I am hoping no one else get sucked into any sort of transaction with this guy. I'll start from the top...
So, I had a number of snakes posted up for trade, and I got an e-mail from a guy, who after a little back and forth ends up offering a pair of african house snakes (with a gravid het. albino female) as a straight up trade for an adult, gravid pair of Kenyan Sand Boas, which all sounds good to me. Here's his e-mail to me on Sunday, April 22nd:
i would trade you the proven pair ( female is het albino and gravid) for the ksb's honestly trying to keep my albinos to raise up there still a litle young and the male has a weird pattern let me know if this sounds fair she laid 12 eggs last time and all hatched
The same day, I respond:
That sounds fair to me...
I have a trio of house snakes and a male who's het. albino so that should work out well. I just have a few more questions. How long are we looking at before the female's due to lay? What's her usual clutch size, and how many months has she been breeding without a break?
As far as the logistics of things, I can recieve shipments pretty much only on Tuesdays unless I make arrangements otherwise ahead of time. I can ship out any day of the week, however.
I usually do not ship first on trades, however I don't mind shipping out at the same day. I generally do FedEx priority overnight unless you have a preference for some other service (UPS, etc.). So, I could be ready to ship tomorrow for a Tuesday morning delivery if we can get things squared away, otherwise it'll probablyy have to wait until the beginning of next week. My shipping address is:
Christian Elmer
XXXX
Fircrest, WA 98466
253-267-1360 (home)
253-xxx-xxxx (cell)
Let me know. Thanks,
-Christian-
His response on Monday morning, the 23rd:
they stopped breeding 10 days ago so in 50-55 days usual clutch is 10 but has had 15 she took a 6 month break this time i don't think i will be home in time to ship today damn jobs can't live with nor without them but if anything changes i will let you know i don't mind shipping at the same time i know i can shipp out tomorrow for wed but just in case ship to
Tommy Jones
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
norman ok 73069
The same day in the early afternoon, I write back:
Hi,
Well, on the off chance you do get a chance to ship today just give me a call at 253-xxx-xxxx. Otherwise, I think we'll have to wait until next Monday to ship, as I work from 5:00 am to 1:30 every other day of the week and there'll be no one here to recieve the shipment except for on Tuesday.
Thanks,
-Christian-
I get no call, so I dont' ship out and he doesn't either. He e-mails me the evening of the 23rd:
what if i ship to you delivered at 3pm and you can have stuff picked up any time before 6 pm i can ship tomorrow
I'm not exactly sure what he's saying here; I never go with afternoon delivery because they still might show up at 11 am when no ones home. But I assume he's talking about a "hold at facility" and I can just pick it up in the afternoon. As I indicated to him previously, it would have been best for me to wait another week until shipping, but I'm trying to be flexible and work around his schedule. I e-mail him back early the morning of April 24th:
Hi,
I tell you what, if you can ship them out today and select "hold at FedEx location" so I can pick them up after work then that should work fine. The FedEx location address is:
6909 S 19th St
Tacoma, WA 98466
(253) 565-4882
So I will plan on shipping out this afternoon then for Wednesday morning arrival for the kenyans, and I will pick up the house snakes in the afternoon, sometime after 2:30 pm.
Let me know if this sounds like a plan,
-Christian-
P.S. By the way, I also need your phone # to put on the shipping label.
And so he e-mails me back that morning:
i will ship as soon as iget off work today.go ahead and ship out on your end
thanks,
tommy
So far so good, I figure everythings wrapped up and I'll have a nice new pair of snakes the next day. I package up the sand boas and drop them off at FedEx, send a notification of shipment to his e-mail address. The following day (Wednesday, April 25th) when I get back into town from work at around 3pm, I stop by the FedEx office to pick up my package, only they can't locate anything for me, and I was never sent a tracking number. I get home and e-mail Tommy:
Hey,
Was wondering if the kenyans arrived okay? It's about 3:30 here and the house snakes haven't shown up yet, do you have a tracking number for them?
Thanks,
-Christian-
He e-mails me back the evening of the 25th:
you never wrote back to tell me if you were shipping i haven't got the kenyans yet i will keep you posted
Upon reading this, I am fairly steamed. We had a pretty cut and dry agreement, and his very last e-mail said:
will ship as soon as iget off work today.go ahead and ship out on your end. On top of that, he's the one that pushed for shipping this week when I was hoping to wait until the following week. I e-mail him back immediately:
Well, as a matter of fact I laid out the plan very clearly in the e-mail I sent you Tuesday morning, and it was you who was pushing for us both to ship out on Tuesday as I said next Monday would work better for me anyway:
"Hi,
I tell you what, if you can ship them out today and select "hold at FedEx location" so I can pick them up after work then that should work fine. The FedEx location address is:
6909 S 19th St
Tacoma, WA 98466
(253) 565-4882
So I will plan on shipping out this afternoon then for Wednesday morning arrival for the kenyans, and I will pick up the house snakes in the afternoon, sometime after 2:30 pm. Let me know if this sounds like a plan,
-Christian-"
and your response was:
"i will ship as soon as iget off work today.go ahead and ship out on your
end"
That seems pretty cut and dry to me, but if you any doubts or questions you also could have called me... I couldn't call you, as you did not provide me with a phone # as I requested. I am a little upset that we had a pretty straightforward plan which you did not follow through on, but the bottom line is I'm just anxious to get my animals. I can recieve tomorrow or Friday, or Tuesday through Friday of next week in the manner we worked out.
As far as the Kenyans, they were delivered according to my tracking info at 8:29 this morning, it says they were left at the front door. The tracking number via FedEx is 792974228965 . They should be there, so if they are not then we have a problem. Please check. Let me know what works for you on shipping out the house snakes.
-Christian-
He e-mails me back once more later that evening:
they are at the office i will get them in the morning as well as be shipping out in the morning sorry for any inconvince noone came to my door this morning i was up at 7am
So fine, he says he'll be shipping out Thursday for a Friday arrival. I get another e-mail from him on Thursday morning:
i got this morning and that female is huge!!!! they will be at the fed ex location tomorrow
I e-mail him back that morning:
I'm glad the kenyans arrived. I'll plan on picking up the house snakes at FedEx on Friday afternoon, then. Thanks,
-Christian-
The next e-mail I recieve from his is the late afternoon on Thursday, April 26th:
fedex won't let me ship i have an account with dhl they have a location in fife WA is that close?
I send out an immediate response telling him yes, that was fine I have picked up from DHL at that location before. Early morning on Friday the 27th, after not hearing back from him I send him another e-mail:
Hi,
Just checking to see if the house snakes got shipped out yesterday (Thursday) or not?
-Christian-
Later that day, Friday the 27th, having not heard anything else from him I e-mail him in the afternoon:
PLEASE CALL ME or e-mail me and let me know whether the snakes ever got shipped out or not yesterday - I need to know whether I need to make a trip out to pick them up or not. If they did not get shipped, then I would expect them to be shipping out on this coming Monday for Tuesday arrival, correct? Please let me know what the status is asap.
-Christian-
253-267-1360
I hear nothing back for the rest of the day, and while I am at work the next day (Saturday, the 28th), I call my wife to check my e-mail and have recieved the following message (evidently sent late Friday night):
they will be there tomorrow to be picked up i paid the extra sorry for the inconvinece i've been working a lot
Well, at this I am again upset because a) I would never have anyone ship out over the weekend due the the possibility of the animals getitng stuck somewhere while the offices are closed, and b) he never checked with me to see if Saturday would even work for me to pick them up - for all he knew I could have been out of town all weekend. Besides that, I specifically said that I would be looking for them to be shipped on Monday in my previous e-mail. But nothing I can do now, so that afternoon I stop by the DHL office when I get back into town at about 2:30 to find they close at 1pm on Saturdays. So, now the snakes are stuck in the warehosue somewhere for at least the rest of the weekend. I e-mail Tommy once again when I get home, explaining to him that while I appreciated him paying the extra money so I could potentially get the snakes sooner, it was innapropriate for him to ship them out on a day without verifying it with me for the above reasons. I let him know my main concern is for the animals, and as long as they are okay when I pick them up Monday morning when the office reopens then I am happy, but if the unthinkable happens then I feel it is his responsibility to reimburse me for the cost of the snakes that I sent him. I end the e-mail saying that he doesn't need to respond, but that I'll e-mail him Monday morning to let him know the status of the snakes.
Well, I make the trek out there Monday morning (April 30th) to pick up the package, only to find out they can't locate it without the airbill number, which I realize he never sent me. I suppose this is partially my fault for not asking, but this is something he should have provided me with when he sent the snake out. As soon as I get back home from the DHL office Monday morning I e-mail him, telling him the situation and letting him know that it is urgent that he either call me or e-mail me with the airbill number immediately.
I hear no response for another day, and I e-mail him again this morning:
I e-mailed you almost 24 hours ago asking for the tracking/airbill number for the house snakes, without which I cannot retrieve the package from DHL. I NEED THAT NUMBER IMMEDIATELY. The snakes have been sitting in that box since you shipped them out on Friday... I am hopeful the snakes will come out alright, but 4 days in transit cannot be good for any animal, even the hardy house snakes. If not for me, but for the well being of the animals please contact me immediately. You know this transaction has been having issues, so I would assume you would be checking your e-mail frequently... if you're not able to, then perhaps you should been responded to my multiple requests for you phone #, or called me when I requested which could perhaps have saved us a lot of trouble in this. At this point my only concern is the animals and hoping they come out of this alright; that is all I want.
-Christian-
Well, after posting my story on another forum a fellow herper who works for DHl is able to track down the package for me...
I will let the pictures tell the story...
See anything wrong with this picture? First off, no heat pack to speak of, and only a couple pieces of crumpled newspaper on top of the container - nothing to provide adequate cushioning. Second, I am supposed to be getting an adult PAIR of house snakes, and I see only one snake in this box!
It is a female, and she is a mess, skinny and dehydrated.
Her mouth is full compressed shavings and other crap which I had to clean out.
And remember how she was supposed to be gravid? Hardly! She is extremeley emaciated and NO WAY you could ever even "accidentally" think that a snake in this condition looks gravid.
Oh, and one more thing. I any straight up trade I've ever done, each party usually pays for shipping on their end unless specified otherwise... I paid for shipping the sand boas out last week via my account, assuming he would do the same. Well, when I get the package, it looks like he marked "Bill to reciever on it," so now he's trying to pawn the shipping cost off on me as well!
So, e-mail time again... I of course up to this point have never heard back from him, so here's the e-mail I just sent him after I got the snake put away. Perhaps a little more aggressive then my previous e-mails, but at this point I feel I'm entitled to show just a sliver of how pissed off I really am...
Well, no thanks to you I was able to track down the shipments without the airbill thanks to my wife's digging and other herper friends across the country. The first problem right off the bat when I'm expecting an adult pair of house snakes is that there IS ONLY ONE SNAKE IN THE CONTAINER... a very thin, dehydrated, very obviously NOT gravid female. I also notice on the shipping label you are going to try to bill the shipping to me, when I already paid for shipping on my end and we had a straight up trade? I'm sorry, but it's not going to happen. Here's the way I see it. I sent you $200 worth of snakes (which is what I was offering them for sale for) and paid about $50 for shipping. I don't even necessarily believe this female is het. albino based on the trust I have in you now. But let's say the female you sent me (which very easily could have been dead right now) is worth $125 (which I feel is being very generous). The way I see it, you owe me $125 to make up the difference on this trade, and with that I still feel like I am taking somewhat of a loss (a breeding pair of fat, gorgeous sand boas, with the female already gravid, for one thin, near death house snake). I am in no way interested in recieving another snake from you, at this point I want the cash. I am going to give you 48 hours to respond to this e-mail before I contemplate further action. You may paypal me the funds to this e-mail address (pythonelmer@hotmail.com) or via money order to:
Christian Elmer
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Fircrest, WA 98466
Please respond as soon as is possible.
-Christian-
Well, I finally get a response at around 4pm on Wednesday, May 2nd, my first e-mail from him since Saturday morning...
first i told you i only had an albino male!! and i would trade you my adult female het albino gravid housesnake for your 1.1 sand boas wich the male regurged and died today and it's not my fault you cant read the tracking number that i gave you 3 times and didn't pick up your package on time of cours she's thin and dehydrated she was in the mail for 5 days i didn't try to bill the shipping to you it got billed to my account and it's paid for so were even a female for a female i don't think that the sand boa is gravid the way she eats when my females are gravid they don't eat
My response:
Listen up, because I am only going to play this game for so long...
You only need to scroll down this very e-mail string to see our original correspondence... I quote:
"i would trade you the proven pair ( female is het albino and gravid) for the ksb's honestly trying to keep my albinos to raise up there still a litle young and the male has a weird pattern let me know if this sounds fair she laid 12 eggs last time and all hatched"
and in a later e-mail:
"they will be at the fed ex location tomorrow"
and again:
"they will be there tomorrow to be picked up i paid the extra sorry for the inconvinece i've been working a lot"
What are all these "they's" if our deal was only ever for one snake? Second, the female is not gravid, so even if you're going to try and falsely claim that our deal was only for one gravid house snake, you're still in the wrong! As for the condition of the house snake, I'm sure part of the snakes condition did indeed have to do with being in transit for 5 days... which is partially your fault, by the way, for shipping on a weekend. But the degree of emaciation and malnutrition I see in this snake is an obvious sign of chronic poor husbandry practices on your part; and I can hardly believe you're going to try and say she was fat, healthy and full of eggs when she went into the shipping box. And the bull**** about you trying to get me the tracking number three times is exactly that, bull****. Once you shipped the snakes out on Friday, I never heard from you again until today, even though you had my e-mail, my home phone, AND my cell phone and could have contacted me at any time. I did my part with repeated e-mails, and of course couldn't call you because you never responded to my request for a phone number.
I am very saddened to hear that the male sand boa has died, and I must say I regret wholeheartedly sending such a neat pair of snakes to someone who has such disregard for the lives of these awesome creatures. However, given your honesty up to this point I would not be at all surprised to find out you're simply lying about the death of the snake in a feeble attempt to make us "even." Throughout this transaction, you have not just been decietful but flat out lied, which anyone can see since your previous words are still at the bottom of this string of e-mails! I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that everyone I can reach in the herp industry knows your name and knows what a poor herp keeper and poor human being you are.
I would spend some time thinking long and hard about the way you act and commicate with people, and if you have any regard for this hobby at all you will drastically change your ways. However, I am not hopeful.
-Christian-
I am simply in awe... I cannot even to find the words to describe a person like this. If you see this guys name or e-mail, do yourself a favor and DON'T DEAL WITH HIM!!! And maybe point him this way and see what attempt he makes at defending himself. Feel free to point out if I've missed any details for relavent information.
-Christian Elmer-
pythonelmer@hotmail.com
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