Great people in the Business - TSE Scammed Group Donaters
 

To make this a combined effort and to show how many amazing people are out there in the business, I wanted to create an umbrella thread to have people who have received animals from the TSE scammed group to post the amazing things that the people out there in the business that donated did, as well as their prospective personal threads.

If you may or may not know, Chris Johnson of Top Shelf Exotics was in the business several years ago selling hets. He turned out to be a fake, phony and a criminal, and disappeared with tens of thousands dollars from more than 30 people.

Some people received animals that never proved, some people never received anything.

In a combined group effort, some of the people who were scammed got together and have been in constant contact to see what could be done.

Jon Dvoritz and myself, Heather Wong, have been trying to find people in the business that could sympathize with and help the people who were scammed by donating animals to the people who lost out on their dreams.

Luckily, there are people out there that do care, and do want to help those in need.

So, for those amazing people, I want to thank you each and every one of you for your help and your efforts.

If you have your own stories, please post here as well.

Hello Heather,

Here is my story, three years ago, I purchased a pair of Het Pieds, and a pair of Het Clowns from TSE before all of this information came to the surface. I spent more than 3k on these animals which evidently turned out to be normals.

It is great you and the others are trying to help out the people who got really screwed by him. There are plenty of us out there. It is very unfortunate that this happend to so many of us.

One day Chris will get his, and that will be a great day for all of us.

-Nick Bottini
www.nickrbreptiles.com

Yeah, I sent off about $1200.oo and never recieved anything. It's awesome to see the good folks in the industry banding together to help out people who were scammed.
One day I hope to help out folks in a similar manner.

I purchased 1.1 "het" albino, and .1 "het" orange ghost from TSE. I did actually receive the supposed het albinos, but never got ANYTHING for the money I paid Chris Johnson for the het orange ghost. My "het" albino girl was bred to a KNOWN 100% male last year, and no surprise, all normal babies.

Neil Golli has donated an '06 het G-stripe male to me, and we are just waiting for the weather here to become warmer (we're still having highs in the single digits if not BELOW zero) to get him shipped out safely. I'm super excited about this guy...a couple of my upcoming projects are taking a bit of a different direction now, but it's gonna be a good thing. :)

Several folks have worked really hard on helping out the folks who were scammed, and each and every one of them deserve a huge thank you.....from Jon who started all of this quite some time ago, to those who spent countless hours writing letters and making phone calls trying to find attorneys and such....to those who took the time just to send in their depositions....to Heather who took over and got things moving again when some of us could no longer keep going, or darn near gave up.....to the wonderful folks like Neil who are pitching in to remind us all that there ARE good people left in this business, and that the good folks need to be here to stay. There has been an enormous amount of time and effort from people to bring this to fruition.

A HUGE thanks to everyone involved.

Cat I kinda got lost in all of this long ago, did the money we donated ever get used towards anything? Along with the money collect with our dontated auctions? :shrug01:

I purchased a Sumatran black blood from TSE. This animal will be staying with me as long as it lives to remind me of Chris Johnson and the harm he did to a lot of Fauna friends. Cat, I agree with you Neil is excellent. I purchased two very nice looking ball pythons from him and I'm looking forward to see him in Daytona 08'.

I'm curious on this too. Many people donated to the "TSE Fund" but we have no idea what happened with that money. :shrug01:

I contacted Bobby privately and answered this, as I was REALLY hoping this would remain a thread about the positives....and I really should have included all of those who did donate funds in my many thanks...I owe you all a big apology for not mentioning you. It was really awesome the way you folks stepped up to help too!

As much as we tried, we could not get an attorney to take our case. As I said, countless hours were spent trying, to no avail. The donators should have all been informed either by email or on a private forum, we no longer had any concrete plans for the funds, and they were welcome to request the monies be returned. If anyone who donated has not been contacted nor read the forum, they are more than welcome to request that refund now. If anyone has any other questions, feel free to contact me, and I will get you in touch with who you need to be in touch with.

I don't know if I would ever buy a het anything from anyone.

Adam,

There are people you can buy from with your eyes closed; just a hand shake and no papaerwork needed.