craig268

Hi, all. I am a tortoise guy. Like large tortoises.
So why is it so hard for even reputable dealers to honestly represent tortoise sizes. I'm just blowing off a little steam here.

I just got a couple of large tortoises (around 12"). I checked out the dealer here and he had very good reviews. He advertises on Kingsnake a few times a month. Anyway, he posts an ad with some photos of these tortoises. Uses floor tile size as a reference and even has a tape measure in one photo. So far so good.

I print out the photos and measure the tortoises and they seem to be pretty big. Tape measure is a little unclear but I assume it's in inches and so with the tile size, it all seems good.

Now, there is some scale distortion in the photos but still everything seems to support the sizes.

Ok, so I call him and he says these are nice big suckers. Ok, so far everything adds up and I buy these guys. Well they arrive and are definately at least 2 inches shorter than what he claimed and than what I measured in the photos.

Ok, I know buyer beware. But this guy is a reputable dealer. Why the hell can't he at least measure his animals properly? They are nice animals and he did a great job with shipping and so forth. But no way in hell could the tile size have been as big as he claimed. As for the tape measure, maybe it was centimetess. Again, I assumed (my fault) that since this guy was reputable, he knew what he was doing.

Lesson learned: even with reputable dealers, insist on really good measurements with clear photos.

Craig