Robert Ringhoff of PA,

i really thought the purpose of the BOI was to bring to light the "bad guys" in our hobby, which is exactly what the OP is trying to prove. we all have our ideas of what the market is on these animals, but to bash the guy for trying to take advantage of a deal doesn't make this any better. from what i can gather the OP made a deal with a seller for a group of animals. he paid the seller for the agreed upon animals and was not shipped what was promised. plain and simple the seller looks really bad with this information. why it's on the OP is beyond me. he might have gotten taken on this deal and i'm sure he learned a lesson, but the fact remains that posting here is what anyone of you would have done in the same situation. Jason, i hope this gets resolved for you and my only advice would be to purchase from reputable, well known breeders in the future.

Robert Ringhoff is a no name in this industry when it comes to being published online. There are some people that "know" or dealt with him from what he has said in the past (before this deal). It was a joint effort of Robert and paypal to completely screw me over on this. Paypal even told me that they can help me defraud people out of money just like they helped him, but they will only do it so many times till it becomes a known habit. I have purchased snakes from quite a few no name people and have had great results for the most part. There are some that have been doing this for a long time and don't have much of anything published good or bad about them online. The boi's are a tool, but can only take you so far. Good people can do bad things, too.

It sucks that this has happened, but I can only continue forward. This is a great hobby to be in and I am not going to let some jackass ruin it for me. I am very knowledeable on prices for most ball pythons when it comes to age, weight, morph/combo, and so on. I have only been in the hobby/business for three years, but have around 325 balls that make up my collection and may very well have the largest ball collection in my state. I hope to have a great year with around 170 breeding females this year.

I am not sure why some people are trying to tell me certain things about paypal that are not true. I would hope some day that they would call paypal and get some clarification on what they are talking about before trying to tell me about how paypal works. Paypal is not just for ebay; I know that for a fact and if you don't believe me CALL THEM. I know ebay owns paypal, but that doesn't mean paypal only handles ebay transactions because they will take anyone's money for just about anything.

I appreciate the support and will supply any new info that may arise.

Jason, a few times you've been asked about alerting Robert to this thread, but you only said that he won't talk to you so you cannot tell him about it. Have you not sent him an e-mail, allowing him the opportunity to come and share his side of the story? And my question earlier was not about a web site for him, but for his e-mail address or phone number. The copies of e-mails that you posted state your e-mail addy, but not his.

I didn't realize that his email wasn't posted. I just copy/pasted that stuff over. I am not emailing him anything right now with the pending investigations on his account. That is part of the reason why he won't email me either. I can't even get anything in writing of what he supposedly has submitted to paypal about this whole thing, only verbal. I am not sure what he would post since he can't keep any of his stories straight now. All of the new info that I am finding out about him and communications are going through paypal to keep everything streamlined. He should know about this through paypal. I even told paypal that I am posting about paypal and its policies on this boi.

I didn't mention how he shipped the snakes either. I mentioned that the package went through Delta, but it wasn't a proper package by any means. Robert supposedly had multiple boxes for the animals to be shipped to me with heat packs. Not quite the case. I received one styrofoam box that had some cracks and tape on it. No heat packs at all and there were a few pieces of crumpled newspaper in the box on top. Surprisingly, each snake had its own pillow case.

I want to say that I am sorry that this has happened to you, or anyone for that matter, BUT, you state while only being in this business for 3 years, you have 325 balls in your collection, with an approx 170 breeding females expected this season, I would think that you would have had enough past transactions to beable to tell you that something was wrong here.

I have to agree with Tom and Konstatine, Many Red Flags here. From your description of the pictures, you had absolutely no idea what you were purchasing, yet still sent money. I dont get it.

Chalk it up as a lesson learned

I didn't say that paypal only handles ebay transactions, I said that only ebay transactions and those thru ebay stores qualify for the buyer protection in regards to the items not being as purchased. If you buy something online and have money sent thru paypal all they care about is that a package was sent.

There is a good reason all my paypal payments are thru a credit card. Visa is always on my side so no worries about having to deal with paypal with regards to problems like this.

Originally Posted by garweft

I didn't say that paypal only handles ebay transactions, I said that only ebay transactions and those thru ebay stores qualify for the buyer protection in regards to the items not being as purchased. If you buy something online and have money sent thru paypal all they care about is that a package was sent.

There is a good reason all my paypal payments are thru a credit card. Visa is always on my side so no worries about having to deal with paypal with regards to problems like this.

Should say items not being as described

I was sent sent six pictures of one animal each. I received most of the animals in the pictures. One picture was of a mojave, but I didn't receive any mojaves. I used paypal to have protection becaused paypal isn't just for ebay transactions. Like I said call paypal if you don't believe me. If you call paypal or read their user agreement you would know that you are protected on items that are beyond ebay. They do have a list of stuff or situations that are not under their protection, but I have not found anything that states they don't protect you on animals like I was told on the phone. Now paypal is researching their own policies to figure out what they will/will not protect on animals. It does not say anything in their list of prohibited/non protected items about anything of animals or live stock.

As far as these red flags go, I never knew that an item could be too low priced. I have received items for free on transactions that I have made. Does that mean I was scammed on those, too? The main red flag is that he started coming up with excuses on why the animals were not being shipped. Supposed to ship on Monday evening, but there wouldn't be anyone at the Delta desk to give me the package that late. Then was supposed to ship the next day on Tuesday, but Delta supposedly wouldn't take his/his wife's card for payment. He says he tried to use his wife's card without her being there. That's when I filed my claim to get my money back through paypal since I was supposed to be protected. That week on Friday night is when I finally received this different group of animals.

I sent payal info that I did not receive what I should have and went from there. The case was being determined before they were reading all of the information. Now everything is being investigated again and people at paypal have finally acknowledged receipt of my emails.

The main thing is that I was told I was protected by paypal they are going back on their word for the time being. Using a credit card would cause the same problem because they are going to send me to paypal. A credit card dispute is the same as paypal as in them doing an "investigation". The main thing credit cards protect you on is unauthorized transactions. This case isn't exactly an unauthorized transaction.

Before anyone else tries to post anything else that is incorrect about good ole paypal that they think they know, call paypal and go to their site to make sure you have your facts straight. With the info that I have received from paypal, I won't be using them as much as I used to use them.

can you please post Robert's email address? If you don't plan to alert him to this thread, at least someone else can.

Are you able to post the pictures he sent you and pictures of what you actually received?

Thanks for the warning, but unless you attempt to make him aware so he can tell his side it's not worth much. If it went down the way you said it did then he is indeed a seller I'd like to avoid, but it's hard to convict someone without proof. Paypal will not usually return money if proof of shipment was provided by the seller. If it's a non E-bay transaction it's even less likely to get returned. I don't care what their website says or what they'll tell you on the phone. Many people have learned this the hard way, whether you choose to learn from their mis-fortune or not is up to you. I hope you either get the snakes you're supposed to or your money back. Good luck.