Manny Frade of Prefect Predators

Originally Posted by hhmoore

Having taken plenty of pictures trying to get accurate colors on some of my hypos, I don't see any reason to call that a Photoshop hack job - I experienced the same thing without any alterations. A lot of cameras default to a "vivid" (or similar) setting, and even setting the white balance can leave highly color started pictures on a distorted background color. Changing the setting to standard helps somewhat; but getting rid of that effect is a lot harder than a lot of people think.

Based on my own admittedly limited experience with digital cameras, I don't believe any of mine have defaulted to the "vivid" setting. Perhaps it's some inherent firmware settings difference between high and low-end cameras? Either way, as Diem already pointed out, there's a reasonable expectation that the seller should check to make sure that his pictures aren't a gross misrepresentation of reality. Especially in a situation where color is a selling point. Obviously, I'm inclined to believe that it wasn't a very accidental occurrence. However, I still think it boils down to another example of the reality of a given situation not quite jiving with manny's portrayal of it. Adding all of the other context clues just makes it look even more suspicious, at least to me.

I don't know if there's any way to confirm whether Manny is doing this intentionally or not. He could be using a certain type of lighting that brings out reds, it could be his camera, it could be photoshop.

I don't feel the boa I received was accurately represented, and apparently I'm not the only one who feels that way. Hopefully Manny will go to some effort to correct this issue so that future customers are not disappointed.

As a side note the camera I use is fairly nice. It's not a super expensive camera, but better than average. That said, I would think that a "vivid" setting would have to be manually chosen.

I have to say, I kind of feel like this thread is one-sided. It seems like this was mostly the result of a lot of miscommunication between Manny and Jendee. I still don't understand why she sold the snake he sent her. I can understand his hesitation to send her squaretail back since he sent her a snake that is worth more than the one he is borrowing. Should she not have to send at least some of the money back to him?

I'm glad I stumbled onto this thread. I "liked" Manny's facebook page and have been considering buying a boa from him. I want to get a boa once I get a reptile room in the next couple of years (for space reasons). However, seeing this thread and several of his others I have decided not to do business with him and to remove my "like" from his facebook page. I cannot do business with shady people.

Having seen the VPI she was sent? It was not worth more than her Squaretail. It was a horrible example of a VPI, no matter what Manny claims. It was not going to be anything special as an adult.

This is not worth more than a very red, breedable Squaretail male. Anyone that knows boas and knows what quality is versus quantity could tell.

Originally Posted by ShadowAceD

Having seen the VPI she was sent? It was not worth more than her Squaretail. It was a horrible example of a VPI, no matter what Manny claims. It was not going to be anything special as an adult.

This is not worth more than a very red, breedable Squaretail male. Anyone that knows boas and knows what quality is versus quantity could tell.

My mistake, I don't know much about the VPI or Squaretail morph, and hadn't seen pics of either snake.

The Squaretail, and while the argument of quality of photo can be made for the VPI, the quality of photo is worse for the Squaretail and yet you can definitely see he is completely saturated in red.

Originally Posted by meowmeowkazoo

I have to say, I kind of feel like this thread is one-sided. It seems like this was mostly the result of a lot of miscommunication between Manny and Jendee. I still don't understand why she sold the snake he sent her. I can understand his hesitation to send her squaretail back since he sent her a snake that is worth more than the one he is borrowing. Should she not have to send at least some of the money back to him?

It appears one-sided because manny chose to continue the discussion on FB. Apparently, objective opinions scare him, so he's decided to hash it out among friends. If you read the FB posts that Jendee has copied, you're likely to see a noticeable difference in the tone of the responses. I don't think it's an accident that he'd rather be among those who choose to be part of his little group. That's not even taking into consideration the fact that, over there, he can make any post he dislikes completely disappear.

She likely sold it because she believed that it fully accounted for the "credit" that manny said she was due, well before the extra breeding season was discussed. If that's the case, I completely agree with her interpretation of their correspondence. From very early on, he made it clear that he felt he owed her something. At NO point - until after she asked for her own snake back - did manny ever specify that her continued possession of the VPI was in any way definitely contingent on him keeping her snake for an extra breeding season.

You may choose to say that I've based my opinion solely on my obvious dislike of manny, and that I'm acting out some vendetta. It wouldn't surprise me. However, even after being witness to his lies, and still choosing to put yourself in the position where you subsequently suffered first-hand from his misrepresentation, you still support him. From an objective standpoint, I'd have to think that my own stance is the more rational of the two.

What Manny feels a non-breedable animal is worth from a Squaretail pairing that he is not even labeling as a Squaretail. Yes, it has the RC Pastel additive, but does that really make it worth more than a breedable Squaretail? Not that much more. Not when it's easily two and a half or three years away from breeding.

Seem a little contradictory to his claim that the Squaretail he borrowed is only worth 500.00-600.00? If he believed that animal was so-so, would be be using it as the representative of Squaretails on his site?

Doubtful.

Jendee's Squaretail he's using on his website to represent Squaretails. He took that image from her Facebook.