Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was planning on taking pictures of these worms when they got here but I was in a rush to get them into the bin immediately and then there was not much to look at. The tracking information stated that the seller shipped them on Sunday (I intentionally ordered on Saturday night to prevent a weekend delay in transit). As one should expect, the courier did not receive them until Monday afternoon and they spent 3 days in a box without leaving the sellers state. The sellers website says they should be OK for up to 5 days in shipping and it took 5 days to get here, so I was in a big hurry to get them into the bin with moisture and food. This is what I consider a chain of events caused by an unprofessional seller. When I actually got the package, I was in a hurry to get them in the bin and hydrated immediately. They did not look ill at all but the package, box, bedding and all, weighed no more than 1/2lb. Most of the volume, and at least 1/3 of the weight that was in the mass of worms was actually bedding. Now, I've read a bit about worms and I know that you can have 1/2lb of worms that number in the thousands even if they are mature and will rapidly put on weight when given space and food, but this was not the case. Relatively few of them had the band on them that indicates that they are mature. This negates the effect of a small but mature Eisenia Fotida reaching full adult size shortly after being added to a large bin with plenty of food. This product description claims both that "Red Wiggler, Eisenia Fotida, worms are approximately 900-1000 to the pound." and also "This is a pack with Two (2) pounds of worms." The included paper made the claim that "The worms can lose up to 70% of their body mass and weight during a 3-5 day trip through the mail." It also stated "Within 48 hours of moisture and some type of food product, your worms will bounce back 100%" (which is a vague statement). It does, however, state that "They will regain their original size and strength within 2 days..." Now, I don't know about you, but I don't find it practical to empty a worm bin to collect every worm and weigh it to ensure that my worms have 'bounced back 100%' and have 'regained their original size and strength' after 2 days. I can tell you that the ones I have uncovered in the bin are the same size as the ones I put in there well after the magic '48 hours'. What arrived was a few ounces of tiny, immature worms, that are incapable of reaching the 2lb description of this product within the claimed 48 hours(or even the 14 days claimed by an author that seems to know what he's talking about) because these are not merely 'temporarily small, adult worms' but immature, bed-run worms of expected tiny size. The ones that came were mostly healthy looking, but the shipment as a whole did not fulfill the claims made by the company. If I had received 2lbs of these bed-run worms then I would be happy, as the immature worms would be more adaptable than plumped-up adults, but that's not what I was shipped. I was shipped magical shrinking worms that were claimed to be 1800-2000 strong and 2lbs when they entered the mail but somehow shrank in mass and numbers in shipping, only to magically regain their mass and numbers in 2 days. I am now aware that I was ripped off and have been sent less than 1000 worms that will take half a year to grow up and reproduce into the form that the seller claimed. That is NOT what I paid for! ***UPDATE*** I called the number that was prominently displayed on the instruction sheet that was enclosed with the worms. After having to describe that I did read and comprehend the instructions, followed them, and the results were not what were claimed, the person on the phone decided to replace the worms with no further resistance. The box of replacement worms was much heavier than the initial one, spent 1 less day in the mail, and appeared to contain an altogether different sample of worms. I suspect that the initial shipment may have been from a worm bed that was nearly depleted and this was more likely to be from a newly harvested bed. The worms from this shipment were dispersed in loose material and were active to the point that they were thrashing around. I just did a checkup on them and when I removed the newspaper on top of their installment location, the residual packing material started pulsing from within with active worms. The initial shipment had very slow worms that took several days to disperse from the initial area, and the bag smelled unpleasant compared to this replacement. The initial worms also were tightly wadded into a ball, likely for a last-ditch attempt to survive. Now, I firmly believe that when you buy something, it should be at 100% condition when you receive it and no amount of RMA or phone calls should cause an increase in product rating as quality control and packaging design are part of the product I pay for. This is a different case though since the product is live animals that I understand are shipped in an environment that is hazardous to them. Since the problem was resolved to satisfaction without a bad experience, I'm compelled to raise my rating of the product. My new rating assumes that the buyer understands that if their shipment goes bad in the mail or an error was made in the shipment, that they can get a replacement shipment without much hassle.