Buyers Beware-Michael Nino

First let me say that this threads purpose is to warn potential buyers that this fellow, Michael Nino, is trying to sell extremely sick and malnourished looking bearded dragons that he openly admitted to me he rescued as "close to deaths door" and is now trying to turn a profit with by misrepresenting them.

He had contacted me a few days ago about a possible trade for some boas I had posted in the trade section. Below is a copy from the email he sent me describing the bearded dragons he had to trade.

"i have 2 juvenile hypo trans from blood bank dragons stock. these go for $425.- on blood Banks List
I have several adult citrus, that fire up nicely when heated well.
I have a non marketed leusistic german giant x citrus white male I was keeping for breeding, he is from the Daichu line and will make incredible babies. I have 1 male with a scarlet throat I thought was a female until i put it with a male and saw it turn aggressive and puff up lol"

I asked for some pictures and these are what I got. Besides the fact that they all look incredibly malnourished and dehydrated, every one of them have either a missing limb, toes, huge kink, over 50% of their tail missing and all are living in filth which you can plainly see in the pictures.
I emailed him back politely describing all this and this is the email I got in response
"lol omg whata bunch of shit!
i take in animals that need attention and bring them from deaths door to pet quality. Nice setup, friend of the haters."

I would be wary of dealing with this guy, maybe Im wrong, I didn't actualy receive an animal from him so I can't say his sells poor quality animals but based on the pictures and his emails to me I would never consider buying or trading for anything from him. He greatly misrepresented all his animals to me which makes me believe he is to others. His email is malestrom22@yahoo.com and goes by Malestrom on fauna.

(censored) those are a couple of really neglected and abused dragons! Freakin' shameful!

He "rescued" them? If so, then why is he not trying to nourish and care for them properly before flipping?

In order to provide more validity to your post, please copy & paste your email communications with him. Abuse / neglect is not acceptable!

wow, that's awful Couldn't even CLEAN the cages? Disgusting.

Sure, LauraB, here's a complete copy/paste of all our emails back and forth so far

5:53 PMMessage starred Re: trade for salmons
FROM michael nino TO You Hide Details Frommichael nino ToDiana Mason
lol omg whata bunch of shit!
i take in animals that need attention and bring them from deaths door to pet quality. Nice setup, friend of the haters.



On Friday, November 8, 2013 5:34 PM, Diana Mason <dhm198555@yahoo.com> wrote:

Oooo, no thanks, all those animals look extremely sick, under weight, and/or dehydrated. Their cages look like they haven't been cleaned in weeks. I'm sry, but no, thanks anyway. Also you may want to let people no ahead of time that your animals all seem to have some sort of major defect from missing limbs and toes to deformed and missing tails.



From: michael nino <malestrom22@yahoo.com>
To: Diana Mason <dhm198555@yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, November 8, 2013 3:40 PM
Subject: Re: trade for salmons



Hi Diane,
Im always interested in a trade, I thought i sent you an email with descriptions of the available dragons i have(had)
here is a copy of it
"i have 2 juvenile hypo trans from blood bank dragons stock. these go for $425.- on blood Banks List
I have several adult citrus, that fire up nicely when heated well.
I have a non marketed leusistic german giant x citrus white male I was keeping for breeding, he is from the Daichu line and will make incredible babies. I have 1 male with a scarlet throat I thought was a female until i put it with a male and saw it turn aggressive and puff up lol.
Without pics thats a general description of whats on the table.
let me know if anything interests you and ill be taking photos as i said.
Thanks "
I am working several trades and purchases and apologize, i thought id gotten back to you as well with pictures, here they are in this email. some may be gone by the time you respond, im working a trade on a super salmon also and am dying for it.
I hope in all of these theres something you like that noone has chosen yet.
I do still have the cage setup for the chameleon as well.
Heres a link to my facebook album showing it
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

let me know if you want it or ill be taking it to the show tomorrow to sell.
Sincerely
Michael



On Thursday, November 7, 2013 10:36 PM, Diana Mason <dhm198555@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hey, never heard back from you, were you still interested in a trade?



From: michael nino <malestrom22@yahoo.com>
To: Diana Mason <dhm198555@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, November 4, 2013 1:34 PM
Subject: Re: trade for salmons



i have 2 juvenile hypo trans from blood bank dragons stock. these go for $425.- on blood Banks List
I have several adult citrus, that fire up nicely when heated well.
I have a non marketed leusistic german giant x citrus white male I was keeping for breeding, he is from the Daichu line and will make incredible babies. I have 1 male with a scarlet throat I thought was a female until i put it with a male and saw it turn aggressive and puff up lol.
Without pics thats a general description of whats on the table.
let me know if anything interests you and ill be taking photos as i said.
Thanks
Michael



On Saturday, November 2, 2013 9:28 AM, Diana Mason <dhm198555@yahoo.com> wrote:

Okay well, just tell me what you actually have for trade, that way you may or may not even need to take pics.



From: michael nino <malestrom22@yahoo.com>
To: Diana Mason <dhm198555@yahoo.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 2, 2013 1:19 AM
Subject: Re: trade for salmons



sorry i was sleeping all day, not feeling well, im going to be out of town all day saturday, ill try to get it done by Monday, apologies for the delay.
Michael



On Friday, November 1, 2013 8:41 PM, Diana Mason <dhm198555@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hey, was just wondering if you had a chance to snap some pics? In the meantime could you just lemme know what it is you have for trade? Some info on the beardies, like age, sex, morph types. ect. Thanks



From: michael nino <malestrom22@yahoo.com>
To: "dhm198555@yahoo.com" <dhm198555@yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, November 1, 2013 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: trade for salmons



Hi Diana,
im hoping to upload photos this afternoon ortonight at the latest. I have 6 trades im working and need to get the photos up if I want them to go through.
Hopefully tonight
Michael


Thanks for responding so quickly
Show message history



On Friday, November 1, 2013 7:43 AM, michael nino <malestrom22@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hello
I saw your ad on fauna for:
1.0 cb salmon het albino. Ugly but good genetics. On left in pic. Also in shed.

0.1 cb poss. super salmon het albino. Sister to above male, VERY nice salmon, purchased as super but again has not been proven yet. On right in pic and also in shed.



Im interested in them both but preferrably the female or both. you asked me to email you at this addy so here i am, ill be taking pics of available dragons later today, the chameleon is no longer with me.
Thanks
Michael 610-449-4125

The emails read from most recently received on top.

He's asking to trade for these poor babies? OMFG! Those poor things are in severe need of attention that they're obviously not getting from him, even though he "rescued" them...

I wouldn't trade him a piece of soap for those dragons, much less anything else. He needs to give those dragons up if he's not going to nurse them back to health before he thinks about flipping them for a profit.

UGH!

Wow good thing i just saw this...i was supposed to meet him to trade tomorrow.

Malestrom was the subject of a pretty lengthy thread earlier this year, but he was mistakenly called "maelstrom" in the title. Could someone please link that thread? I can't from my phone...

Originally Posted by laterob

Could someone please link that thread? I can't from my phone...

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...ight=maelstrom

He'd once made a reply in another thread that really jumped out at me, yet didn't really seem to get much attention from anyone else:

Originally Posted by Malestrom

I pay people to clean my cages in addition to doing it myself
I limit my rescues to a specific number and even raise my own food.
There are 2 local pet stores i'll count on the 'better' side of the circus theyve become, but getting reliable help is hard and quarantine is almost never done, I have a guy on the inside and if a sick animal needs help hell proclaim it dead or dying and bring it to me for verification, we restore it to health and rehome it whereas the store would look the other way while it infected others with uri and died. The owners tend to be suspicious of anyone offering help but take any animal offered them and dont trade or pay out for them.

Appears to be a pretty blithe admission that he's basically stealing animals to sell. Between that line and his various additions to the thread I linked, he's usually made my detector go a little crazy. Based on the OP's pics, it'd appear that the guy's given up any pretense of rehabilitation. Looks like he's simply trying to flip his possibly ill-gotten animals, regardless of their health. Lame.

all wrong, and i wont again entertain this circus of accusations by responding to anything said or pictures shown. Until you see what my animals look like in person its all smoke and mirrors and hurry up with the photos, i dont doctor or do photo op setups. I have no dissatisfied customers. 1 incident and it was refunded.
Choices?
1- let the sick animals stay where they are before coming here to be nursed back to health
2- Take the animal and nurse it, either it gets better or doesnt depending on its condition at arrival and then deal with people who only buy perfect animals and listen to the lame complaints about a missing toe or piece of tail or foot which happens often when dragons are community raised as these are before coming here. Julian, its a shame you didnt even think enough to come check out the animal yourself.
Some of you folks need to find other things to do with your time besides bash people trying to make the best of thiers, anyone with a complaint against me has gotten either a replacement or refund.
As I said im not going to entertain this circus, so have at it, its a shame you dont have better things to do.