Bad experience with Backwater Reptiles
 

I will never, ever, buy from them again.
I bought a Brazilian Rainbow Boa from them on March 6th, paid in full via PayPal. They invoiced me immediately, but two days later still no tracking info for what was supposed to be an overnight delivery. Instead, an email claiming that they'd run out of that particular type of snake. They agreed to refund on my request, but the refund didn't go through for another two days, and when it did, about $8.50 was missing, lost in processing fees that were charged to me, not to them.
I wrote on their Facebook page, they deleted the comment within an hour and blocked me.
No respectable dealer will advertise on their website a product that is not in stock. Even though I notified them of the issue, they continued to display the baby Brazilian Rainbow Boas as being available for sale. I have just checked before posting this thread.
also found out that they are just a middle man. They are actually selling animals that they buy from wholesalers, instead of breeding them like other reputable reptile sellers. Therefore, you cannot be sure of the quality of the animals, or their origin, whether or not they are from parents bred in captivity or wild animals (which makes a huge difference at many levels).
Sophie Dufort

I just checked and it is still for sale. 149.99 Seems to me they need to update their page.

I thought it was pretty common knowledge they are just dealers and not breeders... I don't think I've ever heard much good about them.

To my knowledge, a vendor issued refund should not incur PayPal fees. Email PayPal.

This is true to my knowledge as well. I've issued quite a few refunds thru Paypal, all partial ones for adjusted shipping usually but they always return the percent of the fees that they took from that portion of the payment back to the person being refunded. It's not something one has to do, the site does it automatically. So if they didn't send back all of the payment, it was deliberate and wasn't to cover PayPal's fees.

Man, glad I saw this thread. i was thinking about buying a frilled dragon from them. Guess I'll go elsewhere.

To clarify the PayPal issue, I paid using my Australian credit card (I have recently moved to the States and still have money into an Australian account). When Backwater Reptiles refunded the money, about $8.50 were lost due to conversion. I know it wasn't the dealer's fault, but I do hold them responsible for charging for an item that is not available (and to make it worse, they took a couple of days to notify me that they couldn't honor the order). The fact that they still display that particular type of snakes as being available is deceiving and unprofessional, particularly when they are aware that that particular item is sold out. All the more frustrating was the fact that I had no means of contacting them over the phone. What reputable company operates without providing the customers with a phone number?

I have now purchased a Brazilian Rainbow Boa from a different company (Rainbows R Us) and I am very happy. I paid yesterday and the snake arrived today all the way from California (destination Florida), in excellent condition. The manager of this company not only has a contact number, but he contacted us himself, kept in touch via email, pursued a FedEx delay without me prompting him to do so. Basically he bent over backwards to help and to make sure that the shipment arrived safely and soundly.

A search on the BOI would have shown you they are a flipper and not reputable.

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...water+reptiles

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...water+reptiles

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...water+reptiles

And there are more threads about them.

Here are some more reviews, that I only found after the purchase:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...5235014AAunuh8

I only found faunaclassifieds.com website today, after browsing through reviews on other websites. I have now learned my lesson. I should have thoroughly researched them before paying for the snake. The reviews on their page were great, and so were those of customers on their Facebook page, so I dropped my guard. I now know that they filter and delete all unfavourable reviews, since they deleted mine and blocked me.