Proceed With Caution Dealing With lauriefl5 (AKA: Matt Goldman Reptiles or MGR)

I just wanted to make people aware of some curious activity from a seller that goes by the name lauriefl5 (AKA: Matt Goldman Reptiles or MGR for short). I was negotiating a deal with him to buy a male clown Ball Python in the spring of 2005, so I called him and spoke to him and he sounded like he knew his stuff and had an incredible Ball Python collection. After our phone conversation I decided I'd like to see a photo of the female that would be producing my male, so I e-mailed him and requested a picture of her. He sends me a picture straight off of Ralph Davis's web site. When I questioned him he said "no ralfs line is much darker then mine as you can see...my line is a much brighter yellow then his line" I guess not realizing he had sent me not just a picture of the same snake, but the exact same picture. I was a little suspicious, so I asked Ralph about this and he informed me this snake belonged to Dave and Tracy at VPI. I was surprised to here this so I asked him if he got her from VPI and he informed me "yea tracy loans alot of there snakes out for breeding loans". So I call Tracy and she informed me that not only does he not have her snake on breeding loan, but she's never even heard of the guy. Now I am not trying to crucify this person, but I just thought people should be aware of the less then honest information he was feeding me about his snakes considering the high dollar specimens he's been offering for sale lately. If someone has good experiences to share about this seller that could put my suspicions to rest I would love to hear them, but for now I would proceed with caution before dealing with this seller.
Matt Ozsvath
Lizards of Oz