Dead King Cobra

My name is Bill Furgione and I have been keeping venomous for quite some time. I am just a hobbist, definately not an expert. I just want to get some feedback from all you readers. I purchased a Vemoid King Cobra for Paul Dolescal out of Baltimore Maryland. Now I am not a supporter of the whole "vemoid" proceedure but this animal had some wonderful color and I was hoping to use her as a breeder. I paid $ 1000. for her and within two maybe three weeks the animal died. When I got the animal I noticed that her head was very shrunk in but Paul told me he had her for over a year and half and shes fine. I happen to have roughly 70 some cobras and mambas.... all of which are fine and other than 1 wild caught blacktail and 1 eastern coral snake I have (Knock on wood) NEVER had a snake die on me. I also bought a bag of 20 feeder rats snakes from Paul... and his words were there are a couple of rough looking snakes but they are just for food. The feeder snakes were $ 200. I took home two sacks full of snakes. After I opened the sacks I found two dead snakes and 80% of the rest all had mouth rot and other various problems. When the King cobra died I asked Paul for a partial refund... and his answer was "a deal is a deal" and he still wanted the cash for sick rat snakes. I asked him to take the snakes back call it even, however that wasnt good enough for him. I sent tons of pictures of the dead King to the Cobra Gardens for Sean Palmers OPINION of what was the cause of death. Sean wrote me back with his explination... Basically a "Hack job" with obvious head shrinkage too much tissue was cut away. I woke up this morning to my phone ringing off the hook with my friends asking me why I posted an add on Kingsnake trying to sell the dead King... come to find out this Paul Dolescal charecter posted the add using my name trying to trash me over $ 200. What should I do? Oh and by the way guys I have LEARNED A VALUABLE LESSON about Vemoids. This proceedure should not be practiced and supported. By buying this animal I supported something that caused a lot of pain and eventual death to this perfect animal. NEVER AGAIN

this should be posted on the boi not the classifieds section

I'm sorry to hear about your loss. We have all had a bad experience with a seller. As far as this one being from baltimore, there are a lot of legal issues with venomous here. Check out this link:

http://198.187.128.12/maryland/lpext.dll?f=templates&fn=fs-main.htm&2.0

Hope it will shed some light. I won't do any business with that guy.

Bill,

I'll leave the venomoid issue alone, and just address the issue of the sale.

Were there terms discussed? If he only guarantees live delivery, there's probably nothing more you can do. The loophole I see is if you can have a necropsy done and prove that the snake died as a direct result of a recent procedure. However, my guess is that the seller will not accept the opinion of someone else who's only seen pictures as to a cause of death. Truthfully, not many sellers would.

How did you receive the snakes? It's unclear because it says you "received" the cobra, but "took home" 2 bags of snakes. If it was in person, you should have inspected the rat snakes prior, as well as the cobra. If they were shipped, I hope you insisted the cobra be sent through Delta Dash (venomoid or not).

Next, how did you pay? You may have recourse with your credit card company, and if it was a postal money order, it's possible you might have a claim for false advertisement (saying the snakes were healthy).

Finally, is he somehow using your log in name on KS, or just posting an ad under your name? You should file a complaint with KS. It may or may not do any good, but it's a start.

Good luck getting it worked out, and I'm sorry for the loss of the animal.

Bad experience...

Definitly move this thread to the BOI. Let more people know about this guy and the bad deal he did with you.

tim-happy holidays!!!