Tim & Patty King

I arranged to buy 1.1 B. cornuta's from Tim King $1100 for the pair, he uses his wifes name "Patty" to place ad's on Kingsnake.com. Everything went well until I received the animals and noticed that the male has spondylitis, a chronic degenerative disease of the spine where the vertebral bodies fuse due to bacterial inflammation. This eventually kill the animal. I also noticed the male had periocular swelling indicative of mites. Both male and female were put into quarantine and treated anyway. This was not big deal because everybody knows snakes sometime come with these little unwanted extras.

This text and picture was sent to Tim on Oct 13th, the shipment arrive on the 10th.

Tim:

Both these snakes are not the age you told me they were, these are like 05 animals and the Male has a chronic condition called Spondylitis, where the bones of the back fuse, this is why his body is not in the typical smooth curves you expect. His cervical area is a real mess, just look at him.... I doubt he will survive a week. He also arrived with periocular swelling because of a mite infestation. I will send him back for a refund.

Al

Male B. cornuta
[IMG][/IMG]

His reply was:

Al
I have been out of town until today
strange that you would say the male is older I raised them from babies
if you want I can refund 275.00 for the male, and you can do with him what you want,
or I still have a pair of sutton co lepidus I could give you
no need to threaten me with legal action I have
not broken any laws
let me know if any of these options work

Well I felt that I was entitled to a full refund for the male (half of the $1100) and told his his offer was not acceptable.

His reply was as follows:

Al
you have called me a liar
said the male was older when in fact he is not
said he was covered in mites when he was caged with the female and she was fine
further more he was just a throw in
anyone nows that lone females are worth far more than lone males and yet you want 500
for him. and I never said he was 500 in the sale to begin with
you threaten me with legal action even though I have not even come close to breaking any laws. and threaten to slam me in some public forum. and I offered you more than a fair deal which I do not have to, and you slammed me on..I am not intimidated and you know I am right
Do what you have to do I'll see you in court. until then stop harassing by phone and email

I see now the female is "worth more than the male" although this was never mentioned till there was a problem. As far as I know "committing fraud" is breaking the law. Sending 3 emails and calling when you don't get a reply over a 16 day period hardly is harrassment. So I will file actions with the authorities but thought that people should know that they may not get what they pay for when buying from Tim or Patty King.

Can you post copies of the emails you sent to him?

I don't know anything about that species, but even to my untrained eye there is something significantly wrong with it.

Poor thing looks like somebody stepped on it. I would be ashamed to let an animal get into that condition in the first place, let alone sell it to someone else.

I too am curious about the e-mails and their response to you.

Take care of the poor thing while you have it, it doesn't look like it received much of that before it came to you.