The Sea Store

My wife, «Maryann K.» wrote a review for James at the Sea Store on 7÷28÷15. Although, at the time, we were both EXTREMELY disappointed with the services provided, at my request, Maryann begrudgingly gave James 3 stars on Unilocal.I, personally, just wanted to let bygones be bygones, never do business with him again, never recommend him to anyone, pray for the sake of his other potential customers that he change the way he does business, lick our wounds, and let the guy disappear from our memories.
However, much to my surprise, (but anticipated by my much more intuitive wife), almost three months after we fired him, James decides to sue US for a thousand dollars more than his highly questionable and much debated «final invoice» to us. This summons arrived at our house months after James refused to accept a certified letter and final payment check that I mailed to him back in July to the address noted on his final invoice. (It appears as though his only other address is not an actual «Store», but is a PO Box in West Hills.)
Update:
The ironic thing is, James took ME to court, if you can believe it– after lying to us repeatedly, performing horribly on the installation, missing every deadline, not showing up at all, installing equipment not rated for saltwater aquariums, and charging us for a new pump after installing a junk rebuilt one. Although he’s a very smooth talker, the judge finally started to understand what a pathological bullsh-​tter he really is. Even when he’s caught in a blatant lie, he immediately develops and changes his previous lie into something even more confusing. The judge started calling him out on it. The best part was when his pump supplier miraculously answered my email during our trial, and the judge let me read it out loud to him. The supplier confirmed my assertion that James told the supplier to send me a used, rebuilt, underpowered, unlabeled pump when the $ 600 pump James initially installed failed. James had made a deal with him to send me this cheap junk pump as a replacement, and to send James another pump for his own use for free!!! Complete fraud. The judge was blown away and ruled completely for us and against James. In reality, I should take James to court for about $ 700, but I’m tired of showering the slime off after I’m around him. He us pure evil with a really nice smile, and a pretty van. Take him to court if he screws with you– as he definitely will– and say hi from me. :)

Just left the van nuys courthouse where James filed a lawsuit against my husband and I. He literally lied about everything. He tried to sell us a refurbished pump and said it was new. When we returned it and requested a credit, he struck a deal with the supplier and got a pump for his own use, denying us the credit. We know this because we have the suppliers emails. He sold us a filter that was not made for aquariums and it has failed after 9 months-​no warranty. He tried to charge us for $ 1000 worth of labor and travel after we fired him. The agreement was a fixed fee, not time and material. Beware, do not hire James! We made this mistake, but we are warning others! He’s a smooth talker, but deceptive.

Wow — as much as i love Unilocal i sometimes forget to review someone before hiring. lesson should be learned here. Basically at some point or another nearly EVERYTHING written by the others below happened to me. «my wife…» «my kid…» I’m all for family, being a father myself, and i was super accommodating to his requests. He tried to make up for it by working from 10pm-​2am… Yes, we had blaring lights in the back yard till the wee hours.
James missed every single deadline he had given me. note — he set the deadlines and it became a joke for me to see if he would actually finish. what should have taken less than a week is still incomplete 6 weeks later and i will now have to finish things myself. I have lost 16 medium koi and 4 expensive baby japanese koi due in part of James’ lack of care and follow-​through. he will ultimately try to blame everything on you — so if you hire him keep all your communication in text and in writing. don’t do anything verbal and plan to have a circus ride… and be told your a liar.
but he is a super nice guy…

CAUTION, BEWARE!
Wow, Deja Vu! The reviews I’ve read about James are spot on! We used James last year to clean up my 28g Nano Cube caused by neglect and even though he was difficult to get a hold of, he eventually came and did the job.
After that I made a concerted effort to maintain my tank and make it a center piece for our living room. I went to great expense by changing the lighting (Kessil) and adding high end corals /​fish to accomplish this.
Fast forward to present. I hired James again, since he was familiar with my set up to do water changes and general maintenance (Twice) while we were out of the country. I specifically told him to come on Monday’s for each week we were gone. He said no problem and I gave him the keys to our place along with payment.
During this time we had a friend come over to feed the fish every two days as well.
When we finally came back, I was shocked to find my tank in shambles. Fish where missing, corals dead, rocks scattered, filters clogged, and brown algae growing everywhere. It looked liked the tank was abandoned during the time we were gone.
After trying to get the facts straight from our friend and James, it turned out that the Auto Water Topper had malfunctioned just days after we left, which evaporated the water in the reserve and to which prevented cool water from the chiller to flow into the tank. Water rose to 91 degrees and baked half my corals and killed my dwarf angels.
Now, I don’t blame James for the malfunction, but this may have been prevented if he had showed up on the days he was scheduled. Our friend called him Tuesday evening at 6:30 stating that there was strange noises coming from the pump and that the fish and coral where irritated (all alive still). James said not to worry, they (the corals) were over aerated. He mentioned he didn’t come Monday and that he would come that night. Our friend offered to wait for him since she was worried, but he said no need. The next day our friend tried to contact him in the morning and there was no response. She received a text that night at 11:30 pm asking her to call him. She followed up the next day (Thursday) and found out what had happened.
After getting the story, I needed to get my keys back and confront him about all this. When we finally met (lots of jostling just for a time) he claimed that the fish were dead when he arrived Tuesday night and that our friend was mistaken that they were still alive. I also asked him why he texted at 11:30 pm the next night about his discovery and he said he dropped his phone in a pond and could not get in touch with anyone… Excuse. I also asked why he was there late Tuesday Night and not the day he was scheduled. Again, an excuse, his wife who is a surgeon was called in and he had to take care of the kids.
He claimed he came two or three times after the disaster but the damage was done. I’m not sure what he did after because my tank was filthy.
James offered to replace the angels as a gesture of good faith. I explained I lost more than angels or for that matter corals, I lost complete confidence in him and that I would never do business again with his company. He is just not reliable and frankly he needs more than himself to help service his clientele. I may have a small tank compared to the other reviews I’ve read in this thread, but as you all know, big or small this is an expensive hobby. I put thousands of dollars through the years in my tank and more now to get it back to the way it was before my trip.
The pattern I see in these reviews are one star for those who dealt with him more than once and 5 stars for a single visit. There is no middle. Please look around before choosing «The Sea Store.» Find someone who treats their job as a business and not a hobby.

If it was possible to give 0 stars I would. Let me say that hiring James to put in our 260 gallon built in SW peninsula tank was a HUGE mistake. I should have known when he showed up 4 hours late for the initial consultation that this was how he operates. Always late if he bothers to show up at all.
The building of the cabinets and tank set took much longer than he had initially said. There was a period of about 10 days where no work was done at all and James used the excuse that his family was sick (I’ve seen where he’s given that excuse to other people too). I told James and his carpenter that I did not want pine wood used on the cabinets and what did they use? Pine and some other cheap woods so now the option of staining the cabinets was gone.
Before we hired James I asked him if the fish were sick or if there was some kind of problem would he come immediately to take care of it and he assured me yes he would always be available to take care of emergencies — B — — T! Once the tank was up and running (and fish were dying here and there) he did not really put us on a regular maintenance schedule. The maintenance was supposed to be every two weeks. He should have been doing a 20% water change but he was only doing about 10%. Needless to say, our water quality has never been good in this tank.
One of the most annoying things would be he NEVER showed up to work on the tank during the day. It was always late at night. He’s shown up at 10pm to start work and then he’ll say can I come back tomorrow? but never comes back. SO UNPROFESSIONAL. He’ll say I’ll stop by on such and such day to do this or that but he never does. He waited way too late to put in our UV sterilizer which could have helped combat our now horrible case of ich. He even showed up a couple of times with his kids with him. Needless to say he got nothing done when he brought them.
We now have been dealing with a case of ich was has wiped out most of our fish (which we all got from him). Do you think James tried to help out during this? Hell no, he just abandoned us and doesn’t care if our fish die or not. We had to set up a hospital tank ourselves, catch the fish and put them in the tank. Very stressful for us, not to mention the fish. We’ve gone from about 25 down to 6 fish in a week and James is nowhere to be found.
My advice is if you’re setting up a new tank, go with a company that has several service people working there so there is always someone that can come for regular maintenance or emergencies. James is a one man operation (which I didn’t know when we hired him). He has no help from what I’ve seen. Perhaps he’s spread too thin. He needs to hire some help because his customers pay the price by not getting good service and the fish pay the ultimate price by dying!
If you want to operate a successful tank DON’T HIRE JAMES!!!

RUN, RUN, RUN!!!
We hired James to work on our water feature and to complete our courtyard in October 2014. He started work in November and was supposed to be finished before Thanksgiving. He didn’t complete the project; however in December 2014, he managed to get the final check from the Property Management company. Once he got that, getting him back out here has been a nightmare!
Like someone else wrote in their review, we could write a book on our experience with him. I call him «Mr. Excuse» and he has learned to turn a 7 day work week into a 14 day work week because he will always be here today or tomorrow, Monday or Tuesday, Tuesday or Wednesday etc. He will never commit to a day or a time. Sometimes, he would show up at midnight or one time, he showed up at 1am and this was after I told him that this was disrespectful to the homeowner’s.
When he doesn’t show up, and you call him out on it, he has the standard excuse that his daughter is sick, that his family is sick, that he has to pick his kids up from school or he couldn’t get a babysitter. I told him his excuses were getting tiresome and couldn’t understand why he couldn’t get out here. He got upset and told me to keep my snide and inappropriate comments to myself and to take or leave it and he would be out Monday or Tuesday Period. Um, that Monday or Tuesday never came.
Now, we are having issues with the pump leaking and he’s trying to blame me or someone else that lives here for messing with it. He’s promised on installing a chlorinator because he didn’t fulfill part of his contract because he said we didn’t need a UV light. Instead of the UV light, he agreed on installing a chlorinator. Regardless of needing it or not, it was in the contract. He hasn’t come out to put it in yet and to perform maintenance as agreed.
But, of course it’s our fault… WE HIRED HIM!!! DOH!!! What were we thinking.
Oh, and James, in case you read this, the following items need to be corrected.
1. Pump is leaking at the plumbing— You texted our property management to let her know that someone messed with it (Nobody messed with it… I have pictures) but you’ll be here on Monday to fix it. I’m not holding my breath.
2. The LED light is not working on one of the water spouts.
3. The stucco on the patios that your men did is cracking. But, I’m sure I must have looked at it wrong.
Bottom line… RUN!!! James, the owner of the Sea Store, is unpredictable, will not commit to days or times and if something goes wrong, he will blame you!
Oh, and for the reviewer that wrote that he must be taking care of his $ 50,000 clients, I can assure you he isn’t!

GREAT

As several reviews have stated, this is why small businesses get a bad rap. This guy gives more excuses at the last minute than I have ever experienced. He either just flat out does not show up at the time/​date he commits to or gives a BS excuse after you berate his lack of customer service. My patience is done and I will never use his service again.

Wow I found James on thumbtack and let me say I luved he’s service I was dealing with ich in a saltwater tank he came ON TIME and he’s service was 10 000 percent perfect he did what he said check my tank cleaned the gravel and he made my tank look spotless thank u James and ill for sure use him for corals and etc and let me tell u he knows he’s stuff o one more thing he didn’t rush to leave he stayed and answered allll my qs thank u

James definitely knows his stuff! I had a wonderful experience with the Sea Store. James took the time to answer all of my questions and went above & beyond. His prices are great and he was very accommodating to my needs. I would highly recommend his services, you won’t be disappointed.

I was referred to James from a car dealership (Galpin) that I visited and have had a good experience with him and his team. His prices are always better than the competition and he is always ready and willing to swing by to make visit. When he is in the area of our business we can always expect him to stop by to check on things which I think is a nice touch.
Pros: Can get you exotic fish at great pricing, setup and equipment is also a good value, and James seems to know his stuff about fish & maintenance.
Cons: Can’t really think of any for this type of industry or his business especially if pricing is fair and service is good.

i was looking for 4 fish, 2 butterfly fish, morish idol, and a scribbled angelfish. i contacted him on monday the 29^th of aug. he said he would be able to deliver on tue. tuesday came around and he contacts me saying he cant bring me the butterflyfish or the morish idol because they just ate and the fish will throw up in the bag (B.S.) but i have the scribble angelfish. well as the day progressed i got excusses as to why he was running behind. traffic (which it is l.a.) i get that one, then he has to pick up his child… finnaly he delivers my angel @ 9:30 pm. then he says he can deliver the others the next day. guess what happend… i get a voicemail with yet another reason why he couldnt deliver the fish. one of his contracts had an emergancy. blah, blah, blah. well at this point i told him even though im getting a deal on the fish, the deal isnt worth the frustration. Then he responds «Agreed and dully noted»…now keep in mind the scribble he brought me is great and doing well in my tank, but if you have been in this hobby for a long time you know how the fish come from the whole seller, in a bag with a metal clamp… not a rubber band. he says he has a wharehouse by lax which is where some of the whosellers are located. my father inlaw is a retired fish distributor who caught fish then sold to whlesellers to sell to fish stores i had him look into this for me with all his contacts. so this guys wharehouse is the same ones used by fish stores… what a coincidence… for some one new to this hobbie and your going to use this guy be forwarned expect delays… and yes this is a true review. i was going to give him another chance thinking the excuses were just a one time deal so i told him i wanted coral inserts for 2 of my tanks… he tells me no prob and ill call you monday which is labor day… so guess what its wed and no call. i orderd my inserts online monday and got them today… AGAIN THIS IS A REAL REVIEW… so are the other ones.

James is extremely professional and helpful. He came to our office and saved us big time. I would refer him to anyone and everyone. Thanks James.

The guy is very late and unpredictable with scheduled appointments. Also, be sure you get all prices in writing in advance.

Worst experience of my life! Do not use these fools. Came 4 hours late twice! Left my tank leaking and shorted out my surge suppressor. Gave me a quote, then w/​o discussing additional fees, nearly trippled the price and gave me the invoice. Milked me really bad and I almost lost interest in the hobby. Really, stay as far away from this idiot as humanly possible.
I am not a hater, just horrified by their terrible, terrible service and the fact that they nearly burnt down my house. Would give negative stars if possible…