Steve Darmochwal - fishingstevie@gmail.com

I had already done 2 deals with Steve and both went fine but the 3rd and last deal went way down hill. The first deal was simple, he purchased a hatchling caramel pink red ear slider from me and went great. He then contacted me two weeks later and asked if I had another since he loves the first one so much, at that time I wanted to keep the ones I had left but after talking back and fouth we worked out a trade. This is the second deal, I traded him a nice caramel pink red ear slider female that was atleast double hatchling size and growing great and $100 cash for a group of 5 hypo red ear slider around 3.5" and everything went perfect again like the first time. He then contacted me a few weeks later and asked if I wanted to purchase some more hypo red ear sliders that was a 6" pair and a 3.5" female, I didn't want them super bad but he gave me a good deal so I took them. We couldn't ship for about 1 week and a half as I was out of town and in that time he needed to sell some more turtles so offered me a male albino red ear slider that was almost 6" and a female snow red ear slider around 3" and good prices so I took them. He then shipped the next Tuesday.

Wednesday morning they get here and I already knew something was off as the box was to small to have 3 turtles that were 6" and two turtles that were around 3" but I hoped. I then opened the box to find the biggest turtle was 4.25" to 4.5" and the rest were under 4". The 3.5" female hypo red ear sliderwas actually a 3.5" male hypo and the 3" female snow red ear slider but just a 2" normal albino red ear slider. So basically not a single turtle of the 5 turtles what right, the 6" hypo pair was actually 4" or a little bigger, the adult albino male who was suppse to be almost 6" was only 3.75" and 3.5" hypo female was a male and the snow was a baby albino so at this point in time very unhappy.

I sent him a text message since thats how we usually communicated and told him about everything and he said "what did I do wrong, you got the young adult hypos, the adult albino male and the snow female" and I said the snow is a normal albino female, the sub-adults to adults are not even close to the right size and the small hypo female was a male. He then said he must have been ripped off because the person sold him the small female as a snow so he though it was a snow. I told him I was not happy and didn't want any of the turtles at the prices I paid as they were to high and I only bough them as I wanted bigger turtles for breeding. He then says keep the $70 you owe me and call it even. Well thats not even an option, Each turtle I purchased was worth atleast $50 less tand the snow was worth less then half as it was an albino. I said make it even and just let me return the albino and the snow(thats really an albino) and he said can't do it. I then said refund me $200 and we call it even and his reponse was "I not longer want to do business with you or talk to you anymore"

So overall I got turtles I didn't want and that are way overpriced because of there small size. He still have some turtles listed that are suppose to be the same size I was suppose to get(which was around 6") online so I am sure someone else will get screwed by him.

also is fishing.stevie@gmail.com

I just dealt with this same guy named Steve from the Upper part of New Jersey and he tried to f*ck me over with a Money Order payment for 14 albino slider morph hatchlings.

He claimed he had no paypal and wanted MO but when I refused to pay with MO he miraculously popped out with a paypal account. When i found out the paypal account wasn't even his and he was trying to use a third party, I immediately brought up the situation and he cursed at me claiming the sale was off and he was going to sell to a friend instead.

Extremely unprofessional and i've NEVER had anyone curse or yell at me for a turtle deal. JUST UNBELIEVABLE!

Believe it, or not, there are people that don't have a PayPal account...and, when confronted with the option of PayPal or nothing, many are able to find a way to accept/send payment (often a friend's account).
I'm not saying you were wrong, but how did you know he was going to screw you over with the money order? Were you already aware of this thread?

I found out about this thread in the morning today right when I got into contact with Steve about the paypal info. I confronted Steve about this thread and made sure he worked things out with mac's morphs. For obvious reasons, I'm not gonna buy stuff off a random guy online-that I met off kingsnake-registered in 2011-with only 1 post-that I don't know anything about. I simply googled "steve hypo albino slider new jersey" and two results showed up... this thread here and one one turtleforum.

After all the Money order mishap--this morning he contacted me via text and claimed he got a friends paypal account to use. I wasn't really hesitant to send him the money because paypal has great buyer protection so I was down to purchase the good deal he gave me. So I tried numerous times to get the paypal account off him via text and he kept on sending me encrypted text messages with weird symbols that I could not read.

When I texted back saying "Hey Steve you're sending me encrypted text messages, can you call or email me the paypal info to p4yuns@gmail.com?"

He repied, "Okmyfriendgunnatakem"

Then I replied saying that I wasted my time dealing with him and that it was total BS.

Then he replied "Gofuckyourmothermitch" (macs morph)

and the insanity went on from there.



obviously for some reason this guy Steve thought i was mac's morphs and he was wasting my time or trying to rip me off. i don't know if he was really trying to send me the paypal info when he was sending me encrypted texts or if he was just really wasting my time.



hhmoore, i'm extremely bummed out this deal didn't go through. i don't know if he was really trying to scam me or not but why would he say he doesnt have paypal and accepts MO only---then claims to have a "friends" paypal when i say i can't do MO? isn't that just a little bit sketchy to you?

I wasn't really hesitant to send him the money because paypal has great buyer protection

If you believe that, you're in for a rude awakening if anybody does try to screw you over on a deal. If you're using PayPal, always use a credit card so you have those protections to fall back on when PayPal won't help you (people you know/trust are different).

i don't know if he was really trying to scam me or not but why would he say he doesnt have paypal and accepts MO only---then claims to have a "friends" paypal when i say i can't do MO? isn't that just a little bit sketchy to you?

Well, if you didn't see it in my previous post - not necessarily. I know people that don't have PayPal accounts, so they want money orders or bank checks. They have offered a friend's PayPal account for me when I wanted to make a credit card payment, and I didn't consider it shady - I considered it extending themselves to make the sale.
I'm not saying anything about your person, I was just asking what your indicators were that he was trying to screw you (as opposed to finding a way to make things work for both of you).
For somebody I didn't know, I wouldn't send money to another person's PayPal account (did that once, lost around $1500 because I got sent a dying snake - so much for PayPal's great protection, lol), so you were right to question it. Again, my question was not about your decision, it was about your statement of his intent.

Someone that tells their customers to go F their relative obviously has no good intentions. Nuff said.

Mitchell and Paul,

Perhaps you could email this person and notify him of this thread. Sometimes, when these issues are made public, a seller will suddenly become more reasonable and make the issue right. In any case, if they don't respond or respond unreasonably, it will be even more of a guide for prospective future customers.

I hope for the best for you.

Originally Posted by Paul419

Someone that tells their customers to go F their relative obviously has no good intentions. Nuff said.

That's true...but you had already come to that conclusion, remember?