Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone,
I just wanted to let everyone no about a bit of incompetence and therefore needed caution when dealing with a certain vendor online. For the safety of the animals and your own collections.

This is a bit long but please read it, it can save you a lot of grief.
Out of courtesy I will not name the vendor but use caution out there.

So last Thursday I am in the forum looking for some female bp's to use out crosses for my little project. I find what I am looking for about ch yearlings and the pictures in the add were great.
The vendor is online often in both the bp forum and the monitor forum and was very notable, so I thought...

So I contact the vendor via email had a great conversation but should have known something was fishy. I mentioned that there was a price difference between their kingsnake post and their website. The gentleman was nice enough to give me the website price because, even thought it wasn't stated in his add, the website price was for males only and I wanted females. Well issue resolved got two girls of 800 gram size for the price I wanted and paypal purchased them Friday morning.

Now I am not stupid didn't expect to get them for Saturday morning so I said I would speak to him Monday for arrival (key word here) for Tuesday.
Weekend goes by and I am psyched, I set my rack tubs up and am ready to go.

Now mind you I am changing the names and keeping this simple but these are the legitimate emailed conversations I had with this vendor starting Monday morning. Also keep in mind that I live in Jersey and its not super cold out anymore but we had a high of 45 Monday and it ended up snowing Tuesday and so it is like 35 out today.
Hello "Vender",
Just following up with you. Are we on for tomorrow arrival? Can you give me
a tracking number when the girls go out?

Really looking forward to receiving them.
Thanks again for everything,

He sends me back this:
-----Original Message-----
From: Vendor
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 11:32 AM
To: Me
Subject: Re: Order status

You want me to ship today or tomorrow either id fine. Let me know. I though you wanted me to ship today.

My retort

-----Original Message-----
From: ME
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 11:37 AM
To: Vendor
Subject: RE: Order status

Sorry I do want them shipped today. I meant that I was expecting them to arrive tomorrow morning sorry for the confusion. I just wanted to add could you put on the shipper box to be delivered to rear door of house. The front doorbell doesn't work and someone will be home to get them in the morning but I just need to make sure they get to the back door.
Also the high for tomorrow is 38 degrees. Just so you know and can heat pack accordingly.
if you could send me the tracking number when have it that would awesome.
Thanks again,

So I figured all was well and good and that solved the problem. I mean come on I said are we on for tomorrow arrival on Monday morning so WTF does that mean? it means ship them out Monday so they get there or "arrive" for Tuesday, rite?
Well Tuesday comes and its snowing I send him this :
Hello Vendor,
The girls have not arrived yet and it is snowing I am very concerned, do you
have a tracking number for that package?
Thank you,

I get this

-----Original Message-----
From: Vendor
Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 11:18 AM
To: Me
Subject: Re: The order tracking

You told me yesterday that you didn't want me to ship until today. Today is Tuesday that is what you said I was going to ship them today do you want to wait until the weather clears up? It would be better for the health pf the balls.

Now am I writing in English or hieroglyphics? what about any email I sent to him made it really clear to send them out on Tuesday for Wednesday arrival??? NONE!!!

Well it came down to this I said:

No I said I was expecting them today.
I said "sorry for the confusion and send them out today" meaning yesterday for Tuesday arrival. that's what I sent I have it right in front of me.
Please send them out today with heat packs then for tomorrow morning arrival. It is going to be a high of 45 tomorrow. please send me a tracking number for them today.
thank you,

I got a no problem reply.

So here we are this morning.
Well I am all excited this morning and I paid for overnight shipping I believe it said FedEx Airfreight which according to FedEx's website that should have arrived by 9 A.M, but something told me that because of the miscommunication earlier that I would get beat.

Luckily I called FedEx at 830 this morning and I asked them to track my package based on the departure and the arrival address, because evne though I asked for it three times I got a tracking number only this morning, after 945.

Well they tracked it and the this guy sent it to a major misspelled address, and according to FedEx only standard overnight so the package could get to me by 4pm this evening. I explained to FedEx that these were snakes and that the heating pack won't last long and I needed that rerouted to the correct address by 10 o'clock.

Now I am a verified paypal member which clearly shows my shipping address, for those of you that are familiar with paypal. Also in the comments box I restated my shipping address. So explain something to me why would the guy get the address wrong?

Was I being tormented or punished so that the animals would be dead by the time I got them? What's up with that?

Well the snakes arrived. Inside they were alive, with one heat pack and they luckily were at 68 degrees each ( I know not great but hey not dead or frozen) a little cold but they couldn't have been in transit from down south to up north for more than 12 -18 hours and they went right into the racks which have an ambient temp of 85 degrees and a hot spot under the hide boxes of 93. Thirty minutes after arrival both girls are now at 75 degrees and rising and starting to move around. I think they will be fine. I also wanted to mention that in my paypal payment I requested certain colors and patterns that I had seen on the picture. What I have is ok but nothing like what I asked for.

Moral of the story I guess if your going to get punked your punked and don't be a smart ass and show the person that they are wrong because in the end your animals and you will have nothing but grief. The only thing I can hope for is that the vendor wasn't lying about the background of the animals; and oh yeah I also need to sex them I guess to be sure I didn't get sent two boys after they are calm and not so stressed.
Hope your all have better luck than me.

Everyone thank you for your replies. I have received them all. I will consider posting the full story (as one of you recommended) on the other forum.
However, as far as getting back to you all with who the vendor was, I will do this on an individual basis, under the condition that the vendor will not be discussed in the forum, from that point on.

I must say that looking to be in business myself next year, I feel very uncomfortable about naming the name. Call that what ever you want, I just don't feel that this would be professional, but I did want to warn people about the fact that not everyone that posts an add is super reliable; which is why I will reply to you all one at a time with the answer to that question.

Please understand that the females are now fine and warm, and although not what I requested they are seemingly healthy animals. I will not say don't purchase from this vendor I wouldn't do that, when I reply to you all, but I will say be clear, concise, and straight forward about what you want and when you want it; to avoid the confusion I found myself in.
I will not "bash" a vendor, but I will admit that this was a stupid situation that I found myself in and it could have been avoided if the vendor took time to read my emails. From now on I am using the phone or going to a show and dealing with a human being face to face.

Thanks for your replies.

they are all the same.......give money get screwed.......yep....ship in 20 degrees with heat pack,,,then cut holes in boxes? duh..ship late...wrong adress.......wrong times....wrong numbers.......wrong week.....

......dealers suck.........bigtime.......

only used a few a couple times.....one...tried 14 years ago ...unhappy.....friend did a deal this year....screwed the same.....he never changes.......gh.

........buy direct.........from a breeder with a brain.......

.............

i am going to go out on a limb here. i think we all know that bad things do happen in this business. the problem is when people like yourself come on and say they had a bad exchange but wont tell us who or make it a big mystery. just tell us so that people can make better buying descions. i too am going to have pieds, pastels, ghosts, and albinos next year and want to offer good service. we dont need breeders out ther trying to get away with thing that arent good and the only way i know of is to get their name out there. bad publicity will either put them out of business or force them to straighten up their business practices. this is just my opinion.

joe

If you take the facts in his post I think you can narrow it down to about 3-4 breeders and the 2-3 that aren't involved may suffer somewhat just because an unclear doubt has been put there. That really is not fair either.
-----
Rob Talkington