Backwater reptiles

The last one was funny she doesn't have much information of my order but this packed and shipped it ??

Ok now last but not least I also have the shells of the tortoises buried to take photo proof but wasn't that's all I have I wasn't keeping dead reptiles in my freezer where my children's food goes until these people decided to contact me back a year later thinking I wanted there sick alligators...

Also in this message she still try's to blame me saying it was delivered late and not contacting them I did sorry there sites don't send me a fwd of what I wrote so that's all they have.

Thanks for reading
Christopher Curran

Try punctuation.,you are giving people headaches!

Will do. next time in the meanwhile they sell Advil for thoes

I have one question. Do you actually have the email stating that they arrived sick and dead? I see where they delayed shipping, but your "email sent a year ago and never replied to" does not seem to be in the ones you posted?

I wrote to them more then once on both there wholesale exotics.com site where I ordered from and there backwater reptiles site with the contact us. Since I wasn't even answered if the order was shipped.Hoping to get the owner or a manager to reply. When contacting that way you do not receive a FWD( as I stated in a previous post) of your messages to them to your email.I should have screen shot them before sending but didn't think I would be ignored about the situation.MY answer to that was they didn't have access to there wholesale messages..

These are the contact us forms I'm talking about you send the message and do not receive a fwd ,copy of what you sent hopefully it helps.

There wholesale is the same..

I'll post my story on them too and keep this review fresh in everyone's mind with Spring around the corner.

Just a warning for all of my fellow Herp collectors out there, do NOT buy your animals from the Backwater Reptiles website!

I ordered a ball python from them two years ago and the animal arrived perfectly fine. More than fine, she’s a great snake who grew fast and has never once gotten sick or gone off feed. She’s perfect. So this time, I thought to order a Chocolate Albino Leopard Gecko from them as well. A mistake, it seemed.

Not only did the poor little creature arrive dead, but when I emailed them, I was told they could replace it IF I paid them another 40$ for overnight shipping, or I could have my money for the lizard only refunded, and in that case would need to provide my credit card information over the email, as they “did not have access to customer payments” on their own website.

Here is a screenshot of the email;



That’s a bit small, here’s what it says;


sales@backwaterreptiles.com
11:05 AM (26 minutes ago)
to me

Of course Wendi! Thank you for the revised snapshot

Under our Live Arrival Guarantee, you’ve got a couple different options:
1.) We can re-ship a free replacement, and you would only cover the shipping cost of $39.99 or2.) We can refund the purchase price of the animal, less shipping
If you choose to have the replacement, you can pay the $39.99 via PayPal and send it to Sales@backwaterreptiles.com or since we don’t have access to customer payment info., you can email us your credit card info (cc number, exp. date and three digit code) and we can process it here.
Please let me know which option you would prefer and we will take care of it!

—

Putting aside the unprofessional use of their emojis after I just told them the lizard they sent me was dead and that I was distraught about it, my options given are to pay ANOTHER 40$ for a second gecko, which may or may not arrive alive, or else give them all of my credit information over an unsecured email address for a refund.

And why, exactly, are they using a Paypal address?

This website is suspect, the customer service is a joke, the packaging for their lizards is poor at best, and you are likely to receive a dead animal if you buy from them. There are other accounts of similar interactions with them from other collectors all across the web as well. I should have researched them more thoroughly first, and I did not, that was my mistake and now I have a lizard to bury.

Learn from me, friends, do not buy from Backwater Reptiles.

Originally Posted by conquerorworm

I could have my money for the lizard only refunded, and in that case would need to provide my credit card information over the email, as they “did not have access to customer payments” on their own website.

Bravo-freaking-sierra. According to BW's own web site their back-end merchant processor is authorize.net, so there should be no problem with issuing a refund on any transaction. Authorize.net's web site has a neat little tutorial instructing merchants in that very basic business function. Requiring customers to send an unencrypted email with a credit card number / expiration date / CVV to them for a refund is insane - and let's just throw PCI compliance out the window to boot.