Hello, here’s my story with Chris Hunter of Hunter Reptiles. During the winter of 2001/02 I was running ads on Kingsnake.com looking for Dwarf Caimans. During which time I had a couple of people email me and refer Chris Hunter(its now been told to me that it was probably just him referring himself). I looked him up in the croc classifieds and contacted him about the Dwarfs. At the time he didn’t have any in and wasn’t expecting any till April or so. In the mean time (February) a friend of mine had a large 4ft male Dwarf he decided to part with, so I took it. Well after spending about $500 on caging and still not being happy with his enclosure I decided it would be best to find him a more suitable home. I contacted Chris to see if he would be interested in a trade and he said, “I’d love to”. We worked the details out and decided on trading my large male for 2 baby Dwarfs (valued at $225ea) that he said were supposed to be stock in within 7days. So after talking to him several times, all of which he seemed like a very decent person I sent him my large male via Northwest Airlines. When he received the animal he had his g/f call me right away because NW had somehow managed to almost freeze the animal. She told me that the caiman was stiff as a board and so cold it hurt his hands to hold him. The next day I spoke to him and he said that everything looked good. Once he got the animal home he warmed it up and placed it in a “holding pond” out back of his house. A couple days later the Dwarf started eating and we pretty much wrote him off as having a clean bill of health. On several occasions during our phone conversations, after that, Chris complemented me on the animals health. He referred to it as “a little tank” and told me he had never gotten any in that large before in that good of health. He claimed normally people let the animals health go prior to taking the initiative to pulling them out of their basements and sending them to someone like him that can keep them out doors all year round once they got that big. Well this was the beginning of April when I sent him the animal. At that point he was telling me he had someone that he was getting a bunch of baby Dwarfs from during the second week of April. Well the second week of April rolled around and I didn’t hear anything from him. So at the beginning of the third week I emailed and asked him what was going on. He replied with a bunch of excuses about how busy he was and that’s why he didn’t email and as far as the animals, Cities this and that, bla bla bla, paper work etc. Well these excuses continued till June when the quotas opened back up. Then he claimed the animals came in but were in extremely poor health and he wasn’t going to send any out. Shortly there after he claimed all were dead. So now it’s the last week of June, I was supposed to have my animals in April. So at that point I looked through his price list and picked a bunch of other animals out that I would take in place of the ones I was guaranteed. On his list he was advertising CBB Dwarf caimans that he claimed he produced himself. I inquired about those and he said he should have them the first week of August, the eggs were in the incubator. So what I decided on at that point (last week of June) was to take some torts and then the CBB dwarf in August. I got three torts from him that covered 50% of what he owed me. Two Forest Hinge Back Torts and one Bells Hinge back. The manner he shipped them in was VERY poor, a flimsy cardboard box with a little newspaper in it. When I received the animals the two forests looked like sh!t. They were extremely skinny and dehydrated. I notified him immediately however he offered little in recourse and at that point considering he still owed me $225 I wasn’t going to create a fuss. I wormed and hydrated them both and set them up in some out door pens. At first, neither of the animals were very active nor did they look like they would make it. Within a couple weeks one was dead, the other did come around and is doing fine. The Bells hinge was the only one that looked good and still looks great. Were now mid way through July no caiman and things started to go down hill. I would email Chris to see how the caiman eggs were coming along and would have to do so several times to get a response. I would call his house and no one would answer. From this point on, less then 40% of my emails were responded to and only maybe 1 out of every 30 phone call attempts were answered. August came and the excuses started again. This time the eggs were all hatching late etc. So about the third week and August I finally get him on the phone(a feat of god) he said, he had cut the eggs open and they all were bad. So at this point I told him I would just like to grab some other animals and get the deal over with and he agreed. Well I choose some animals and we agree on a ship date. Guess what the day they were supposed to arrive, nothing! I waited all day and nothing came and no emails from Chris. So I emailed and called him, guess what nothing, I got no responses for over 1.5 weeks. He made a bunch of excuses about being ripped off and having to take a normal job and not being able to get off work to ship. So we agreed on another ship date, this time I sent him the address of a business some friends of mine work in so I didn’t have to wait all day for nothing to show. Well I am glad I did because once again nothing shown. This time I emailed and called for two weeks and didn’t hear from him. At this point I posted some ads on Kingsnake for him to contact me about 5days later he did. Once again he claimed he was busy with work and hadn’t been checking his email. He claimed the only reason he knew I posted on kingsnake was because his g/f seen the ad. When he finally emailed I told him I would just like for him to Paypal me the remaining $225 balance as I was becoming rather irritated. So this is about the 1st week of Oct then one day I come home to this
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Jason I worked late again tonight and I didn't get anything sent out. I am paypaling you $180 of the $225 I owe you. I will get you the rest ASAP. It's just the way it is looking I will not be getting off soon enough to ship anything anytime soon and I don't want to delay you anymore. I am sorry for any inconvinence this may have caused. Don't hold this against me in the future things are just screwed up for me right now. Also can you remove the chris Hunter contact me off of kingsnake. I have been getting a lot of messages about it (if you haven't already I haven't had time to check myself. Thanks Chris
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So after having this drug out for months on end, he has completed all but $45 of the deal.. Since then I have sent several emails and tried to call several times with no response. At this point I am just willing to write off the $45 to make sure no ones else has to go through this crap.
Personally I think he was more concerned with “can you remove the chris Hunter contact me off of kingsnake” then he was about paying me because I have learned a lot about him since running those ads. I am going to leave all names out of this because as soon as I hit the send button to post this I will forward the link to all parties I speak of including Chris. If they would like to throw their names in the ring that’s their choice. Chris was claiming to have a large croc farm and a partner in many of our conversations. Also several of the people I know that have done business with Chris I know he has told that to as well. I spoke to his so called “partner” and what I found out is that he wasn’t his partner at all. In FL to get the permits to have crocs and other reptiles you have to work or volunteer with someone who already has the permits and animals. Well the person he claimed to be partners with was nothing more then the permit holder his was working for to acquire his. His croc farm from what I have been told is nothing more then one pond in his back yard where gators and crocs are stepping all over the turtles they are penned with. Some of the high end crocs he had listed on his website were not his at all. He was simply brokering them from people who didn’t even know he was advertising their animals. I have also had several other people get in contact with me while running those ads that were looking for him as well. He owed them money, one person over $1000, the person sent Chris a check and then never heard from him again. Another person was for 3 dwarf caimans, Lucky for him he paid with his credit card and is getting the money back through the Credit Company.
This is a shame that I have to post this here over $45! Back in the spring I trusted him and thought he was a decent guy. I even backed him up on this very board. I referred people to him that bought animals from him, gave him good recommendations for future sales and trusted him. Now this is the way I am being repaid, by being ripped off and made in a$$ out of. That’s fine, Chris if you read this, in one of your emails you claimed you were going to be doing import/export. It kind of sucks when they lose your paper work or screw it up time after time, don’t it? Or maybe you don’t know what the feels like……. YET!! I sure hope you do try to import or export something LMAO! The $45 isn’t going to break the bank its just the principal of the matter. Being yanked around for almost 7 months to get ripped for whatever amount is ridiculous! That’s all fine and dandy, He has now made my hate list along with Matt Martin, so 4yrs down the road when he pops back up Ill remember him and let others know again. If ya read this Chris just ask Matt how long I have been a major pain in his a$$. I have his home address and some other contact info Ill be posting here however will give him a couple more weeks to pay. Maybe this thread will light a fire under his a$$ and get him to follow up on his obligations. If not then Ill let everyone know where he lives and maybe ill get lucky and someone will pay him a visit. Anyway that’s my story to the best of my memory. This got drug out so long, I gave my self a headache trying to remember all this. Below is his contact info on his site
Hunter Reptiles
P.O. Box 5994
Springhill FL 34611
352-596-5987
Hunterherps@hotmail.com
http://www.hunterreptiles.homestead.com/
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