Bad experience with Backwater Reptiles

They are listed as good standings on the BBB. just go file a complaint. They will lose that advertising privileges if they get enough complaints.

That will hurt them some.


BBB- better business bureau . Make the complaints.

Originally Posted by jonas24

Even thought his is kinda old, I guess I'll put my own experience with backwater in here. In about late 2009 I was looking through websites and found backwater. The review were on the site so I really didn't think of looking them up. But anyhow, I bought a female ball python. Relitvely cheap imo. We'll long story short, she came and was pissed off. Which was understandable due to the whole thing of being shipped. After a few weeks of settling in I decided to try to feed her, which ended in complete failure. Then I tried to hold her. And she was still pissed off. But I found ticks all over. And to even add to the fire, mites. So I bought stuff to kill the mites. But the ticks would not go away. I ended up having to pull every single one out with tweezers. Which I'm sure hurt the snake. Long story short, 2 months pass and still she hasn't eaten. This whole time I'm emailing (or attempting to email) backwater about the whole thing. It goes from. She's eating f/t to fresh killed and then live. So after 7 months of no eating. The reptile vet I go to force feeds her. And puts baytril in the mice (due to possible intestinal parasites). After about 8 or so vet trips and a year and some change of not eating on her own. She finally ate. While emailing them they stopped replying. And I would go on chains of 5 emails just talking to myself. And I guess they found it fun to reply a month and a half later. Needless to say, I will never purchase anything from them again.

I think you have the wrong company. Im almost certain they have not been in business for 5 years. More like 2 or 3.. Also, it sounds as though you received an adult imported ball python. 5 years ago or so it was common that they came in with ticks. Im not saying you should have received one with ticks but that is not completely surprising. Also, Imported balls can take a while to eat so that is not unusual. In any case, back to my original point it could not have come from backwater because they have only been in business a few years..

Originally Posted by predators

I think you have the wrong company. Im almost certain they have not been in business for 5 years. More like 2 or 3.. Also, it sounds as though you received an adult imported ball python. 5 years ago or so it was common that they came in with ticks. Im not saying you should have received one with ticks but that is not completely surprising. Also, Imported balls can take a while to eat so that is not unusual. In any case, back to my original point it could not have come from backwater because they have only been in business a few years..

Oops, meant I bought a snake that was hatched in 2009. My bad.

This is who I got my Frilled dragon he was perfect had him for 4 years till I got into monitors and will still continue to use back water always been good to me on animals and feeders no problems

I don't normally post on these types of threads, I just browse them every few days since I deal with lots of different people and occasionally its been really helpful to see a red flag on a name I was considering doing business with.

As far as this thread "setting the bar lower" for bad guy threads I don't thnk that's a fair assessment at all for one very key reason.

If this was the first thread ever made about this company then I would be in complete agreement with that statement. Snake was bought and payed for. Company realizes the particular species is out of stock. Money refunded minus paypal fees. End of story. Kinda crummy experience but not completely nail biting and horrible where money was stolen, or animals were sick or dead or whatever. It's the sorta thing that does happen when dealing with and buying from these sorts of larger companies where high volumes of animals are bought and sold on a daily basis and something any potential buyer should keep in mind when dealing with them. This goes for ALL businesses, not just in the reptile world but retail in general. Sometimes you order something from Wal-Marts website only to get an email a few days later with an apology, that that item was out of stock.

But the particular company in question, Backwater Reptiles, has been the source of multiple bad experiences of all sorts, from ones like this (which I've heard of happening with them numerous times) to sick animals arriving, to dead animals arriving, to even wrong species arriving. That makes any bad experience, however seemingly small and/or insignificant, relevant specifically with this company.

The fact that this company is even still in business baffles me, but like the OP stated, they didn't know of this site till after their experience with Backwater. This site and its BOI arent as widespread as it used to be. The days when fauna was "the" place for anything reptile related are unfortunately over. People are more inclined to look for credible reference posts on facebook these days then here so I guess it's not too too surprising that lots of folks still get caught in these sorts of companies webs of deceit.

Anyway, thankyou for posting your experience here. It adds yet another notch to Backwaters bad guy belt and maybe will be that one that tips the scales for another potential buyer to look elsewhere for their reptile needs.