Man. What a mess I've gotten myself into. This seems to be a trend in my life, but that's neither here nor there. People suck, I've got to learn to stop trusting people. I don't post much on here and I'm kinda new and quiet, but I really hope someone can help me.
I don't want to name any names yet. I went into a breeding loan with someone who I thought was a friend here in Florida. He is a known breeder and has rodent supply company. I had no reason not to trust him, and had heard nothing negative to speak of. He even let me put 3 or 4 snakes on his table at Daytona to sell just to be nice, or so I thought.
The original deal was he was borrowing 3 of my expensive female breeder ball pythons to breed to a male of a special gene that not many people have. In exchange for borrowing them, he was to supply feeders for the rest of my collection weekly (not very many feeders, ranging anywhere from $50-100 a week).
After the clutches were laid, we were going to split the clutches but depending on the offspring he was entitled to certain ones that were more valuable, because all I really wanted were two specific morphs, but that's neither here nor there. We would keep what we wanted, sell the rest and split the profits.
It's been a little over 3 months into this deal, and he has been impossible to get ahold of, and has not been out weekly. I have hatchlings to feed and I've had to hunt him down everytime. He's only come out three times since we went into the deal.
It's been nearly 3 weeks since he last delivered feeders. So i sent him a nice, professional-sounding text basically telling him I needed to know what was going on because he wasn't really keeping his end of the deal, he hadn't been out and he said he would be, it had been 3 weeks, and my hatchlings could not wait any longer, and i needed to know if he'd be out yesterday or today or if I needed to make other arrangements.
Proceed this person absolutely FLIPPING OUT. All kinds of profanity, insults, all sorts of drama and uncalled for craziness because I called him out on him not keeping up his end of our arrangement.
I told him all of the drama was unnecessary, that I just wanted him to please deliver the feeders weekly and we could proceed as planned. He refuses.
Now this person is literally blackmailing me and holding my snakes ransom. He is claiming I owe him $650 for table space (putting 4 snakes on a corner of a table at Daytona) and feeders (how coming out to deliver feeders 3 times equates to that, I have no idea). He demands $650 by Wednesday or he will not return my snakes, and if I don't pay he is keeping them until they lay eggs and then he'll return them WITHOUT giving me my share of the eggs.
I am at a loss, and so sad about this. I thought he was a nice guy, and he literally just went crazy? I can supply the whole conversation via text message if anyone actually wants to read it, but I don't know what to do about this. I don't know if there's anything I can do legally, but he has my babies. I love them, I had a hard enough time letting him borrow them. It's about $2000 worth of females, but it's not just about the money. They are my pets.
I could and would not hesitate to smear his name all across the country for this horrible thing he's doing, but then I am terrified he would hurt my animals, and Id never see them again. A few people have suggested the police, but what if I go over there with the police and he comes up with more lies and I don't get my animals back?
I have no idea what to do. I am so sad, I've been crying all day.
Linear Mode
