Originally Posted by ApexPredatorBoids

Really!? That's a bold (read: poorly thought out, IMO) statement. You really think the onus is on the buyer to jump through hoops or seek legal action to fix the seller's mistake? I think you're coming pretty far out of left field on this one. Live arrival only guaranteed through litigation if you piss him off...Hell of a precedent to encourage, in regards to standing behind one's TOS.



Oh, I don't know about that. While we're going out of our way to spin things and miss the real point while arguing moot ones, the buyer paid a lot of cash for a live, healthy snake. What he received was a dead and rotting one. That could just as easily be twisted and labled as fraud. Mr. Potts keeps asking the buyer to prove, via posting of emails, that he didn't approve of how his associates were handling the situation. So, turnabout is fair play. I mean, can the seller prove that the snake was alive when he sent it out? Maybe he had a very recently deceased boa that he saw as an opportunity to turn into a quick $4500. Does he happen to have a continuous video clip showing the living snake being packed and sealed in the box and that box being driven to and handed over to the shipping agent? My own ideas are no more approaching ad ridiculum than those of the conspiracy theorists that support the seller's refusal to do the right thing.

Unless people really buy into the X-Files fan-fiction-like conspiracy theories, it's pretty hard to paint a picture that doesn't involve the snake dying due to the seller's shipping negligence. It doesn't take a specialized degree in thermodynamics to speculate on how it likely went down: snake shipped in a very small, styrofoam-insulated compartment with 2 heat packs in 80+ degree weather. Said styrofoam box is placed within a cardboard box which is then transported in a large metal box (delivery truck), possibly having very restricted air flow due to being surrounded by others boxes on all sides. Pretty easy, for me, at least, to see how this could lead to a slow-roasted boa.

Bottom line: the fact that the buyer seems to have made the mistake of aligning himself with some shady characters DOES NOT, in and of itself, negate the seller's extremely likely responsibility for the snake's death. If he's that salty over what he believes to be blackmail, then he should pursue it in court against those that can be proven to be directly responsible for it. Meanwhile, what he owes the actual buyer, I believe, is an entirely different situation.