the site's legit or not. The address on the site is the same as the registration address on the WHOIS database, but using Google Streetview, it is just a house on a street in St Albans.

The domain is also registered to an individual, rather than a company...

jayme1

just go down to your local garden centre with the measurements of the pond (WxLxD) and pick up a pump that's up to the job, if you are not sure which will do ask someone and they will help.

far better than buying off a dodgy site and you have it right away.

also you dont *need* the same pump and pump of the same capacity will do.

spud17

I got my last pump from TLC, surprisingly they were within a whisker of online prices. They don't have a large physical stock, but can get them in a couple of days. I'm only Joe public, but they phoned me as soon as it was delivered.

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Pumps_and_Aquatics_Index/index.html

Jeff_Bridges_hair

esuhl wrote: »

The domain is also registered to an individual, rather than a company...

In the grand scheme of things though and he could be a one man band operation then why not? Theres nothing wrong with doing that - same as many other self employed people do - should they have a website.

BUT and this is a big one for me is that for some reason they are giving a London telephone number to contact when they are based in St Albans allegedly and St Albans dialling code is 01727 - that stood out right from the start when i read about the privacy/complaints 020 8386 0560

Which appears to be the number for the Ssfa down the road in Bushey Which is strange...

lynneinjapan

Thanks all for your replies. Sounds like a one-man band, possibly using one of those telephone answering services to present a professional front (hence the non-local phone number). Since I did my first research the price on the site has gone up to 140 pounds so it's now only a tenner cheaper than Shirley Aquatics, which is just down the road from us, so I went there instead. They even did a partial price match for me so I got it for 145 pounds in the end, and if anything goes wrong it'll be easy to return it.

Did consider getting a cheaper alternative but (a) we have a whole system of pump, filter and UV light and weren't sure which brands would be compatible, and (b) our pond is very densely populated with fish so we thought it best to stick with the same capacity that was previously there. The new pump comes with a 5-year guarantee so hopefully we won't have to change it again for 10 years or so!