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The green machine website

TheOslo

Member
Joined
12 Jan 2020
Messages
54
Location
London
Hello wanted to ask does anyone know if the green machine website is safe to buy from? they have an aquarium i want which shows up twice, one full priced and another one sale. Both are in stock. is it safe to buy from? Thanks
 
Their twitter and Instagram hasn't been updated for a couple of years, apart from a re-tweet in APR2020, to sell his book. Could try to contact through there, if call/website doesn't work. Does look rather closed.
 
Give them a call or send a message, they may still be selling old stock.
This.

My impression is that they are just selling off all the stuff left (not much now) from when they closed the shop, but as suggested best double check with them first.

There is not very much at all that can be added to your basket now, and all the popular items seem to be gone, but if you can add it I reckon you can buy it.

I bought from them in 2018(?) when they first closed the shop and put everything on sale. Much more stuff was in stock then, but that was how it worked, if you could put it in your basket it was available to buy.
 
I would be very cautious. I have two reasons for suggesting this. When I bought from them in 2018 (in their closing down sale) they told me the surplus material was going on Amazon. When I suggested the brand had value and it could live on the impression I was left with was a very upset workforce. I was told James just wanted to move on and it was going to close. I am not sure how true this was, however it's suggests that the business didn't continue. Others may know more.

More worrying are the broken links which are suggestive of a zombie website. The the links that lead out elsewhere rather than the intended location could mean that the site has been compromised. At the very least they are suggestive of sloppy maintenance and management. I wouldn't click on anything on this website without checking first (phone them, check on companies House to ensure the data matches and ensure it's a functioning legitimate business). Again, I know others on the forum have far more experience in the area of information security and may be able to comment.
 
I would be very cautious. I have two reasons for suggesting this. When I bought from them in 2018 (in their closing down sale) they told me the surplus material was going on Amazon. When I suggested the brand had value and it could live on the impression I was left with was a very upset workforce. I was told James just wanted to move on and it was going to close. I am not sure how true this was, however it's suggests that the business didn't continue. Others may know more.

More worrying are the broken links which are suggestive of a zombie website. The the links that lead out elsewhere rather than the intended location could mean that the site has been compromised. At the very least they are suggestive of sloppy maintenance and management. I wouldn't click on anything on this website without checking first (phone them, check on companies House to ensure the data matches and ensure it's a functioning legitimate business). Again, I know others on the forum have far more experience in the area of information security and may be able to comment.
I agree, best to be cautious and check with them first. I suspect the owners have some storage space and are minimally maintaining the website to liquidate less popular items that did not sell in the original sale, rather than dumping them for cheap. Just a hunch, I don't know anything for fact regarding their business.

The security certificate for the site seems to be up to date and my browser has remembered my old password (for whatever that is worth):

greenmachine.PNG
 

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I agree with @Onoma1 - it looks very much like a zombie site to me whenever I've been on it. Many of the pages have adverts for unrelated items on them, so I've always assumed its been left running to generate ad revenue for the owner.

I certainly wouldn't consider buying anything from it.
 
After James Findleys book l expected a lot of aquascaping from James with the shop gone and videos on YT
 
I wouldn’t buy anything from here, even if the place was still fully up and running, let alone in its current zombie site state.

I think the probability that you pay them money to their website and not hear or receive anything, and then not be able to contact them is quite high. I mean it was a possibility, even when the shop was fully up and running, so now I think it’s a dead cert.

IMO TGM must have gone downhill from its alleged glory days way before I visited for the first time in 2014. Either that or it was always a dump run by someone who was massively narcissistic and not very nice. The aquariums didn’t look that great to me, and weren’t the best maintained tanks I’ve ever seen. Other than the tanks, it just looked like a messy storage container

I also had a run in with James the owner, who claimed to be the Merseyside Takashi Amano 🙄 and I experienced his brilliant customer service first hand.

This issue was due to James mis selling me tons of expensive seiryu stone, at a cost of hundreds of pounds. I feel he did this on purpose and took advantage of my naivety at the time to sell me far more than I needed. As it goes, almost the full volume of my tank in stone, even though James himself personally sold all of this stone to me knowing my tank dimensions, and allegedly knowing what he was doing with scaping. I was naive then and building my first scape, so I ate up this self professed masters words and let him take advantage of me and sell me far too much rock than would ever go in the tank that I had.

When I realised back home, I phoned up and spoke to James. He was very rude and dismissive, and said it was my issue (his words). He at one point in the conversation agreed to take the surplus back and give a store credit, then retracted this offer. He then proceeded to tell me I had been rude to him and hung up, and then refused to answer the phone when I phoned back or picking it up and leaving it on the side without speaking. Anyway, this all burst my bubble of looking up to James and I was stuck with lots of stone I couldn’t use. How pathetic, and embarrassing for an apparently world renowned professional aquascaper, and apparently successful businessman 🙄🙄🤷🏻‍♂️.

Then I discovered UKAPS and then Aquarium Gardens where the staff/ owners are true masters (as you can see by their display tanks), yet humble in that they don’t claim to be the British Amano. Never had a bad experience with AG.

With the above example of customer service, just think what it will be like when you buy a tank (that probably doesn’t exist) now that they are closed down.
 
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Òh dear thats abad experience. I only visited once remember my son having a go in the scape box. The staff were quite nice
 
At the top of the page:

Screenshot 2021-02-02 at 10.07.21.png
 
TGM online shop definitely went through a time when almost everything was sold out, and then very few items were remaining listed for sale - that was at least a couple years ago

As castle points out this new site is under different ownership - perhaps James had released the domain (or sold it on)
 
It closed in 2018, but I think James had pretty much given up long before then. It was only open during the week, and he switched to selling mainly online, and customer service became somewhat erratic. I think Green Machine was the sole distributor and retailer of ADA in the UK so it had a monopoly on ADA goods. Now ADA is available from several different outlets including Aquarium Gardens.
 
I wouldn’t buy anything from here, even if the place was still fully up and running, let alone in its current zombie site state.

I think the probability that you pay them money to their website and not hear or receive anything, and then not be able to contact them is quite high. I mean it was a possibility, even when the shop was fully up and running, so now I think it’s a dead cert.

IMO TGM must have gone downhill from its alleged glory days way before I visited for the first time in 2014. Either that or it was always a dump run by someone who was massively narcissistic and not very nice. The aquariums didn’t look that great to me, and weren’t the best maintained tanks I’ve ever seen. Other than the tanks, it just looked like a messy storage container

I also had a run in with James the owner, who claimed to be the Merseyside Takashi Amano 🙄 and I experienced his brilliant customer service first hand.

This issue was due to James mis selling me tons of expensive seiryu stone, at a cost of hundreds of pounds. I feel he did this on purpose and took advantage of my naivety at the time to sell me far more than I needed. As it goes, almost the full volume of my tank in stone, even though James himself personally sold all of this stone to me knowing my tank dimensions, and allegedly knowing what he was doing with scaping. I was naive then and building my first scape, so I ate up this self professed masters words and let him take advantage of me and sell me far too much rock than would ever go in the tank that I had.

When I realised back home, I phoned up and spoke to James. He was very rude and dismissive, and said it was my issue (his words). He at one point in the conversation agreed to take the surplus back and give a store credit, then retracted this offer. He then proceeded to tell me I had been rude to him and hung up, and then refused to answer the phone when I phoned back or picking it up and leaving it on the side without speaking. Anyway, this all burst my bubble of looking up to James and I was stuck with lots of stone I couldn’t use. How pathetic, and embarrassing for an apparently world renowned professional aquascaper, and apparently successful businessman 🙄🙄🤷🏻‍♂️.

Then I discovered UKAPS and then Aquarium Gardens where the staff/ owners are true masters (as you can see by their display tanks), yet humble in that they don’t claim to be the British Amano. Never had a bad experience with AG.

With the above example of customer service, just think what it will be like when you buy a tank (that probably doesn’t exist) now that they are closed down.
Oh wow didn’t expect this thanks!
 
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