Amazon Reptiles of Tampa

Webslave you made a valid observation, I went to Amazon during Anagel's rule and found the store way below standard with employees sitting around doing nothing, cages dirty, no food or water, prices way to high ect..... I went in to see it during Dave Lawson's week and I see a vast improvement in cages, health of animals, prices were the best I've seen and he had the employees working now this Fernando comes along and Saturday I see dirty cages, pricing high (on everything), empty shelves, a very dislikeable latin man, basicly back to the crap hole from before. This manager likes to talk down to everyone like we are stepping stones and he is rude.

Neil, do you pay people to get jobs at Amazon to send you customers? Angela and this Fernando are your best employees. No offence Jewel.........

Shelly, there is no way that Jewell (2 L's) would take offense to that, because you're absolutely correct! I couldn't PAY for better advertising!.... It just strikes me funny that everyone is RAISING their prices.... while I continually LOWER mine??
Now, I know you were in my store just recently.... did you see any of that mess?? Not on your life! Jewell is relentless when it comes to clean! I'd love to patent her (maybe clone?.... lol)! You're ALWAYS welcome back!

....Neil

Neil, that is one thing about you, you (unlike one store owner) want to make your store a hit. It seems like Tom opened Amazon to lose money I know that there is a term for that I just can't think of it.

Dave Lawson, I know that you read this and I would like to ask you to please post and let us know what is going on with Amazon and why you are no longer there.

Tom, if you want to make money and keep Amazon open you may want to think of leting Fernando go. You need people in there that know how to treat people.

To everyone, HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE THANKSGIVING !!!!!!!

I went to reptilewarehouse.com and found that a man named Marc Farber owns the store in Atlanta, I called the number and spoke to a employee at the store and was told the following.

Fernando breeds some nice tree boas but has a partner that owns the snakes.

Fernando, was only a cage cleaner and general employee there not any kind of manager.

Fernando, has not got 2 nickles to rub together but he does have a rich family that does bail him out.

That Mr. Farber did not know that fernando was moonlighting on him.

That fernando had trouble at Reptile warehouse with being rude to people.

Fernando, buys his animals from L.A. reptiles but only the sick ones and put those in stores on consignment for 20% make up.

That if the lady at L.A. Reptiles knew he was ordering from her for pet shops that he and the pet shop would be black balled.

That fernando is a person to be watched with both eyes.

All this info came from the reptile warehouse staff and I tend to believe them.

I know all three of these people, Dave Lawson, Fernando Tores, and Marc Farber pretty well. I met Marc a little while befor he opened Rep. Whse. and I talked to him personally and he said the reason Fernando was'nt there anymore was because bussiness was'nt that great. I can vouch for this because Atl has never had a good reptile market and as a drywall contractor I can safely say that the local economy is in the crapper!!
As far as Dave goes, I met him a couple years ago and every deal I did with him was great. We've traded, bought and sold to each other and I've never had a problem. I was glad to hear of him working at Amazon and glad to hear that people were having good experiences with him as I always have.
I met Fernando a couple years ago as well, befor he started working at Rep Whse. He has some of the nicest emearlds I've seen. He has always been nice and very infromative every time we talked. As far as him being the reason that Rep Whse is closing I seriously doubt that Marc would let anyone come between him and his store.
These are just my personal opinion's and I hope not to offend anyone. Happy Thanksgiving everybody, Mike DeBruce

I would like to clear up a misunderstanding about Amazon reptiles and myself.

I have had e-mails, phone calls and people at shows asking me why I no longer work for Amazon, well I want to clear it up. After Angie left the store it was a wreck to say the least and with the store not having a person incharge it would have only gotten worse. Tom Frost ask if I would help to put the store back together until he found a replacement. Since Tom is a friend of mine I said yes, there was some talk of me taking over but I wanted time to think it over. Tom was also talking to Fernando about the job. Fernando has taken the job to my understanding.

I have only known Fernando for about a month and to me he seems like a good guy and he does know him stuff when it comes to ETB and ATB. I think that people need to give him a chace to get the store back in shape before passing judgement on him.

As for him being rude to people, I have not seen that side of him (if that side even exist) I am not saying that anyone is lying only that I have not witnessed him doing it.

As far as Fernando being rude to people, I have never known Fernando to be that way and I have known for about 4 years now. I have seen him selling to people on MANY occasions both at shows and when he was working at Reptile Warehouse. He always provided as much information as possible to the buyers and he always pointed them in the direction of a book to read about them. His general herp knowledge is very good but his specialties are the ETB's and ATB's(which he OWNS, don't know where to begin with this one). I have seen all of his animals in person and they are awesome. I also have several animals I got from him that are doing great.

As far as Fernando's financial situation, that is NOONE'S business but FERNANDO'S and should not have even been brought up here. Also, what does the fact that he is "latin" have to do with his ability to run a store?

As far as Marc Farber of the soon to be closed Reptile Warehouse is concerned, I have known Marc since 1996 when he opened what WAS the best shop in town. I even worked for Marc in late 1998 through most of 1999. It was a big learning experience for me. According to Marc's own words to me, he is closing the shop due to being tired and not wanting to work anymore(wish I could afford to wuit working cuase I'm tired, too ). I will only say this about Marc, a quote from his own mouth regarding a post I made here a while back regarding his and another local store, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Well, guess I really have nothing to say anymore.

Fernando is a good guy and I think he should be given a chance to get Amazon back on track. He has apparently just started there and things don't always get fixed overnight. He did good things at Reptile Warehouse and I saw some improvements made back when he was given the opportunity to make them and I think given enough time he will be able to get Amazon going strong.

Cheers!

To Mr. Granger, this is not an attack, but an observation about Bearded Dragons.

I have hatched lots of dragons and raised lots of them. They come out of the egg eating 1/4 inch crickets and I've never once had a problem with them getting them down. I've NEVER had a dragon with a head so tiny it has to eat pinheads, so I totally agree with Fernando about your dragon being able to eat them.

Also, I've been to tons of stores and most stores don't keep pinheads in stock because there usually aren't THAT many people buying them. The sizes most people buy are 1/4" or full size crickets. And since alot of times it is a special order, you have to get them in a certain lot amount(usually 500-1000)as opposed to a dozen or two if they keep them in stock. And honestly, if you know you can get them from the online cricket places, why not just get them there in the first place? I'm not trying to attack you, but I can't figure out why you're using cricket price as some sort of attack.

Also, as far as this "moonlighting" thing goes, I'm not quite sure what to make of that since Fernando hasn't been with Reptile Warehouse for well over a month now, and he apparently just started with Amazon. So I guess my question is, how can someone moonlight on a company they no longer work for?

And as far as his "rudeness," that just doesn't sound like him at all. I'm not calling any of you liars, but knowing Fernando for sometime, I just find it very hard to believe it's in his nature to berate you like you claim.

Anyway, just give the guy a chance and I'm sure you'll see good things out of Amazon again.

Cheers!

Rob,

I have talk to Kevin dunn, Bob at sandfire ranch and a couple local dragon breeders and they all say the same thing " baby dragon should start on pinheads, the shell on a 1/4 is to hard to digest". Now I am not saying the way you feed is wrong but I tend to want to follow the advise of the exsperts. See before I started getting into beardies I did my homework and made some call to the bigger breeders and they were super helpful.

All the stores in the Tampa Bay area carry pinheads(besides Amazon) so I do not know how stores do it in Atlanta but here they carry pinheads, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and adults. Something for you to think about, If I buy 500 pinheads for my baby beardies today and I feed the crickets correctly how long will it take until the crickets become to big to feed my beardies? According to lucky lure and Armstrong about 5 to 7 days till they are 1/2" and now I would have 400 crickets that I can no longer use. That is why I do not order direct but I go to the pet stores and buy only what I need.

The way that I understand it, Fernando has been in Florida for over 6 weeks ( going back and forth to Atlanta) And yes I did call Farber's store and was told Fernando was still a employee ( until this thread started anyway). You know Farber so ask him about the deal Fernando and he had to buy the store, which never happened.

I would say that the reason you have never seen Fernando's rude side is simply do to the fact that you have bought his personal animals and that money goes into his pocket so yeah he is going to be nice but the people here that he is being rude to are not buying his animals but the stores so he get paid the same amount if he sells or not.

One thing that needs to be said here. On the cricket sizes, it all depends on who you order your crickets from. One dealer will sell 1/4" crickets, another will sell 1/4 grown crickets. Yes they both on paperwork look like the same but they are 2 totally different sizes. I have been breeding bearded Dragons for many years now with great success and I always start my babies out on 1/4" crickets, also my Beardeds tend to hatch out of the egg at close to 4.5-5" unlike some babies. Some people's 1/4" crickets are smaller and some are larger. It also depends on when during the week you order your 1/4" crickets. the beginning of the week they will be on the smaller side, then later in the week they will be on the larger side. The beginning of the week is when the cricket farms separate out the crickets into their new sizes.