Rainwater: New Scam

I just love that Minnie Mouse Piebald morph they are advertising.
What a joke.

OK everyone, ready to hate me. I do not know Tim Rainwater at all. If this is a scam, I think everyone should go beat his head in, however if he is legitamitly trying to raise money to acquire these animals, I think he has the right idea. I actually talked to my financial guy when I quit my job. I showed him what I was considering doing with my 10k from my 401k that I was cashing out. He couldn't beleive I was going to buy snakes with it, however after I showed him some numbers, and went on line. He said he would probably do it too. I have actually been talking to him just recently and he is considering investing a sizable chunck of money(not 100g). As far as using other peoples pics without permission, that is inexcusable. I am not saying Tim is legit, however I think he did present it very well, better than I did for sure, of course the mark of a good scam artist is the frosting not the cake. As far as 100 mill in 5 years I agree that is mighty ambitious, but I think we all no some breeders that do not worry about where their next meal is coming from. Craig Kade

I just want to make sure it's on record that the person hosting these images is not remotely associated with Tim Rainwater.

Thank you.

However, let me point out a few things:

1) This LLC points out that you will not be a partner in the business, rather just loaning them money. That means people will be making an unsecured loan to an LLC, which stands for "Limited Liability Corporation". In other words, no collateral for the lenders. Ouch.

2) The annual interest amount listed is outrageous; they'd have done better at a bank, which makes a person wonder why they wouldn't have gone that route. Oh, wait, I know: unsecured debt and a bad business plan.

3) Speaking of bad business plans, did you see a flaw in how they were calculating the reproduction of those morphs? They're going to breed 5 clutches per year (from one $25,000 morph, according to their outline of the investment) and each clutch is going to produce 4 babies (all viable) with the exact same traits. They also apparently have no overhead, nor will they have to compete with other breeders for these new morphs.

Quite a tidy little package, I must say.

One more *little* thing: if they're going to steal pictures to use in their solicitations, it's a bit indicative of their standards and guidelines already. People should run, not walk, away from this one.

Seamus, any contact information on that brochure? Anyway to look up the registration of that LLC?

what was that? i'm sorry I was writing a check. LOL. I did notice his price structure was a little off base and even if he was to be the "first to produce" he would not get those prices the following years. As far as going to the bank, I think most any of us would be laughed out of a bank if we went to apply for a loan, like you said it is unsecured and something most people do not understand, I was actually considering using 15percent as a number to the guy I know, I did however stress the risks alot more.Think about this if you had someone with a lot of cash and you wanted say a spider ball. If they would borrow you 15k ( is that about right for a spider?) and wait 5 years for their money. If you could breed that spider in say 2 years to 4 females they each dropped 6 eggs, that is 24 eggs. Say you only get 12 spider. Then you wholesale them for 5 grand a piece. Thats $60,000, plus you have three more years before that guy is even expecting his money back. I know my figures may be a little off, but if you could go back 10 years and buy a pair of albino balls, you would probably be on your yacht right now.I know I have gotten way off the subject of Tim being a fraud or not. This just kind of hit close to home because I have been toying with a similar idea. Is it considered spam if I just email all the people on this forum and ask them for money?just kidding. Craig Kade

IF the entire proposal is legitimate and IF it had a remote chance of achieving their exaggerated goals, they've cut their own throats from the start by publicly involving Rainwater. A man who has already once before vanished with thousands in other people's money is not the best choice of person to front a buisness depending soley on the money of others to get started.

However, from the wording of the brochure, they are not attempting to raise this money primarily from within the herp community. After all, few reptile breeders would have large sums to hand out unsecured, and if they did, why would they invest in someone else's breeding program?

Even if this isn't a complete scam, it's still a rediculous proposition. If someone had 100K and felt inclined to invest in reptile breeding they would be FAR better served by locating an experienced breeder and financing a project with them personally for mutual return.
Anyone would be a fool to hand this company tens of thousands of dollars on the flimsy hope of cashing in big. Far too many unaccounted for possibilities, and the risk is much greater than they let on. Might as well put it in junk bonds.

Again I know nothing of Tim's history. I also would not argue that most reptile enthusiasts would not invest in this sort of venture. Craig Kade

Hope no one minds that I did some cut and paste and got those images to display properly in the original message posted in this thread.....

I normally do not go in and edit someone else's postings.

2 items. In the brochure it is stated that no breeders that he knows of insure their animals. Are you high? There are many people like Mark Bell, Brian Barzyck, Pete Kahl, Kevin McCurly and many others that have insurance on their animals. Bob Clark, VPI, etc., etc.. How many others? Ralph Davis? Casey Lazik? I'm sure many many people have coverage.

The other thing that has been mentioned, those pictures I have no knowledge of the sources, but the animals belong to NERD, VPI and others. Albino spiders. Who other than Kevin has produced them? Nobody yet. Who other than Ralph Davis and Bob Clark have lavender albinos? The list goes on and on. Is it a good scam? Yes. Is the timing perfect? Yes. There were spider balls and other $15,000+ mutations being bought at Daytona this weekend. The market is there. Like Craig said, I took money and a partner and bought ball pythons the past couple years.

"Good Find Ritchie", sometimes my fingers can't catch up with my brain.

I only found it NOT because I am good.
But because when I was new to the internet.....I actually had some of those pictures on my website.
Then Dave corrected me and let me know all about copyright violations.

Well they have since been off my site.
Dave may have forgiven me......but I have not forgiven myself yet.
Maybe know that I have sort of helped identify the rightful owners.......maybe now I can forgive myself.


whoever calls the barkers....make sure you give them the phone number at the bottom of that catalog.