Good Experience with Fred Kick

I'm in the market for a few ball pythons and ghosts were on the top of my list. I contacted Fred Kick (actually talked to someone named Bobby who works with him) and was offered what I considered to be a really good deal on a nice sized female ghost. I paid for her and asked that she be shipped Wednesday for Thursday arrival. She arrived safe and sound today and looks phenomenal.

Here's a picture I snapped of her shortly after putting her into her new enclosure:


It was a nice, easy transaction and I feel like I got more than I paid for. Definitely a satisfied customer!

I am relatively new to the ball python world, in that I bought my first snake about a year & a half ago. All of my small collection (3 ball python morphs )were bought from Bobby at Pets Plus from Lockport. Bobby was always very helpful, & really enthusiastic about the hobby, & a real pleasure to deal with. I was always happy dealing with Fred also, and the snakes I got from them. THAT BEING SAID... I also heard about others.... some were happy, & a few WERN'T happy about they're dealings with the Kicks. Mostly among the people out of state that had snakes shipped to them. Search BOI for the other threads - Brian

I too recommend checking all existing threads about a person before doing business with him/her. I read the threads about the Kick brothers here on the BOI before doing business with them, but after speaking with Bobby on the phone I had a good feeling about the transaction so I went through with it. It was a good deal but not abnormally spectacular, so it wasn't that I was just price shopping.

I do highly recommend anyone make a business choice based on existing evidence about a person and actual communication with that person.

I purchased a Pastel Yellow Belly from this man, that was said to be born in August of 09.
I received this snake in January. The snake was sent when it was 16 degrees locally that day, He did NOT put the apartment number on the Label. (Although i called to tell him that in particular, the day before) when I got the snake from the UPS facility, rather than the friend’s house that it should have been delivered to, after 730 that evening, the animal was cold and limp, and weighed 109 grams, with a feed card claiming to have fed him 16 times. A friend of mine, virtually, breathed life back into him. Reviving him, from almost certain death. However, he still died last week. I advised Fred of the situation immediately. his response was "I'm sorry to hear about this. I once received a ball python that was almost frozen solid, and he snapped out of it within a few hours. They are very resilient snakes. Let me know how he does and if there is any problems." followed by "as long as it's made it this far, it will be fine. Keep him at 88 degrees or higher for another week or two." (This was taken directly from the emails he sent me)

His overall solution to the problem is NOT, "Let me make it right and refund your money, or give you another snake." Rather he immediately stated, "on my original paper work from our conversation, you gave me an address with no apartment number. We do not guarantee shipping on orders that are miss handled by the carrier. The snake should not be eating pinkies, it will never eat pinkies they need something with fur. I do not appreciate calls from some third party whom says he has the snake now. I can offer you some sort of discount on another order. We only guarantee live arrival, and the snake is still alive. let me know what your interested in, and ill give you a discounted price."
He expected me to purchase another snake from him, in order to make things right. In other words, he wants to sell me a second snake, at a slightly discounted price, so he gets to sales out of the deal, and pulls nothing back out of his pocket. I’m attempting to warn EVERYBODY on Kingsnake, NOT to purchase snakes from this man. He has no morals. He could care less about his customers. And clearly, he mistreats his animals, by underfeeding them. DO NOT BUY ANIMALS FROM FRED KICK!!!!!!!!

John, it would be much better if you posted all emails with headers here and let fred know about your post here so his side is herd as well..

honestly, im all for it. ive never posted here before, so its all new to me. i have absolutely no objections what so ever, if fred wishes to respond to my post. i would be only to happy to have a public discussion of how our transaction went down