James Church, Bad Guy
Before I get into it, this post needs a few disclaimers.
First, I have never done business with James Church, I merely have evidence of a situation which I feel warrants a bad guy post, garnered from several different message boards but collectively leading to a very negative conclusion. Secondly, I debated with myself where this thread belonged BOI versus Hell because I had not personally done business with the man but I believe my proof constitutes enough for a BOI thread about his shady behaviors. The moderators may disagree and this may end up in Hell, their call entirely as I was kind of on the fence about it myself. Third, given his responses elsewhere I'm pretty certain that James will come across as unstable and probably post inappropriately. While his conduct is telling about his character, I would hope that the decision to put this thread in Hell is based on the merit (or lack of) in my post rather than any rules infractions James hopes to add in order to tank the thread. Fourth, I suspect a number of people have had successful deals with James and are happy with their purchases. By all means please post your experiences but also bear in mind that I am going to be detailing a serious flaw with James' ethics and you may want to rethink how your purchase went when you consider the evidence I am going to show. Fifth, I will evidence a deal between James and another individual several times as it was the situation which alerted me to his negative actions. I am NOT speaking for anyone except myself and my words and thoughts on this matter are mine alone. James had some difficulty distinguishing beteen the names "Seamus" and "Jessica" before so here's the clear and simple statement I am not speaking for Jessica, do not in any way represent her or her interests and if she has anything to add here, she can do it herself. Now, the meat of the issue. Like many Fauna users I am registered at and participate to varying degrees on numerous reptile related forums. On one such forum, a user created a thread about a snake she had just obtained which had an abnormality in the way it's jaw was shaped, essentially asking if anyone had seen anything like it before and what the chances for different causes were. She already had a vet appointment but it was a decent discussion. In that thread, the following photo was posted (reposted here without permission incidentally) http://fantasybooks.unmeinohi.net/ja...-20-04-017.jpg Of the animal she had purchased. The lower jaw is clearly having problems. Here is the photo James Church sent prior to her purchasing the snake- http://fantasybooks.unmeinohi.net/pastel2.jpg While close scrutiny shows the jaw to be similarly deformed, the camera angle minimizes the appearance and it's fairly easy to see how it could be overlooked if someone is not specifically looking for the trait. While James neglected to mention the deformity to his buyer and then tried to claim it happened during shipping... These are Jessica's issues, should she choose to post about them and are NOT the thrust of this thread. What I have displayed above is one example of James Church having jaw deformities in his stock. Here is another photo, taken by James Church himself (the ugly chair shows up in a lot of his photos) showing an anery with a jaw deformity... http://thereptileroom.org/forum/inde...e=post&id=8263 Here's ANOTHER anery of his which has a deformed jaw and head... http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...s/72825888.jpg ANOTHER os James Church's photos... the boa with it's head in the lower left looks like something's going on there but the picture is too fuzzy to nail it down. Since he takes plenty of perfectly clear photographs when it suits him, that in and of itself is suspect... http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...s/Im004784.jpg Albino with an underbite, also James Church's animal... http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...s/Im003794.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../sideview1.jpg Another photo of the anery, note how careful he is to crop the head. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../IM003796a.jpg A pastel, jaw cropped and again with the ugly chair. The point of this is... James Church has jaw deformities in his stock, in concentrations greater than should be acceptable to any ethical individual. He's made statements which indicate that he is breeding the same animals that have in the past produced jaw deformities and even the deformed animals themselves, calling them individually "flukes" despite the propensity he has shown in producing them. What I ask now... Did any of you purchase siblings to the ones displaying the deformity? Do you want to have a chance of producing your own quasimodoboas? He's certainly not accurately representing the deformity as being present in his stock so why would he accurately tell a potential customer that their animal was related to a deformed one? Heck, if these deformities are the ones we're allowed to see, what proof is there that he hasn't culled more obvious ones? Negative traits are sometimes formative flukes and sometimes genetic. Given the number which have been shown to exist in his stock with similar deformities (malformed jaws) there's a good chance there is a genetic cause. Much like the jerks who breed albinos with no eyes, this has to stop and it has to stop NOW before too many descendants of his animals get loose in the breeding population. While I personally would encourage anyone who has ever purchased an animal from this man to request an immediate refund given the possibility that your animal was misrepresented (omission of relation to deformed animals and it's not as if he's going to turn around and honestly inform anyone of which animals were related) and knowing full well that it's unethical to breed an animal which is a possible carrier for a likely genetic deformity... Bad guys sell animals with deformities. Even worse bad guys will sell siblings to deformed animals without mentioning it to the customer. I'm pretty sure James will show up here to argue, he has elsewhere anyway when I mentioned the subject. The fact that he's denying the problem exists rather than addressing ways to solve it puts him squarely in the bad guy camp. He's no better than the creeps selling the siblings to eyeless animals or the ones who are calling unproven animals a genetic morph... he's misrepresenting his stock by omission and he's breeding deformities for sale. I'll be emailing him a link to the thread but in the mean time, if anyone has a response, please feel free to add it. |
That's the problem with this supply and demand economy. There are tons of good, ETHICAL, honest breeders, who have problems selling their animals, because they are plain or "yesterdays" morphs. Invent a new morph or breed ones that are still in demand and people stand in line to scoop them up. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a Piebald BP or some of those newer morphs, but I would definitely buy it from a breeder with ethics. I'm just saying that with people lining up for certain animals, it makes it that much easier for crooks, frauds, and unethical breeders to bag a ton of money. Inbreed the cr@p out of animals, purposely breed genetic defects, even try to make a genetic defect (no eyed scrub) a new morph. It's sickening.
Even if that one photo didn't show the deformity, the fact that he has so many photos with the head cropped, makes it obvious that this person is misrepresenting his animals. The fact he continues to breed this defective line, and then pose pics so the defect doesn't show, is outright fraud, no different than any of the other outright thieves that are giving us all a bad name. I just wish that cases like this weren't so low on the priority list for the court system and law enforcement. If a big company were selling a product to the public and deliberately missrepresented their product as bad as this, they would be shut down in an instant and be dragged into court, or forced to give refunds. JMO |
|
This is really sad. He has some beautiful animals (the anery especially) but they should be pets.....NOT breeding stock.
Kinda reminds me of the one eyed albino boas that were on KS recently and the no eye one on there now. Too many people are looking for the $ and will cheat people and breed substandard animals to make a quick buck. Thanks for posting. I will definitely avoid this individual. |
WHAT NO ONE LIKES THE NEW DOG FACE MORPH??
I REMEMBER I ASKED HIM ONE TIME ABOUT 7 MONTHS AGO WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HIS BOAS FACE ( THE PALTINUM ANERY) AND HE GOT ALL NASTY WITH ME LIKE I HAD INSULTED HIS MOTHER OR SOMETHING SO I DECIDED TO JUST DROP IT ALL I KNOW IS THAT HIS SNAKE LOOKED LIKE A OLD MAN WITH NO TEETH I THOUGHT IT WAS VERY STRANGE
JOHN PERAZA |
Found ANOTHER one, not sure if this is the same albino he has with the underbite or not but check out the left side of this animal's jaw in this photo.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...s/Im003788.jpg |
I'm only curious as to why he, or anyone else, hasn't stepped up to say anything. *shrug* I know Jessica will soon, but surely there must be someone else that has dealt with him?
|
I was waiting for a rebuttal from James but it appears he isn't interested in saving his own behind, so here goes my own piece of this rather interesting story.
In response to ldydrgn's post: Here's one of the very early e-mails he sent me before there was any problem. Quote:
And now to the meat of it... (typos and all) I'm sorry I never saved a copy of the original ad posted over on k-snake classifieds but any of you who tread that land will probably recall it. The ad for the female I purchased was up in late September. And said something like "5ft pastel het for anery $450, $40 for shipping" It was rather light on information but I had seen the animal before (as many people have.) These are the three pictures in the ad: (The one where she's in the chair I'm not 100% on it was either that one or one very similar to it but the point is the same.) http://fantasybooks.unmeinohi.net/277408.jpg http://fantasybooks.unmeinohi.net/pastel2.jpg http://fantasybooks.unmeinohi.net/277410.jpg There were a few e-mails and a phone call. He assured me she was "100% healthy" and he was only selling her to make room etc etc. There isn't anything particular about any of these exchanges that I can tell so I will omit them here. On Sept. 28th I paypaled Mr. Church $490 to the address bcrosby@carolina.rr.com. She arrived on Thursday October 7th at 4:00. She was shipped UPS Saver (automatic points against him for that but I never addressed the issue with him so its not a big deal). I can get a picture of the box if need be but it would only be overkill I think. The VERY first thing I noticed was her jaw. The second she was out of the bag. It was VERY obvious. I examined it immediately and it wasn't cheesy or painful to her, but there was some sort of clear problem. Her lower jaw looked bulgy and tilted to one side and her nose is very small looking against the bulging jaw. And there was slight inflammation in the mouth. The inflammation lead to my supposition about the problem as seen in my message. That night I emailed him around 9:40. This was my message. Quote:
[quote] Sent : Thursday, October 7, 2004 10:04 PM Subject : Re: she has arrived safely... Hey Jessica. Just got home. No she was fine. I packed the box well I thought. She hasnt gotten injured here. Sorry I forgot to leave a tracking # oops. Enjoy her James C. I waited, wondering if the swelling would go down if it was in fact some sort of trauma. The I e-mailed him again, increasingly concerned. As I mentioned here, I attached some pics, to prove my point. If those pics are also necessary then they can be provided (and looking through my pictures it appears I took pics the day she arrived on the 7th they just weren't uploaded to my computer until the 13th... a screenshot could prove that but only if someone calls for it.) Quote:
Quote:
Here is the thread The pictures posted in that thread are taken on the 20th. It was either that next day or the following that I went ahead and made the vet appointment. I e-mailed him a brief statement that I was taking her to the vet and he decided not to reply. After the vet appointment I postedthis thread and at the same time e-mailed Mr. Church. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
And now his reply: Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
At the same time, I'm very busy and my phone is usually off. It's very hard to get a hold me by phone which is my own fault but in any case. There was no contact by phone for awhile. My memory and my game of saving every e-mail has failed me entirely and I think I e-mailed him asking to just e-mail me the information but I could have intended but hadn't gotten around to it by the time the "stuff" started over on Randy's site. here The post that riled James up was on the 15th and then he e-mailed me on the 16th in the wee hours of the morn. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
And the vet by the way is Dr. Scott Stahl . Well known and respected and he does know his snakes. That's the whole of it. I am of course not happy how the deal ended up but in the end I am glad that the truth about his line is out. Animals with inheritable deformities should not be propagated; its not fair to the animals and not healthy for any population, especially a captive one where such issues can only be compounded by poor breeding practices. That being said I may decide to breed this female one day in an attempt to see if the coloration (which I believe to be mutant) and the deformity are connected; and any and all deformed animals will be put down humanely if there should be any, regardless of generation. Some would argue that these babies would make for pets but the pet market is flooded with pet quality animals and well I just don't want to risk the gene pool with the anomaly. If and when I do decide to breed her (its definitely not inevitable) all results will be posted in a public forum. I believe if Mr. Church had decided to be more open about the jaw issue and its possible ties with a new mutation, none of this would have occurred. Perhaps he knows the two traits are linked and therefore doesn't want the word out, but to sell just one as he did with me was enough to announce it with a loudspeaker. Like it has been stated, you have to wonder what other animals he's sold or what worse cases he's put down? Time may tell or it may not... Either way, James Church's dishonesty and breeding policies have shown him as he truly is. And excuse the tremendous length of this post.... |
bahreptiles@carolina.rr.com
Is this about this guy at Bahreptiles?
I'm thinking of buying a Hypo from him for $400, are you saying I shouldn't? |
Hypo from James
|
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:34 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.