****Anthony McCain BAD , STAy Away****

It sounds to me that he is trying to make it right and you are refusing to take it because you believe you are entitled to more. Don't know much about ball pythons but if you wanted albinos, you should have bought 2 albinos. I understand buying hets because of the price but statistically the odds are against you to begin with. Also, you keep bring up his arrogance and his temper and I believe you are allowing your dislike for him personally to cloud your business judgement. I don't know the price on mystics but it seems to me to get anything out of this situation is a plus for you beings the well respected breeders such as Corey Woods and Kelly Hammack clearly state that breeding Homos to hets is a roll of the dice. Bringing up phone conversations is basically heresy since only you two heard it. Whether you want a mystic or not I would probably take it and try to recoup what money you can out of it. It doesn't sound like he was out to rip you off because he responded to you and offered you a settlement. Do you believe it was his intent to rip you off, or do you just dislike the way he handled the situation? Thanks Jason Kirtley

I think you need to take a step back Derek. I don't know this Anthony fellow~ and while he sounds like a real jerk......your asking for way more than I think you are entitled too. This Anthony fellow can not guarantee that is the same female he sent you~ or that you actually bred it to an albino male.....I know you say so.....but he says she was a het....

Asking for all that money back is really taking advantage (I'm sorry~ I know you don't want to hear that and I would not want to either.)

A fair deal? I think "Fair" would be you send him his "het albino" female back~ in exchange he refunds your purchase price and sends you an 07' albino female. There is no guarantee that you would have gotten 4 albino's on that clutch~ (just look at the crappy odds I had this year)~ you may have only gotten 8 albinos~ or none (as you did) so sending you ONE makes you whole and he gets the female back to attempt to prove himself next year.

As far as the G-stripes........
I would refuse to take those back too~ I'm sorry.....but after reading the emails and that you had some trouble with your collection last year.....if he doesn't have photo ID's of the babies he produced and can verify it's the same animals.....I'd refuse to take them back.

I know it sucks~ and your out time and money. Iwould be pissed too. Next time you'll remember this loss and be more carefull when choosing who you trust. There are is just no really fair way to compensate in this case. But asking for the value of the animal, the value of 3 or 4 albinos, the value of your time and feed, AND of additional purchases? These are live animals~ not a money market CD with guaranteed returns.

Originally Posted by Cheryl Marchek AKA JM

I think you need to take a step back Derek. I don't know this Anthony fellow~ and while he sounds like a real jerk......your asking for way more than I think you are entitled too. This Anthony fellow can not guarantee that is the same female he sent you~ or that you actually bred it to an albino male.....I know you say so.....but he says she was a het....

Asking for all that money back is really taking advantage (I'm sorry~ I know you don't want to hear that and I would not want to either.)

A fair deal? I think "Fair" would be you send him his "het albino" female back~ in exchange he refunds your purchase price and sends you an 07' albino female. There is no guarantee that you would have gotten 4 albino's on that clutch~ (just look at the crappy odds I had this year)~ you may have only gotten 8 albinos~ or none (as you did) so sending you ONE makes you whole and he gets the female back to attempt to prove himself next year.

As far as the G-stripes........
I would refuse to take those back too~ I'm sorry.....but after reading the emails and that you had some trouble with your collection last year.....if he doesn't have photo ID's of the babies he produced and can verify it's the same animals.....I'd refuse to take them back.

I know it sucks~ and your out time and money. Iwould be pissed too. Next time you'll remember this loss and be more carefull when choosing who you trust. There are is just no really fair way to compensate in this case. But asking for the value of the animal, the value of 3 or 4 albinos, the value of your time and feed, AND of additional purchases? These are live animals~ not a money market CD with guaranteed returns.

I see what your saying Cheryl.

No its not taking advantage , you said it yourself... I could have gotten 8 albinos could have gotten 0. Thats right , so I drew the line down the middle and knocked one off. 3

Anthony has pics of the Het Stripe female , because he sent it to me as verification , not sure about the male.

Well to the above poster , yes I do not like it when ppl try to steal from me. I am not going to just accept any offer he wants to through at me and take it

All I can give is what I have heard on the phone to tell you why I would not buy a Mystic nor even want one .

Anthony for the past week or so had been telling me how Ralph Davis was mad at him because he thought that the Mystics
were Phantoms , and was selling them cheap.

He began to tell me that he doesn't care and he will sell them for $6k pair if he has too. hmmmm...

Now this the animal he wants to give as compensation ???? Has anyone on here ever seen his ads on KS , his Mystic balls dropped thousands of dollars in value in just a few weeks time. This is the animal that could potentially be a $20k snake??? how?


So please , im not sure how I can say I use my brain , look at this and take one as compensation , knowing the value just fall.

Also , I don't want a Mystic . Is it ok , that I just don't want one? Yes

Anthony I know you will read this , so let you answer this.

Did you , like you said to me. Breed the sister of my Het female to an albino , get 6 eggs , and no albinos?

Look at the email he sent , I read it and see he is plainly calling the "het" a normal female.

Derek

Derek maybe I missed it but have you posted any guarantee for this animal?? Something where it states what will happen if she doesn't prove out?? By what your asking for here you may as well ask to be compenstated for future clutches ETC ETC.

I think the usual guarantee for a Het is if it doesn't prove out they refund or replace the animal. Yeah it sucks that you don't get the income from any Visuals but I don't know of anyone selling any kind of animal that will cover you for animals not produced.

""Look at the email he sent , I read it and see he is plainly calling the "het" a normal female.""
I read that and I didn't see what you seem to see in that 'Bold type' statement. I also must have missed where he said he got some animals mixed up??

If she's isn't a Het then yeah he owes you but not what your asking for here.

Derek don't misunderstand me I'm not doubting your word and I know your upset. But you need to step back and really look at this.. Randy

That sucks Derek! I do KNOW how you feel, same thing happened to me with a different person(who still posts on KS), but I was not offered any refund at all.
One good thing for me though is my "100% het albino" produced 1.3 Mojaves this yr.
Good luck!

Derek, As you and most of the people on this board know I too have just went through a very smiler situation with Tony Hurt. I know exactly how you feel and can see where you are coming from. But it does look like Anthony is trying to work with you. It looks like there was a mistake made on his end and even if he is not doing exactly what you think is fair in this situation he is trying to fix the problem. Now as far as his mystic line , is this just something you do not want to work with? If so maybe Anthony can give you a credit for the $4000.00 he says the mystic is worth. If Anthony honestly believes his Mystics are worth that amount then why cant you pick another animal for the same amount. And then you can pick up a male G stripe from Anthony to breed to your het female. Derek It sounds like you at least have someone trying to work with you. You guys just need to find what fix works for the both of you not just one. Anthony I know you will be reading this and I commend you for trying to work with Derek but it cant be your way or nothing at all. Remember he is your customer and he trusted you when he bought those hets from you and he did nothing wrong here. It was infact your mistake that has caused this unfortunate situation, so keep that in mind when you guys work this out. You might just have to give a little more then you think is fair to make your customer happy. Paul

I have tried working this out with Derek ..As I have said I am not sure what caused her to not produce any albinos according to what Derek says.. I had a sibling female lay 6 eggs , one egg perished half way into incubation and 5 hatched , I didn't get any albinos from that clutch either. I was honest and told Derek about that and told him we would work it out with something else I had (such as a Mystic )and that he could keep the female he raised up from a subadult as well as all the 100% Hets from his virgin animal, as it didn't seem right at the time for us both to miss on albinos... I told him the mother of his female and mine MAY have retained sperm as she was in with a male Pastel when she was just under 1500 grms , I never documented any breedings, and didn't think much of it based on her size and the fact that the male didn't appear interested at all towards her anyway . She was bred to an albino the following year as she had a very nice black back pattern and since the Pastel didn't appear to have done anything from the season before I wanted to make some Albino hets and see if maybe I would end up with black backed albinos once the hets produced.. Most would agree sperm retention is very rare, I didn't do anything to purposely cause Derek any problems if that's what happened here with his and or my female.. I would NOT put my reputation on the line over a $650 Het Albino just to make a few bucks, I'm not some fly by night business out here.. I've been selling Balls for over 10 yrs now , if I were a scammer would I really still be in business today???

Derek isn't returning my emails , nor will he listen to reason , he thinks I am out to get him or something, which I clearly am not... I offered to make it right with a Mystic , he agreed and then called back later that day to thank me for working it out, by the end of the conversation he had decided that he didn't want a Mystic after all , he said he was afraid I would drop the market on them so he didn't want one... I told him ALL the markets were dropping and will continue to , that if things don't sell at a specific price then the price drops until they do start selling again, nothing new here....

Anyway I had a local herper call Derek to see what options would work out.. They talked for about an hour .. Since Derek said he didn't want the Mystic I mentioned to the fellow herper the possibility of sending Derek a adult male Yellow Belly , an adult male Cinnamon , and maybe something else if it was realistic to recoup ANY lacking of his expectations on that clutch, all this was relayed to Derek last night over the phone..

I called Derek today and said I wanted to work this out BUT that he owed me an apology as I am not a thief , nor am I trying to ripe him off.. He ended the call at that point.... Derek should know that things don't always go as planned , I know this and was trying to help him.. I have several adult females that HAVE YET to lay eggs of any kind , yet you don't see me on here asking for thousands back for lost babies and time , because my LTC female YB's haven't produced Ivory or Super Stripe babies for me , they are not machines, they are animals .. Most people including myself are happy to get 8 eggs a year after getting ANY female, she obviously is a good animal, we just aren't sure if he missed on the odds or if something carried over from the pastel, either way I was trying to help by sending him something up front before knowing everything. Derek likely has 3-4 100% Het Females worth $1000 or more already , yes that isn't 3k or whatever he was hoping for BUT I also told him to keep everything anyways besides what I wanted to send him..

I know if a dog breeder sold a dog that later on developed bad hips that the dog breeder would likely refund the money for the pup and say he was sorry , he WOULD'T cut him a 5k check since the owner lost money on pups he couldn't make in fear that the hip problem would be passed to the pups.. THAT being said I am trying to decide if because of the fact that he is calling me a theif , liar, jerk , etc, that perhaps it is best that I refund him for the female and end it all right now.. If she produces albinos next year for him I guess that's tough for me isn't it.. He is talking trash about me and my animals , when quite frankly I stand firmly behind them as being some of the best Balls in the nation..... He has done nothing here but try and make me look bad.. The BOI is intended to give people a heads up when someone is truely ripping people off , NOT SOMEONE that is doing all they can to work out an issue that hasn't been proved either way just yet.....

I offered him a Mystic as myself along with others feel the Mystic is a hot new morph that has huge potential and would have been a very generous animal to send him for any stortcomings he may have experienced... I was not trying to do anything but make him happy. At this point I don't know what is fair, as I've NEVER heard of another breeder doing much more than just giving a refund for the animal.. Derek can return the photo id'd Het G Stripes For CREDIT for other animals but cannot receive a cash refund as that doesn't follow my TERMS of sale policy... Anthony McCain..

Anthony , Thanks for coming here and explaining a few things. As far as asking for a apology I think you could have waited until you guys worked your deal out to mention that? I am sure Derek probably felt like you were treating him like a kid asking for something( IE say your sorry and then I will give you the candy lol.) Thats not right either. I am sure Derek would have apologized to you anyway after you guys worked this out. Do you have any other animals that you could offer Derek as compensation? Maybe you should just work out your deal right here in front of everybody and that would prove to everybody that you are in fact being sincere in this situation. I will tell you from experience that when a het you raise up does not prove out for what ever reason you feel wronged. And the first thing you do is feel like you just been robbed. You put all that hard work into a project and for nothing, It really sucks. I think that is the reason Derek was acting the way he was. He is still really pissed off and who can blame him? I do think you are doing good by keeping the line of communication open with Derek and I think if you guys just keep an open mind to each others suggestions you will be able to come up with a fair solution. Oh and about your comment about refunding just the purchase price and calling it a day, I do not feel that is fair at all and if someone does something like that in a situation like this I will make sure I never spend a dime with that person. Like I said I am speaking from experience I have had two het albino females not prove out and it sucks. Good luck. Paul

Paul point taken.. I mentioned the refund on the female as settlement , ONLY because I don't appreciate being called a theif , that upsets me and doesn't make me look good , especially since I was trying to work things out from the start with him. I am one of the most honest breeders out there and have a sizeable list of breeders all over the USA that DO have hets from me, as I said this isn't a situation I've had to deal with before, that should mean something...

I have already offered him other animal choices here and recently over the phone thru a neutral party, I am trying to work it out EVEN if that female is indeed a HET in the end and makes albinos in the future for him...

Like I said I have snakes that cost me THOUSANDS that STILL have yet to lay anything, maybe they never will, but you don't see me asking for money from the breeders that sold them since no profit has come out of them yet and in some cases ALOT of time has now passed without ANY eggs... And if an Ivory isn't produced when they finally do lay and the numbers don't yield an Ivory right away from a female that looks like it's a true YB will you see me on here complaining to those guys for ripping me off all that time and $$, nope........


All of us have opinions as to how to settle this, frankly this is really between Derek and I , he decided to inform everyone this way and I told him from the start that we could settle it without going thru this.. I told him I would make it right either way, without blabbing things that still aren't conclusive , it may seem clearcut to some but it still isn't. This just takes up time and in alot of ways gets things turned upside down and takes things off in directions that have nothing to do with the original matter at hand...

Derek can call the person he talked to last night and get this resolved, since he doesn't talk to me on emails or over the phone..

Derek is also failing to mention the dozens of hours I have spent talking to him about Ball Pythons, the many sometimes late night hours that DIDN'T involve buying anything at all from me . Hours of MY time that I gave him my knowledge for free as I thought he appreciated an honest professional opinion of the Balls and it's market.. He is new to this and I was helping him the best way I knew how... DOES this really sound like I was scamming him ? He recently decided to treat me this way by going to the BOI before I could work anything out or come up with another solution just "in case" we really did have an issue with that "het" and has now turned this into something that was avoidable. He may be a customer , but I also deserve some respect too, especially since I was trying to help settle things the entire time ..

Derek told me the day of "our" clutch hatching out it's babies that another well known breeder sold him a female Het and she also produced ZERO albinos for Derek as well , she was sold as a "het" as well. I wonder if he told "that breeder" he wanted a pile of $$ too for lost albinos/time???? Wonder how they are working it out? It's all everyones business on here now , right?? Similiar issue, how should that issues be resolved , I would think it sounds just like this one. I know Derek wouldn't be trying to get something from people by being dishonest about things, he's a christian and I doubt he would do that, he's always told me the facts ... I didn't ask for the adult Het back as I generally trust what someone tells me unless I have reason to doubt their word.

I have a solid reputation in this industry for producing investment animals , nothing less.. Derek knows this , yet continues to trash my name, not very cool I don't think.. Most people would NOT go out of their way at this point for someone like Derek, especially not after being treated like this and trying to resolve things before it even got to this......... As for asking for an apology , your right , I would HOPE he would apologize for the things he's said in the end , I know I would for anything I said, that's ALWAYS the right thing to do, the way men should handle things..

I'd rather not continue on here with this, I've said my side.... He will need to either email me or contact the person he spoke with yesterday. I have a sizeable collection to tend to , I do this by myself on a respectable scale, I simply don't type 75 words/ minute and can't work on my animals from a computer, it's vital that I keep up on the rest of my business as well, afterall they are Live animals, not machines or coins. I will address the matter when Derek is able to work with either myself or a neutral person , and will handle this for good at that time .... Anthony..

You are doing the right thing in my book Anthony.

I cant say what happened with the "het" you sold Derek, but I do believe you when you say you did not intentionally misrepresent the animal or sell it under false pretenses.

Good luck to you both.