Prehistoricpets?????????

Originally posted by Dr Owens
Steve,
You should probably post your experiences with Clif here:
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...5&pagenumber=1

Clif posted his "version" of this same story while he was trolling under a false name.

Done and good catch on this one...

"Kaplan = Wrong"

For Christmas my boyfriend had decided to purchase a columbian red tail from them for me. It was a snake I'd been looking at for a while, as it would have been a great match for my female columbian.

He had it shipped Delta Dash to ensure that it would be here before Christmas for me, and was told that it would be in at 11:30pm the following day. He told me (and I was very excited - he doesn't even like the snakes himself), and I used the tracking numbers they had provided him and found (to our dismay) that a connecting flight that it was being put on wasn't going to be in until 5PM the following day. We called Delta, and they were very friendly about changing the flights so that the snake would be in at 11:30pm as we were told (assuming the flight was on time). They told us that the snake had never been scheduled for that flight that came in at 11:30pm. But they switched the flights for me anyways. So we went and picked the box up.

At the Delta Cargo counter we opened the box excitedly only to find this very tiny, very dark, pretty cold columbian. We took it home, and got it started on warming up, put it in a temporary set up, and stared at. This was very obviously NOT the snake he had ordered for me. The snake we had ordered was supposed to be nearly 4 feet long, and this snake barely measured 3 feet. It looked like maybe a yearilng, and the snake he had purchased was labeled as a Sub-Adult. This little tiny snake was obvously an 04 baby, and never in my wildest dreams would I have called it a Sub-Adult. I would have called it a baby, or a yearling at best. When it warmed up it did have some nice coloration - but it was purchased as a mate to my female, who wasn't nearly ready to breed yet, but was still 4.5 feet herself! There was no way this little 3 foot baby was going to be any match for my 4.5 foot female.

So, I wrote them an Email, in which they aplogized, but said that when they went to package the snake they just couldn't find the one pictured on the site. It just wasn't in their store, so they chose another snake that they thought was pretty, and sent it instead. They apologized, and told me they'd give me full refund, but urged me multiple times through Emails and Phone calls to give the snake a chance, and that it might grow on me, and I might want to keep it. They also told me multiple times that within a year's time it would be ready for breeding.

One of the things that annoyed me is that they had Emailed my boyfriend AFTER packing up the boa, and shipping it out, with the tracking number. They could have EASILY mentioned "Hey, we couldn't find the snake, but I found one that I think you will like and sent it instead, I hope that is okay. Here is the tracking number." But they simply said "Here's the tracking number, let us know when he gets there." Really they should have called or Emailed him and told him "Hey, we don't have the boa you bought. You can choose another or we can refund your money."

The second thing that upset me is that they told me over the phone that the boa pictured on the site was only a little bit bigger than the one they sent, that we would have been unhappy with the pictured snake also. They said that they must have accidentally had the wrong length labled on the picture, and that they use a special camera lens to make the snakes look bigger than they are. They admitted that they try to make the snakes look better than they are!

Then they tried to get me to keep the snake and see if it grew on me, and offered to refund the shipping even if I kept it. They tried to convince me to like a snake that I really didn't like. I don't just buy snakes just to have another snake - I buy specific snakes because I want that specific snake. There are almost always certain traits I am looking for in them, and it can take me seemingly forever to find that perfect snake.

Then they told me that I should just ship the snake back, and as soon as they opened the box and made sure I sent them back the same snake they sent me they would refund the money - including all shipping both ways. So I shipped the snake back, and gave them the tracking numbers, and they promised they'd write me as soon as the snake got in and would let me know that they had credited the credit card. I had the tracking numbers too, and waited for several hours after they got the snake in to send me an Email or give me a call letting me know that they got it. Finally I wrote them and they just said "Yep, we got it back, its in good condition. Thanks." So I wrote them again and said "Okay, I sent the snake back, have you refunded the credit card?" and they wrote back saying "Oh, sorry. I'm not authorized to give you a refund. That's up to the owner. It's out of my control. I'll let him know that you'd like that as soon as he can get around to it though."

So the guy I had been dealing with (there were two people I had been dealing with, one was a manager who passed me on to an employee under him when I refused to keep the snake) had promised me an instant refund when he has no control whatsoever over refunds.

Two days later I had heard nothing from them, so I Emailed them again, asking about the refund. They wrote back and said "You have no reason to be frusterated, all the money will be credited back to the credit card. Be patient." So I waited two more days, and they sent me an Email saying that they had credited the credit card for the purchase of the snake -$200, and the shipping to us -$35. They hadn't paid us back for shipping the snake back to them. So I had to write them again. They wrote back and said "Oh yeah, sorry about that. We can only credit funds back to a credit card in the amount or under that was put on it. The rest of your refund is coming to you in a check in the mail." And to my surprise - it arrived in the next day or two.

Well, my boyfriend told me to just use the money and find another snake I liked and wanted. I wound up purchasing a female BRB off of the classifiedes section here which worked out GREAT. My boyfriend was very bummed, as he had worked very hard to make this a surprise for me, and it all wound up completely screwed up.

To summarize Prehistoric Pets (fountain valley location):
1. Shipped the wrong snake intentionally.
2. Didn't notify or ask of us this was okay.
3. Didn't specify the correct Delta flights for the shipment.
4. Tried to get me to keep the wrong snake.
5. Employee lied when he promised a prompt refund knowing he wasn't capable of authorizing the refund himself.
6. First part of refund wasn't recieved for nearly a week.
7. Second part of refund wasn't received for nearly a week after the first portion was recieved.

On a lighter note, the snake appeared healthy. It had no external parasites (that I could see), which is why I felt comfortable putting it near my snake. If it did have external parasites I believe they would have spread to other snakes in my collection, which they did not. My collection is clean. It seemed healthy, and it even fed for me normally. I had it for a week exactly, and with a small snake like that I feed them often, and even though I didn't want to keep the snake, that is no reason not to take care of it. It wasn't the snake's fault that Prehistoric Pets messed up.

Here are pictures of the snakes. I believe the first one shows my female next to the little male they sent me. The other picture is of the male that we wanted to buy.

I purchased a tortoise from them and the deal turned out great.
Just thought everyone should know.
Thanks,
Chris Leonardo

Hi,
Aside from all the falterall here, I thought I would add in my experience with the store. My niece received 2 baby sulcatas from the store as gifts. She did not receive the care info so she went right to the store to find out what they needed, as she received them in the smallest sized critter keeper on fish gravel.
The employee in store then proceeded to sell her a five gallon tank with an undertank heater that was for a larger tank; it covered the entire bottom of the five gallon. In addition he sold her a 250 watt red light bulb and told her to keep it on 24 hrs a day. The substrate he sold her was astroturf. He told her to feed them lettuce. At no time did he offer a care sheet.
Luckily she took the torts out eveyday and gave them water and let them walk around. I felt terrible because when Iasked about them she said prehistoric pets had helped her and I figured they would have taken care of her. SOme may be tempted to say maybe she wasn't willing to spend the $ to get the torts what they needed, but this woman would have bought a 100 gallon tank with all the accoutrements had they told her what these animals required. Once I saw the setup and told her how big sulcatas get she cried. SHe felt terrible. Yes it is a good example about how one should research something beforehand, but these were an unwanted gift and she, like so many others, figured a reptile store would help her out. Unfortunatly I don't have a name of the person who did this but I thought I would remind people that sometimes employees at the store don't necessarily reflect the best interests of management.
Thanks for your time-
Rachel Kelley

To the poster with the boas: Looks like they pulled a straight up bait and switch on you, and you aren't the first poster in this thread to have that happen. I'd personally report them to the state for that one. I'm not sure which office, but Weights and Measures might be a good place to start. As an aside, and please forgive the unsolicited advice, but you really should tighten up on your quarantine procedures, as lack of external parasites isn't any indicator of what a new arrival could be carrying and be asymptomatic for.

Regarding the tortoises: If that incident happened recently, you can also report them for not giving out care sheets with the animals. Again, I'm not sure which agency is supposed to be enforcing this, but I'm certain CA passed that into law. And, since I'm handing out unsolicited advice, I'll have to say you should have a sit down with whoever gave out the torts as a gift. Your case is a pretty good exampe of why.

I wish both of you the best of luck with your future herping.

Regarding the care sheet situation in california, there are too many loopholes. For example, a local petstore gives what they call caresheets for their animals. They consist of information that is more like "make sure you feed and water it" rather than specific species care. I did try to talk to Pre pets about this matter when it happened, and they literally hung up on me. Petstores that grow in popularity tend to get a little too big for their britches, so to speak, and they start forgetting about things like the animals and the customer. Thanks, I think the unsolicited advice you gave was just fine and definetly in line with the thread.
Rachel Kelley

"To summarize Prehistoric Pets (fountain valley location):
1. Shipped the wrong snake intentionally.
2. Didn't notify or ask of us this was okay.
3. Didn't specify the correct Delta flights for the shipment.
4. Tried to get me to keep the wrong snake.
5. Employee lied when he promised a prompt refund knowing he wasn't capable of authorizing the refund himself.
6. First part of refund wasn't recieved for nearly a week.
7. Second part of refund wasn't received for nearly a week after the first portion was recieved."

I sympathize with the person who had the 'bait and switch' done on page 19..
Sounds like the same thing done to me word for word !!!
Except the only thing David was nice for was telling me he'd 'look into it' and 'investigate further' to blow me off and then make it seem like I was supposed to be screwed over from the beginning.. like no big deal!

I must've spoken with him in length on the telephone 4-5 times, where I would clearly identify the issue, and provide proof of how terrible their service was, only to have him deny all responsibility and avoid retreiving our emails to settle this with the facts. What do you call them, snakes? two-faced?



I wanted a boa pictured on their site. I was actually not recommended, but moreso advised of this animal. A friend told me he got his nice girl from them - "you can get some nice animals, but you will definitely get mites." (*LOL*)

So I look for it and see it, but realize they have two similar animals with somewhat similar names. Can you say deceivingly convenient? lol

So I call the store and speak to a young male that sounded like he was stoned, literally. Like, 'Uhhhhhh, hmm? Uhhhh what? Uhhhhhh, I don't know, etc..'
Sounded like he could care less about working there.
Anyway, I call and explain that I want a certain snake but see that they have almost identical names. Is there a number or other form of identification for ordering?
He says (this is funny too..) the only way you can find out is after actually purchasing the animal online.
I ask again, and make sure... 'Are you sure? what if they send me the wrong snake?' to which he replies, just write the name of the snake you want. Easy enough, right? lol... Yeah, right... lol

I did not want to pay with paypal, so I sent a check along with a letter indicating which snake I wanted.
I believe they were named female redtail boa #1 and female colombian redtail #1, something to that effect.... one word being different, or in a different order, all others the same.

After a few days (I forgot to put my contact info in the letter) the snake was shipped to me.

I receive the snake and find it to be the wrong one.

I called back and was almost ridiculed by David for not buying the snake online through paypal, like 'most of his cutomers', which would've given me the item # BEFORE actually paying for it. Now I find out.. lol (again, conveniently deceiving?? lol)

He tries to blame it on me, saying he sent what I asked for and I must have written down the wrong name.

I calmy explained how I called twice before ordering and then wrote down the exact name, for this exact reason. He again refused to take responsibility.

He didn't actually make that known initially, he waited until after I returned the snake, again, guaranteed a 'FULL' refund. He also tried to have me keep the snake, which I was NOT interested in.

After I returned the animal, I had to wait for the refund and again I was not refunded shipping charges.

I called again and discussed this and he said he would send a check for the shipping. No check.

I call again and go over everything, to refresh his mind of how this actually took place. He again tried to pass the blame and then say he didn't think he should be responsible for it.

I called again and discussed with him, as he kept telling me he would think about it and get back to me, never getting back to me.

The last time we spoke, he tells me, 'Ok, I talked to Jay and he will not refund the shipping - we already ate 2 shipping costs, so you eat 1' !!!!

Now i'm like, what happened to you checking up and finding the letter where I specified this, which is PROOF? What happened to getting back to me?
WHO IS JAY?

He tells me Jay is the owner, and again, it couldn't have been his mistake, etc., etc., sorry.

At this point I became frustrated and let him know this. I said STOP IT, come one now.. every time you tell me you'll check for the proof in the letter, WHERE IS THE LETTER DAVID? WHY HAVEN'T YOU GOTTEN THAT? Because it exposes your lies and deception?
You name animals in a similar fashion and then send customers what YOU want and try to make them keep it?
And now you just scammed me for $35 or whatever it is?

He had nothing else to say, atleast nothing to justify himself with, and so he hung up on me.
Great way to treat a customer!

I guess you already know how I feel about that snake I mean snake 'dealer' !


Thanks, Joe Rollo - Bci Joe

As for the advice given to me in the earlier post, I agree that I should be practicing a more rigerous quarentine schedule, but I also should have been more clear in my post what that is. I didn't leave the snakes together like that, merely placed one near the other for a few photos. Since that was all I was doing, the only thing I was worried that would spread that fast would be external parasites. They were housed seperately the rest of the time that the snake was in my care. I do follow a loose quarentine, but I tailor it to each individual snake, and the people I get the snakes from. I should be a lot more strict on it, and make each and every snake go through it the same. I don't have a huge collection, so this works out okay for me, but you're right, I should follow a better quarentine procedure.

As for the "bait and switch" reporting, they have a disclaimer on their website that reads something like "all photos are representative only of the species, the pictured animal may not be the animal for sale" which is a little confusing since many of their photos have captions below them reading "Look at the amazing tail pattern on this guy..." or in my case "Check out that gorgeous pink hue this guy has". The sizes reported are the only thing that I could think of that could be held against them, but they openly admitted that they had intentionally sent me the wrong snake. They said "Well, it is Christmas and everybody just wants a snake now, and most people that want a snake just want a snake, they're not usually looking for special attributes to them, and if they do look for special attributes it's usually only in adult female animals, nobody ever cares what their males look like..." which again didn't make any sense to me because, well, why would I pick out a snake for $200 when there are a dozen or two other snakes listed for sale that cost only $50-$80? There must be something I liked about that one to be willing to pay that much more for it, right? Plus, if it really doesn't matter what the individual snake looks like then they wouldn't really picture each of them, they'd just stick a single picture of a redtail up there, and say "Redtails - $80" and leave it at that , if what they were saying was true. Also if what they were saying was true they wouldn't price them differently, as they're all the same to them. They would all cost the exact same - since all the snakes are the same to them and their customers supposedly. The snake they sent me looked like a few others that were pictured on the site that were for sale for $70-$80.

To Rollo Joe, it sounds like you got screwed over even more than me! I actually got the check they sent to refund the shipping I paid to them. They were very nice to me in the beginning too, but once they realized that I wasn't going to be keeping the snake they stopped wanting to deal with me too. They kept trying to get me to keep the snake by bribing me "We'll refund all the shipping cost if you keep it," and trying anything they could to keep my money, "Well, if you don't want that one let us pick out another one for you and ship it to you free of charge," as if I trusted their taste in snakes, which is what caused the problem in the first place.

When I talked to my boyfriend about how he went about purchasing it for me, he told me that he had wanted to purchase it over the phone, and had Emailed them asking for their phone number and item number of the snake in question. They wrote him back and told him that they couldn't do credit card over the phone, and that he had to use paypal. When he used paypal, it never showed him an item number - just the title of the snake that was under the picture. He still has the printed out receipt through paypal that says nothing more than "Sub-Adult Male Boa" which really couldn't be much more vague. It's obvious that they have no real certain numbering system or anything to verify which animals are which.

again I sympathize,
and again,
HOW DECEIVINGLY CONVENIENT...