Whose to blame for sexing mistakes?

Being on both sides of the fence I can understand what you are all saying. I do sex the snakes myself too.

Seamus has a point. In my opinion with sexing we should give the buyer a little more time than with health issues. Asking a buyer to sex his snakes almost upon arrival is a little unrealistic.

As sellers we ask a premium for an hetero for albino female ball, maybe around four times as much that of a male. If we made a mistake in sexing a male for female shouldn't we try to fix it. How much time? Maybe 30 days as you say, but I don't know for sure maybe more.

What I do believe though is that sex is important (no puns here please!). If it wasn't, why are we as sellers asking more for that female? Who has the primary responsibility for delivering the right animal? We make a lot of fuss about animals whose genetic is questionable (it could have been a mistake when grabbing the wrong deli...yeah right!) but we say that sex is the sole responsibility of the buyer? What if an unscrupulous individual starts sending out males in place of females?

Again I'm not saying I'm in the right here, it just that the idea has been troubling me for some time.

Regards.

but we say that sex is the sole responsibility of the buyer?

Not exactly true. We say that there needs to be a time limit. Whether it's 5 minutes after you open the box or 2 years down the road the sex of the snake is the same (even if there is an error by either the buyer or the seller) and it is proveable at that time. So if I made a mistake in selling a sexed snake I have no problem fixing it even if it means losing money on the transaction. But notify me in the time frame of my TOS.

If your buying Hets of something then you can't prove them until they breed (possible a couple of times). Then you also request for the TOS (or guarantee in this case) to state a time frame (2 breedings for example).

If you want the seller to be responsible for the sex of the snake for it's life time then ask for a written guarantee for that. It is then up to the seller to decide if he wants to be married to the transaction that long.

I have a TOS for a reason. Those are the terms that product me and my company. The buyer doesn't have the right to change those terms after the sale (like one thread on the boi recently where the buyer tried to decide the length of a health guarantee).

Oh boy, more to add to my TOS. The more I read this site, the longer and longer my terms page gets. It has gone from a couple of sentences to an essay over the past couple years!

I agree, there needs to be some sort of time frame. I am happy to help customers into the future with their purchases, but the idea of being married to the sale portion of it for years is pretty scary.

For the record, I've bought a number of snakes that I found out were missexed years down the road. Now I check

Dana

For the record, I've bought a number of snakes that I found out were missexed years down the road. Now I check

Dana,

The same happened to me a while ago. I bought a "female" ball python that it ended up being a male. It was embarrasing because I never sexed her (or bred her for that matter) but trusted the individual who sold it to me. Then one day I sent "her" out in a trade only to be notified by the receipient that it was a male. Needless to say it was immediately replaced. Maybe that's why this sort of troubles me. Never even considered the posibility that this person was going to send out a male instead and that's why it was never sexed in the first place.

Regards.

The points I was trying to make:

From the BOI.

On April 6th Salvador Arella bought a pair of snakes from Robert Pennisi.

[/quote]Robert Pennisi - Bad Guy
I originally posted a good guy post about Robert here:

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/for...&threadid=35984

Basically I paid Robert $245 for what he said was two adult CH female Ball Pythons. I got the two snakes okay and everything looked good at first so I posted the good guy post about it. But then when I had one examined, I found out it had some big ticks on it's body and it was actually a male, sperm plugs and everything. The other larger ball also had some ticks, but I did not get it sexed. I tried to contact Rob last week about this issue and have got no response at all. He also never answers my phone calls or responds to my voicemail message. Nothing. He obviously knows about the problem but does not want to do anything about it. All I want is my money back because these snakes obviously were not the snakes I paid for. The classic bait and switch. He currently has some ads up for some hets. I'd never buy from this guy. Thanks.[/quote]

His post today, a little over one month after receiving the snakes:

Well I finally got the two snakes sexed. And the verdict? Two MALES. Rob Pennisi is a scamming liar. Dan and Colette Sutherland of The Snake Keeper sexed them and even took pictures with their camera. I only live a few blocks away from them. Dan also stated that they definitely look like fresh imports. So now I have two imported males when I was supposed to get two CH females that were supposedly 100% healthy and eating? I will post the pictures that the Sutherlands took as soon as they email them to me. Dan was able to pop sperm plugs as well!! I would stay away from ANYTHING that Rob has for sale, especially his hets. It's funny that he supposedly sold me two 100% healthy adult females when now he is posting wanted ads for large CH/CB females on KS. The two Rob sold me probably weren't good enough. BECAUSE THEY WERE MALES! I would also like to point out that Rob NEVER contacted me or responded to any of my concerns throughout this nightmare, nor has he ever tried to settle this. DO NOT BUY FROM ROB PENNISI.

One can argue that he was going to be scammed by this individual in the first place. But was it his fault? He already suspected there was aproblem but it took in excess of one month for him to have the snakes sexed. He went through the trouble and expense of having the snakes sexed by the Sutherlands!

Best regards.

He already suspected there was a problem but it took in excess of one month for him to have the snakes sexed.

The Sutherlands are in the Los Angeles area. There might be one or two people in the LA basin that could have sexed the snake for him well within the month time frame. Not that it makes Salvador a "bad" guy, just should have done it sooner. It's not like it's the backwoods of Missouri where your nearest neighbor is 2 days to the west.

Now there are something like 3 other levels where this transaction is a scam and from that quote probably purposesly so. All the guarantees and time in the world wouldn't have changed the out come though (looking at just the one side that this quote protrays).