Congrats Michelle! :thumbsup:

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Michelle had the courage to stand up for herself, and I admire her. But as someone just posted there have been some hurtful posts and a bunch of kissing up to Ty earlier. Michelle has said to me that she is afraid that in the future people will not sell to her :(

Michelle, most sellers, I think, are good wholesome ethical people. I think most can see that you did not go through all this until you had, several times, asked Ty for what was rightfully yours. I think you should have no worries about being accepted in this community and I am sure there are sellers who would be honored to sell to you in the future.

Just posts their names on this thread,so I can add them to the A-HOLE list.

Glad this is finally coming to a close. I'm sure Mr. Parks has a great lizard collection but he did the wrong thing here by not honoring his agreement with Michelle and giving her the lizard or the cash. Obviously, the judge saw it the same way the majority of us on here did. I hope the money will help make up for all the stress she's been through and I hope Mr. Parks will just do the right thing going forward and save himself a lot of money in the process.

I too am glad Michelle won. Ty lost money but, he accomplished exactly what he hoped too. He delayed and stalled right up to the very end. He pushed it as far as he could before a contempt of court charge (criminal) would be brought against him. We may never know terms of the settlement but, I bet it involves a payment plan where Ty pays a certain amount each month over a year or two. This further delays things. Ty did lose the money but in his mind he probably claims victory by making Michelle, someone he felt was ungrateful for winning a charity prize jump through hoops (over two years) to finally get paid. He was going to make her work and cause her as much aggravation as he could to collect what was hers. This is a sick way of thinking but, this IS his thought process. He has done similar things before!

I will address this as someone who did criticize some of Michelle’s behavior earlier on.

Let me preface by saying point blank, you deserved to win michelle, and I’m glad you did. Ty did you wrong.

I will say that I think you could have handled some of your conversations with him early on better. Not because you were wrong but because some of how you spoke came across as very brash and emotional.

That does not mean, however, that I think you are a bad person or a bad customer. I’m simply saying this to be as impartial as possible and to try and guide forward: I would try to breathe and have a little more tact before addressing a seller in the future.

Again: not that I think it would have changed anything with Ty, it wouldn’t have, he had his mind made up. Just as a word of advice going forward.

As for not selling to you - I wouldn’t worry about that. If anything, your willingness to fight for your convictions is admirable and I personally would have no problem selling to you if I produced something you wanted.

I SERIOUSLY doubt that this sort of thing will happen. At least not with anyone worth buying from. This, IMHO, has shown that Michelle is a knowledgeable buyer and knows what she wants, and wasn't willing to take anything less or different that was offered after the deal was struck. No one should be literally forced to accept something different from what the agreement was for in any transaction. Especially when the alternative offered by the seller is to receive nothing at all if you do not accept their ex post facto demands.

Personally, I found this incident to be quite fascinating as a lesson in what can potentially happen when someone throws around lawsuits without thinking it FULLY through and making certain they are standing on solid legal ground. This is as perfectly suited as an excellent example of "grabbing a tiger by the tail" that I could ever think of.

IMHO, of course.