The thing is Scott specializes in ball pythons, ball pythons, and did I mention.... ball pythons? When someone came into his shop with an animal like that, you'd think he'd have wanted to know it's genetic background and full history. This was obviously no rehomed Petco special. To make a low ball offer and turn a blind eye as to where it came from is a bit to convenient IMO, particularly with the king of ball python morph breeders located just a few miles away.
I can relate to this situation first hand because I had a stolen snake offered to me for sale over the Internet many years ago. In fact, I may have unknowingly instigated the theft when I placed a wanted ad at Kingsnake looking for a low priced albino retic. At that time, there were only a hand full of breeders of them which went for around $3,500 each. A few weeks after I placed my ad, I had a guy write me saying he had a white phase albino male retic for considerably less money than the going rate. We went back and forth and I was hesitant to send money to a no name private seller located across the country in California even with the animal priced right. When the seller told me was willing to send me the animal up front and, after receipt, I could simply send him a check, I was really scratching my head thinking, what did I have to lose? The seller also asked me if I had any interest in a patternless African rock python (which I didn't).
I did, however, want to buy an unrelated albino female retic so I contacted Jay Brewer (owner of Prehistoric Pets) who was coincidentally also located in Southern CA. In my conversation with Jay, I mentioned how I'd found a great deal on a white phase retic and asked if he could he do a little better on his price. He asked me what sex it was and when I told him it was a male, he exclaimed, "well isn't that funny? I just had one stolen from my store a week ago." It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure things out so I agreed to cooperate fully with Jay to catch the thief. He consulted with the police whose advise was for me to go through with the transaction with the party as planned. The snake was subsequently sent to me and after I received it, I was then asked to make the check out to a DIFFERENT NAME than the one I'd been dealing with all along. It was at this point that Jay recognized the name as being one of his employees. I forwarded all correspondence to the police dept. and the person was arrested shortly afterwards upon entering Prehistoric Pets for work. One early clue had been the seller offering me the patternless African rock python since Jay was the sole breeder of them at the time. There wasn't one stolen, but if I'd told the other party, yes, I could use one, he would have simply helped himself and sent it to me as well.
This story can be verified because I was so worried about shipping the $3,500 retic back to Jay, I went to NERD and had Kevin ship it to CA for me LOL.
My reason for bringing this up is the old adage, when something sounds to good to be true, it is. I could have received the animal and simply told Jay, "nope, I never got it and just kept it at no cost. Was or am I capable of doing something like that? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Unfortunately, there are those people that are.
That animal should have raised a few red flags in Scott's mind. Of course, if one should choose not to see them then............
Just sayin'
cvexotics
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