Heather Colwell / Majestic Morphs

A Bad Guy thread is really reserved for people who either scam people out of money or if there was a HUGE problem with communication or other part of the transaction (emphasis on HUGE). Heather seemed to try and resolve the issue with you and you didn't like any of the options (which were good options in the long run) and she definitely wasn't trying to scam you out of any money so I still think the Bad Guy label is uncalled for. ESPECIALLY since you can't prove that the animal arrived in that condition. I don't know about anyone else here and I'm not going to speak for them but I would have noticed a blaringly obvious gash like that on that poor thing right out of the box.

I agree that she could have handled the situation a little better but labeling her as a Bad Guy is a little much. But we'll just have to wait for Heather to get back to us with those emails and her full side of the story.

The snake was checked the same day and the injuries were obvious.

And yes I was thrilled, super thrilled to finally get the snakes home. When I first looked at them albiet briefly they appeared OK, but cold. The pewter was somewhat jumpy even being cold, but thought best for him to let him settle down. And I jumped to conclusions that they were fine. Well I didn't expext the worst.

Fault me for not giving the snakes a thoural checkup immeadiately if you wish, (others have said they would have done the same and put the snakes away to warm up). I put them away with the intent of giving them a thoural check up later in the day (the same day) which I did, and then I immeadiatly tried to contact heather when I saw there was a problem.

Originally Posted by stevek

The snake was checked the same day and the injuries were obvious.

I'm done trying to explain this to you. It's an obvious injury and would have been obvious taking the pewter out of the box (which you missed for some reason or another). Something could have happened to the pewter between the time you got it out the box and when you finally decided to give it a thorough once over. And the fact of the matter is, you wouldn't even have to do a "thorough once over" to notice something like that. I just don't understand why you would go out of your way to post positive feedback on snakes that you haven't even checked out.

Onto the issue of putting the snake directly from the box into the enclosure; that's another moot point. If the snake was cold, I don't think an extra minute to make sure everything was okay on the snake would have mattered much. It is important to warm up a cold snake, I know, but giving a new arrival a quick once over, especially when there was a delay in their transit is VITAL and if that injury was there when you took that snake out of the box, you hopefully would have noticed it because it is so blaringly obvious. It all just seems a little to far out there for me to accept. But again, I'm not closing the book on this one until I either hear more details or it falls to the wayside.

Originally Posted by MajesticMorphs

From: Heather Colwell [sales@majesticmorph.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2011 6:45 PM
To: 'robyn@shipyourreptiles.com'
Subject: undelivered package

Hello Robyn,
We shipped a package with your service yesterday, and it was due by 10:30 am this morning. My
customer has reported to me that the package never arrived. After speaking to FedEx several times,
he found out that the package will not be there till tomorrow. The health of the two baby ball pythons
is a concern. Please let me know what your thoughts are about this issue.
Thank You,
John and Heather

I'm not going to get in to the he said/she said battle or what compensation (if any) should be regarding the problems with the pewter.

I do have one question, though. When you contacted SYR about the delay on this shipment, had you purchased the on-time insurance and therefore received a refund for said shipping costs? If so, I will say that you should refund the shipping costs. No matter what the long-term prognosis for this sake is, it's not right for the buyer to pay for shipping charges that were more than likely refunded to the seller.

No need to explain further I understand what you are saying.

All I can say is I did not see the injury at first.

I went about contacting heather, and posted pics and video for feedback on the forum. I had no idea what happened. The overall response from members here was that it was an injury that occured prior to shipment and it was a rat bite. OR second opinion it happened early on in transit, not later. There were even comments that the wound showed signs of healing. None even suggested it was a recent injury that happened a few hours ago.

I am not aware if the Seller had about on-time insurance and if the Seller recieved any for the shipping delay.

Would there be Documents to verify yes or no?

Originally Posted by Double LY

I do have one question, though. When you contacted SYR about the delay on this shipment, had you purchased the on-time insurance and therefore received a refund for said shipping costs? If so, I will say that you should refund the shipping costs. No matter what the long-term prognosis for this sake is, it's not right for the buyer to pay for shipping charges that were more than likely refunded to the seller.

X2 considering the buyer pays for shipping in the first place; there would be no reason for the seller to keep the shipping money, if she infact got the on-time insurance.

I want to post a few pics of the set-up where the pewter was kept, the qt area if you want to call it that. His tub is on the lower left. The tub fits in there quite snug, from one end of the tub to the other. It would be practically impossible for a hatchling to push the cover up to get under it.

Originally Posted by stevek

I went about contacting heather, and posted pics and video for feedback on the forum. I had no idea what happened. The overall response from members here was that it was an injury that occured prior to shipment and it was a rat bite. OR second opinion it happened early on in transit, not later. There were even comments that the wound showed signs of healing. None even suggested it was a recent injury that happened a few hours ago.

You keep bringing up this point and the fact of the matter is it's hearsay on an internet forum. Without taking the pewter to an experienced herp vet, you can't jump to any conclusions regardless of what people say on a public forum. Granted most of the time, people are very helpful and do have answers to questions, but the very nature of this case is up in the air so getting answers thrown at you from people and seeing which ones stick to fit your cause isn't really fair.

When it comes to other people's opinions on what happened with your snake, you need to take what they say with a grain of salt because all of them could be true (even the possibility that you closed the lid on the snakes head) or none of them could be.

It doesn't look like a rat bite. Rat bites damage scales, not just push them aside. That looks like an injury to the skin under the scales.

Always make sure to look over animals when you first receive them ( this goes to anyone reading, not just the OP). You only get one chance to evaluate the condition you receive an animal in. After that it's all speculation on when somethings happen. I know technically it was the same calendar day. But there was a full nights sleep between when the snake was received and when the injury was noticed. Make sure to always to a good once over for injuries, RI symptoms, kinks, etc.

How is the snake doing now? The only reason I have been keeping up with this thread is to see if the snake comes around.