USBetta packages every fish with the same care and equipment regardless of which shipping option you chose. We ship fish out Monday through Wednesday. We will NOT ship out on Thursday or Friday because UPS does not deliver on weekends without a large up charge. All items needed to safely ship the fish are included in the standard price including, as needed, heat packs and cool packs.
Shipping anything always involves risk and that is more true with live shipments as we cannot dictate how boxes are handled once the leave our care and custody. In most cases your fish will arrive perfectly fine. But with shipping there is always the chance of rough handling, delays, and weather. We maintain a high live arrival rate of 98.7%. But customers asking for their fish to be shipped must be willing to understand that we are shipping living breathing animals that may not react well to shipping even if everything is perfect and may arrive stressed or dead. We strongly advise against doing live videos of opening live packages or opening in front of children. We cannot be blamed if you ignore this advice.
Standard shipping is available February – November which uses either UPS 2/3 Day/Ground depending on your location.
Buyers from Hawaii MUST have had the import license issued to them BEFORE ordering or they will VOID any live arrival guarantee.
Live Arrival Guarantee Terms
We warranty fish to arrive alive when the following conditions are met:
- The fish must arrive within the 72 hour period following the acceptance scan at the carrier.
- Customer must notify of DOA within 1 hours of the fish’s arrival..
- Notification of DOA should be done either through our Facebook page or email admin@usbetta.com
- Customer MUST include no less than 2 clear photos of the deceased fish from different sides of the bag, include any markings on the bag in one of the photos. If the fish is not clearly deceased in the photos a video of at least 5 seconds length showing the bag being turned and the fish not moving should be included to expedite the claim.
- Customer must notify of DOA within 1 hours of the fish’s arrival..
- If customer has upgraded to Next Day the 72 hour time limit is suspended.
- All refunds will be done via store credit only.
- Shipping fees cannot be refunded unless UPS returns the shipping fee due to late arrival. At this moment UPS only has delivery time guarantees on Next Day shipments.
Please note that your fish will likely be stressed on arrival and their color will likely appear different than when you purchased them. Please allow 48 hours for your fish to acclimate and calm down before making any claims that we sent the wrong fish. We will not consider any such claims until the fish has had 48 hours in their new home. Fish that are stressed will drop color and patterns, a black fish might even appear white, a koi pattern might appear to be lighter or even plain colored. Give them 48 hours and if they are still not looking like the fish you ordered please contact us with photos so we can figure out if there was a mistake.’
TEMPERATURE RESTRICTIONS ON SHIPPING LIVE FISH
We list the date of shipping at the top of our website across all pages. Your fish will in MOST cases ship on the exact date listed. In some cases when we have heavy orders your fish may ship the day after this date. Before shipping we will check the weather for the week of shipping and if anytime during the 3 day period after the ship date the temperature will be over 90 degrees or under 40 degrees we will NOT ship your fish unless you chosen overnight shipping. If there is any sort of weather, military, national emergency, or natural disaster warning in the destination area or along the most likely route for the fish we will not ship fish to that area even if you have chosen overnight shipping. If the temperature on the route or at the final destination will be over 100 degrees or under 35 degrees we will NOT ship your fish even if you have chosen overnight shipping. Orders that will be delayed due to unsuitable conditions will be notified via email and given the option to chose from the next 2 shipping dates. If no reply is received the order will be shipped automatically on the next shipping date provided the unsuitable conditions have resolved.
An order will only be held for a maximum of 14 days after being unable to ship due to unsuitable conditions. After 14 days past the first shipping dates if unsuitable conditions still persist we will cancel the order and provide store credits for the entire order. Alternatively the customer can elect to pay a $4 per week boarding fee to continue to hold the fish until shipping conditions in their area are suitable. This is a per fish fee, but we allow up 10 fish to be boarded for a $12 fee. We will under no circumstances refund to payment method for orders cancelled due to unsafe weather conditions. Please use your weather apps and general knowledge about the upcoming and expected weather conditions for your area before ordering.
