Tampa Show

I have sent it to a few people who have asked but did not post it as it is Mr. Cueto's writing.

Ben,

Just whom did you send these emails from Tony to? I was one whom said I would like to see both sides of the conversation and a couple of other people here whom have asked to see the emails are stating that hey have not received them either.

And no, there is no legal reason why you can't post those emails. Basically once an email is sent via the internet, it is then public domain.

I realize that this thread is geared mostly toward sellers which is why I've lurked till now, but Sean's post has prompted me to write.

I've been attending the Tampa show for years on and off and have always come away happy that I've gone. True the show is not as large as I've heard Daytona to be (this year will be my first time attending that show) but the show does attract a large crowd of buyers as well as quite a few quality sellers. I don't think that for the most part prices were inflated, of course there are always a few vendors who hold out for top dollar but that is their decision. I purchased 2 boas a normal and a morph, along with supplies and was happy with the prices I paid. The atmosphere is much more professional than any of the shows I've attended when I was living in New York. With the selection being greater and of better quality. As far as ticket prices I believe them to be pretty much the standard, parking I do wish cost less but I am/was willing to pay the additional $5.00 to park as were the hundreds/thousands (?) of others who attended.

To Ben my sympathy on your stolen animals. If the show requires that you MUST leave the animals on show premises then it should be the promoters responsibility to better secure the animals overnight. If it was just a matter of having your animals rechecked before vending the next day, perhaps the animals should have been removed from the show each evening.

On the topic of WC versus CB selling/prices I think that an educated customer can easily see the benefits of CB. One booth that I visited a few times had a lady selling CB Leopard Tortises, she was handing out care flyers as well as explaining to prospective purchasers the benefits of CB animals and purchasing directly from the breeder. Even though her prices were higher than those I'd seen elsewhere in the hall at the end of the show she was sold out, many others selling for up to $50.00 less were not. So price is not the only consideration especially to a client who is gently led to understand the advantages of CB over WC balls.

I'm sorry you both had bad experiences but as I'd hate to see some posts from an unhappy buyer & seller give any of those thinking of attending the show in the future second thoughts figured I'd just add my TAMPA SHOW THUMBS UP.

Meryl Lechner

I can vouch for the fact your animals were there @ 8pm Friday when the set-up closed and that there were only about 6 people besides us there when we left. Also that someone had to make a real effort to get to them, this was not done in a few minutes. We were also told there was someone spending the night in the Hall for security.

I am very sorry your lost them and we have spread info on them and the pictures in this area... What is really strange is there where far more valuable animals left there Friday night and they were not touched. We also know you were not the only one that had animals disappear during the same time frame.

But, in Tony's defense also, I don't think I have met many other people in the reptile industry that would make more of an effort to see that someone was satisfied, and does his best to coordinate these shows professionally. He not only promotes these shows, he tries to give back to the industry too and does many little extras to make it easier on the dealers and vendors.

I am sorry to see you felt you had a negative experience. We knew several other vendors that had excellent sales results and they were not wholesaling or discounting animals, in fact two of them has some of the most expensive at the show, 5 times the same species as others, but sold them. I think alot of it is reputation in this area and thats something you build in time.

Also, I want to point out the ATM machines not only in that hall ran out of money, but in the two adjacent halls also, I know, I was upset that I could not access any cash Sunday afternoon. Considering all factors, I think your location was more of a handicap than anything as your display was nice and also your animals.

Again, I am sorry that you had a bad experience, but knowing this show for over two years now, this is not the norm for most people attending or vending

Hey guys I was showing with Ben infact I was the table next to him. I had some of my stuff in Ben's display case and it was stolen too. me and Ben have done about 4-5 shows together and we never had any thing stolen or escape overnight from his display case. in fact he even put new born kingsnakes in there and they never escaped before, but they tried and they couldn't squeez out. The reason we know it was stolen because we found the display case in the same postion it was in and the locking mechanism was gone and later was found in a bin of drift wood that we brought and place next to the table. In order for the locking mechanism to be out of place and in somewhere els is clear evidence that someone has taken the animals in a hurry.

Ben has told me he deleted the e mail he recieved from Tony. I understand that Tony and his staff did everything they could to prevent the theft of any animals, but the fact remains that animals were stolen from the show over night, not just from Us but from couple other people too.

I did like the show, I would like to give Tony's show another try, but this time I'm gonna keep all the animals with me at the hotel every night.
That is my 10 cent about it. This is not to point finger or accuse anyone I'm just stating the fact.

Thanx

Winston

Ben,

Did you delete those emails from Tony? I have to tell you that I find that very distressing. First, you say that it was his attitude toward you that left you with such a bad taste in your mouth toward him (among other things too, but those have been addressed, I believe). Then, you say that you would not post his emails to you here because they were Tony's private writings. Then, you say you did send them to others who had asked for them (were they no longer private at that point?). Now, Winston tells us that you have deleted these emails?!?!?

I'm sorry, but if his attitude toward you was bad enough for him to be named in a negative light here on the BOI, it was your responsibility to provide proof to back up your assertions. I think you should post them here, or retract what you have said. It would seem to be the least (the very least) you could do at this point.

I received the e-mail correspondence between Ben and Tony from Tony today. I am waiting for his ok for me to post it on here for everyone to see. I read and re-read the entire thing and Ben there was no where in the e-mail that he acted as you tried to make him sound. There are a few places where he was sarcastic (even by his own admissions) but Hell I would have said alot worse to you with the way you were acting toward him. I truly hope that Tony will allow me to post them here so that everyone can see EXACTLY what was said and transpired and can see you are not speaking the truth completely. This is not by any means saying that the theft of your animals did not happen but rather that your attitude toward Tony and your accusations and comments are not true about him being RUDE and attacking you.

I did delete the emails the day I got them. The people I mentioned I sent them to are friends and old roomates in my home state that I buy offspring from-not people asking for them from this site.
All this happened before I ever posted on the Boi or even looked at fauna classified for the first time. I only came here because Winston told me to look at this site, and I saw someone who asked "how was tampa". I DID NOT start this thread intentionally. When I replied to the tampa posting the webslave said my answer got into to many topics and I had to move it here becuase he new it was going to get busy.
I do have the printout in my herp business file cabinet. However, if i type it in-instead of uploading it someone is going toblast me that those are not Mr. Cueto's words.
The other thing is that what I interperate from a sentence may not be what someone else get's out of it. So i could spend an hour (since I suck at typing) typing this in and then half of you say "what's the problem?" and I have to spend another hour of my life explaining to everyone what I got out of the e-mail and why it pissed me off.

In my original few postings all I wanted is to say that I had a bad experience with the show and with Mr. Cueto, and that I and many others had animals stolen. Then due to the way I was treated I would never go back.
I believe I said most people or some had a good show, and that I wished I was one of them.
I was never saying ALL of Mr. Cueto's productions are bad, or he is a bad guy. I have said that my dealings with him on this occassion which happened to be my FIRST time ever dealing with him went sour-very sour.
I have tried to maintain a level of professionalism because that is the way I want to be treated. I get this feeling that all you guys want is for me to start mud-slinging and try to degrade him, so you can all prove me wrong and try burn me.
If you go by statistics alone, with the number of shows Mr. Cueto does, and his attendance, and his advertising, and his following here-I probably am wrong.
I will admit there were several people who did o.k.-heck one of my helpers sold out of his personal stock and wants to do the FIRE show! So here I have a friend proving me wrong also. All I have been trying to say without all the side tangents we have been on-is that I had a really bad show-in fact my worst ever-and that some of it was due to Mr. Cueto's advertising giving me a drastically different view of what the show was going to be, a different spectrum of animals than I though was going to be there, and just plain old bad luck.
Where I am mad is that when I had issues at the show not much of anything got done to help me, and what was offered was done so reluctantly. That prompted me to file a complaint. I got answers that said I was a liar, nieve, and a whiner. That is when I sent Mr. Cueto an e-mail saying I did not want to have any future business dealing and he replied I was not welcome anymore.
Everyone should remember that when this started with the original question "how was tampa" my response was my opinion. I'm glad some of you loved the show-if so great give Mr. Cueto your money and your business he'll appreciate it. But you will not convince me that the show was great to me.

Go ahead an post it you got my support. I feel that by the end of the e-mail he called me a liar, nieve, and a whiner. Now if you didn't get that then, or what he said didn't bother you then oh-well it didn't bother you, but it being called a lier, nieve, and a whiner pisses me off.

ben cole

Please go back and read the first posting I ever did, and I believe you will see that it was worded very opinion based and non-attacking. Also I say that i do not want to disparage Mr. Cueto.

I believe that I have said repeatedly that I and I probably alone had a bad show- and my methods to reasoning were blah blah blah whater number of postings I have done.

So I don't know where you guys think I have these anger/ attacking type responses that make me hate Mr. Cueto , and that it was my sole reason for posting here was to verbally ruin him.

If you go back to that first posting it was opinion based and opinion alone.

Ben,

I saw your original post, and what the WebSlave told you there in the other forum, and it was NOT what you stated above. The WebSlave actually gave you some options on what you could do, and ONE of those options was to move the thread over here, using your full name.

The problem with this original post being in the other forum was not that it would draw a great deal of attention, but rather that you were naming someone and basically saying that he was a bad guy for the way he treated you, but that you had not used your full name and you had posted it in the wrong area. If you're going to be naming names and drawing conclusions about someone or their business practices, then the BOI is the place for such a thread. If names are not used, and you're simply asking for opinions about a generic, hypothetical situation, then that would go on the General business forum.

Another option the WebSlave gave you was to do nothing at all, and he would delete your original post all together. If you were not intent on making Tony Cuelo out to be a bad guy, why not let that happen as the WebSlave said it would?

Also, and I may be completely wrong about this one, I **believe** the WebSlave gave you the option of reposting the original post with Tony's name and other identifying information deleted, leaving it on the other forum. Maybe that was not an option offered you (but I think it was), but it certainly could have been done to remedy the situation, if your intent was never to post a bad guy comment about Tony.

You said that you did not want to post Tony's emails on here because it was his private writings to you. But it was fine for you to pass them around to your friends if they asked for them? Don't get me wrong, I think it would have been fine for you to post them all right here, but your position as stated is hypocritical, in my opinion.

Finally, let's just get this down to the brass tacks, if we could. You said you were given a bad spot to set up on, but Tony gave you an extra table to make up for the problem. You say your animals were stolen. I believe you, but even you have agreed that this is not Tony's fault. You say that you were led to believe that you ould not have to face certain types of competition at the show. Fair enough, but others who were there said that the competition was not that stiff from those selling the cheaper animals, and the initial figures you cited as validation for your complaint have been rebuffed by numerous sources (vendors also in attendance). All of this being true, the SOLE issue left in this thread with which to deal is the idea that Tony was rude to you in his reaction to your complaints. However, you have said a) You would not post them here, b) You deleted the emails the day you got them, c) You sent them to your friends, but not to anyone here on the BOI, even though d) several of us asked to see them!

I'm sorry Ben, but you simply have posted no evidence whatsoever for your accusations against Tony that you made in this thread. That would be "a little" more tolerable if your reputation was of such a great stature that everyone knew you and knew you would never lie to us, but since your story concerning the emails has been somewhat, shall we say "variable," I find it difficult to take your word about this at all. You say now that you just wanted to give your opinion about the Tampa show and not post a bad guy report on Tony? Fine; you did, but I'm afraid it says more about you than it does Tony or his shows.