Albert Bazzar: Use care when dealing with him - FaunaClassifieds
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Old 05-22-2008, 03:41 PM   #1
Ken Foose
Albert Bazzar: Use care when dealing with him

I was contacted out of the blue well over a year ago by Albert Bazzar. He seems to be from Illinois, but travels a lot collecting turtles, and I have been told he captive produces many turtles in Louisiana. He called me and asked if I wanted to buy large groups of turtles from him. His prices were fair and the amounts were right, so I had him send me a bunch of turtles. They all came in fine, and I promptly sent him his money by depositing it into his checking account. This arrangement went great for a year. In that time I purchased approx. $7,000 worth of turtles from him. Then one day he called and I once again ordered a bunch of turtles from him. However, he said his bank account was not closed, so I'd have to send him the money via Western Union. I told him this was not a problem. The total for the turtles was somewhere around $4,000, and this was also not a problem. But now he wanted his money in advance. I asked him why, and he replied that he was tired of being ripped off and wanted all his money up front from now on. I pointed out that I had never ripped him off and had always deposited cash into his account in a very timely manner. My past record did not seem to impress him, and he still wanted all his money up front. Now, I had a problem with wiring $4,000 to some Wal Mart in some little town in the Florida panhandle, so I hesitated on sending the funds. A week went by, and he called to ask me to wire the money to another location. Once again I expressed my reluctance to do this. He assured me that I would not be ripped off, and that he had the turtles. I told him to let me think on it for a week. A week later he called and I told him OK, I'd wire the money. He then informed me that all the higher end turtles, which is what I really wanted had been sold to others. These were the same "others" that owed him money from the past.
I understand not holding animals without cash in hand, so I chalked this up to my own hesitation and canceled the order.
In Feb of '08, about a month after our last contact he called me again. Seems he was hurting for mulla and pleaded with me to place an order with him. He has some loggerhead musk turtles that I wanted, so I decided to take a chance and get them. After all, he had trusted me for thousands of dollars in the past, so I figured it was my turn to trust him. We decided that pay pal would be the best way for this to work. Now, I've never used pay pal, and have never wanted to us pay pal, and trust me, I'll never us it again. I don't have an account, as I mentioned, but my wife does. So I gave her the cash ($300), and she sent Al the money.
No turtles. Ever. We waited a month, exhausting every avenue I had to contact him, all for not. Kim finally got fed up and sent a complaint to pay pal to get our money back. Seems Albert has no money in his account, and it's not connected to any bank account. I don't understand any of this, but Kim tried explaining it to me. So, anyway, no money for us.
And then, I got a call from Al. It seems that his pay pal account has been frozen because of Kim's complaint, and now he can't use it. He has "thousands of dollars in orders" from people who can't pay him because his account is frozen. Once again, I don't understand how this works, but it seems to me that if the money goes into the account and pay pal sends me back my money, all should be good again. But Al said no one at pay pal would talk to him, so Kim called to as if they would lift the hold on the account, and we just told pay pal the debt had been settled. But nope, can't be done, and don't ask me why.
In the meantime, Al promised to send me $300 in turtles. Not the ones I wanted, but something of equal value. At this point I didn't care, I just wanted my monies worth. And that was the last time I ever heard from him. I've waited another couple months to post here just to give him a chance to contact me again. I have no way to contact him, as the phone # I have for him no longer works.
I doubt I'll ever see my money or my turtles, but at least it's only $300 and not the original $4,000.
So, with turtle season now in full swing, I just wanted everyone here to have a heads up not to send any money to Albert Bazzar up front if you ever want to see anything for it. And if, by chance anyone knows how I can contact him, I'd really be grateful for the information

Thanks, Ken
 

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