I didn’t want it to have to come to this, but it has been nearly a month and he has now refused to fix this problem, so it has come down to this.
On October 14th Kevin Pockrandt contacted me on my Craigslist add for selling a hatchling lesser ball python. He offered a female 780 gram pinstripe for her. After he sent pictures, of her in deep shed which I could see from the pics, we both agreed to the trade.
He drove to my home on October 15th, I told him I have to get ready for work at noon, and he agreed to be here between 10-11. At 11:14 I hadn’t heard from him or seen him I text him he said he’s on the freeway.
At 12:15 he shows up, I was in the middle of getting ready for work. He looked at the lesser, liked the way it looked, I looked at the pinstripe, but being rushed I didn’t do the things I normally do when doing a trade from someone I’m not familiar with. I normally sex both sides, and sometimes pop the snake, but I don’t really like popping. Since I was rushed I sexed one side, it was deep for a female, 4 scales but still in the acceptable range.
At 12:45 I get a text after he leaves asking how deep she probed I told him about 4 scales and asked why. He says ‘cuz this guy. Is telling me it’s a male.’ I ask him what guy, he said he didn’t know. It was some guy he was working a deal with. I told him to hang on, I’d robe it again. I probed both sides, the one side probed about 4 scales again, but the other side probed 7. It was a definite male.
I called him and he said he wanted pictures, which I sent him quickly. He explained that he no longer had the lesser; he went straight from my house back to Sacramento to trade her for more ball pythons. I asked for him to get a hold of the guy to see if he could get her back because the trade was for a female pinstripe, not a male. At this point I said it was an honest mistake.
At 10:26 on October 16th I text him when I didn’t hear back from him (plus I was at work all night the previous night). I asked if he had gotten a hold of the person he traded the lesser to, he said not yet. I asked what do you want to end up doing. He said ‘Idk.’ I told him simply, that I’m either going to need the $200 I was asking for the lesser originally, or need the lesser back and told him he would get the pinstripe back in either outcome.
An hour and a half later I had not heard back from him, so I text him a question mark.
Still no word by 9:24 on October 17th I text him again saying I need a call so we can figure this out. He text back shortly after saying he was at work. I asked if he got a break. He told me he’d call at lunch, so I explained that I have to leave at 1:30 for work.
When I didn’t hear back from him I posted a feed in the Sacramento reptile exchange and the Sanfran reptile exchange on facebook just asking him to call me. It turned into this:
At 2:39 October 18th I get a text from him saying he got deleted from the facebook group Sac reptile exchange.
I text him back saying that I saw that and said it was probably because of the way he responded to the post.
I took the snake to King to pop on October 20th, and he popped 100% male. I sent him pictures of the snake being popped.
On October 23rd I text him again asking if he had any news. No answer
Text him again on October 29th saying it had been weeks, any resolution?
By this point I just went to calling him instead of texting. He said he didn’t have the lesser, that the person he traded her to didn’t want to trade back. I said he had a few options then, Get the lesser back to me, Give me the $200 I was asking originally, or give me a like value female that was actually female. He’d get the pin back regardless.
Calling back and forth with him I told him I’d give him some time. He told me he had other ball pythons but didn’t want to trade them to me to make our trade right because his was valued at more. I told him multiple times that he needed to make this right, I can understand some of his was valued at more, but some were the same value as a pinstripe, like the same size pastel he had. I told him I’d give him some time to come up with the money or a ball python worth trading to replace the pinstripe.
On November 5th he text me saying he may have someone that wanted the pinstripe, I told him ok. He said he would let me know. I told him please do because we need to settle this.
Didn’t hear anything from him, On November 8th I took the snake back over to kings to double check, just in case. He pin was indeed male. Still no word.
On November 10th I text him again. “Are you around? Been trying to get a hold of you. Call when you can please or text.” By this point I’ve been calling him once or twice a day trying to get a hold of him.
Today, November 14th He text me saying “y should I help you when uve tarnished my name and got me banned from pages.”
I returned “I haven’t done a thing since the day you started talking on the page yourself. I didn’t get you banned, you butting the story out there did.
He then stopped answering calls, which was spotty to begin with but he sends them to voicemail after a few rings and has not answered texts. I called him around 3 today, leaving a voice mail and offering once last chance to make it right before I start a post about the details of what happened. He made no attempt at responding.
Kevin Pockrandt- Trade gone wrong
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