Joe Switalski

This isn’t necessarily a “good guy” or “bad guy” thread. I’m just giving an account of a recent transaction I had with one Joe Switalski. In a nutshell, the deal went fairly smooth in terms of what was advertised, money exchanged, and animals arrived alive in a timely manner. There were a few things that I might have changed, and not all were necessarily any fault of Mr. Switalski’s.

He had posted an ad on Kingsnake for a wholesale group of house snakes. The ad has since been removed, and I did not get a screen capture of it.

First, here’s the email correspondence, beginning with my message via KS to him (I omitted all the address/detail/etc stuff, for no other reason than I simply hate giant 6 page long posts. I can post it later if requested):

My text in red; Joe's in blue.

June 20, 2010
NOTE: This message was sent to you via the Kingsnake.com Classifieds. If you feel this message is fraudulent or abusive please forward it to classifieds@pethobbyist.com.

I am interested in most/all of your house snakes. You say adults, but the one pictured is rather small. Do you have photos of some of the others?

Thanks,
Michael
251-604-5225
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Hi Mike, they're all that reddish coloration and two are grey/black. I have 9 so take them all for $180 shipped. They probably sub adults or large juveniles. My paypal address is Dendroaspis1@hotmail.com

Joe Switalski

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June 24, 2010
Hey Joe,

Sorry I haven't got back with you. Do you still have all these housies? There's a good chance I'll take whatever you got left. What are they eating right now?

Thanks,
Michael
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Hi Mike, I have them all left. They're eating fuzzies and hoppers. Paypal address is Dendroaspis1@hotmail.com

Joe Switalski
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Frozen/thawed or live?
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F/t but I'm sure they'd take live or p/k as well.

Joe Switalski
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Awesome. I need to deposit some $$ in my acct today, and unless something unforeseen occurs, I'll send you a payment (via paypal) sometime between Friday and Monday. Let me know if anything changes.

Thanks,
Michael
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Ok

Joe Switalski
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June 25, 2010
Hey Joe,

I'm gonna send you a payment for $180 on paypal this afternoon on my lunchbreak. Just curious, are these wildcaught snakes are are they captive-bred?

Also, my shipping address is: (omitted)

If the money clears soon enough, do you think its possible to have these shipped for either a Tuesday or Wednesday arrival?

I'm assuming you'll be shipping thru FEDEX. Unless you're doing the Priority shipping (by 11am), you may want to consider a cold pack since it regularly gets in the 90s up here.

Thanks again,
Michael
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Hi Mike, they're WC but have been in my possession since April. I'll be shipping FEDEX with a cool pack.

Joe Switalski
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Fantastic. I had someone send me a snake several weeks ago thru Fedex, and I just assumed they were shipping priority. The snake didn’t arrive until after 1pm, but thankfully, was okay. It was a $300 animal, so needless to say, I was pretty anxious that day.

My number is 251-604-5225 if you have any questions.
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Hey Joe,

Just sent the money. Let me know when you've recieved it, and whether or not you'll be able to ship the snakes next week.

Thanks,
Michael
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Hi Mike,

Got it-thanks. I can ship Monday for Tuesday arrival or whatever you prefer.

Joe Switalski
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Hey Mike, your FedEx tracking number is 4177 5682 9249

Joe Switalski
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(Snakes arrived fairly early that morning, Tues, June 28, 2010).
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June 28, 2010
Hey Joe,

Just letting you know the snakes came in okay. One seems like he may have a tiny bit of an URI, but other than that and a few scars here and there (what I expected from WC), they'll all look fine.

Thanks,
Michael
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Now I am aware that there are not many people out there very savvy with the world of African house snakes, first and foremost that there several different species out there in the market, and it takes a good eye to tell them apart (color means nothing, by the way). Based Mr. Switalski’s initial reply to my message, I just merely assumed that he probably did not know what species he had (I don’t hold that against anyone…its just ignorance of that genus). I didn’t really care, and was planning to sort through them when they arrived. To be honest, I was expecting all Lamprophis fuliginosus, as that is most often what comes in as WC imports. I pleasantly surprised to find that they were all L. maculatus, including a couple lace morphs and a couple ‘dark” morphs, which I had yet to ever encounter. In this, I was happy with my snakes.

Upon further inspection that day, I saw that a few of the snakes had some really nasty “abnormalities” that I believe may be broken ribs (mind you, I haven’t taken these animals to a vet yet to confirm). I am basing this only on 15 yrs of experience dealing with snakes. I knew beforehand that the animals were wildcaught, but I do feel these injuries were a little much beyond the typical condition of WC snakes.

Note that I did request photos in my initial message to Joe and he never did address that request. Now, it was my fault that I did not press further to see photos, so I feel that’s sort of my bad, as much as it may be his. However, if I had seen photos, I may have been reluctant to buy those particular snakes. I was mainly buying these snakes to have some available stock for an upcoming expo and wanted to at least a month or so to see how they do. As some of these snakes are “banged up,” I know I cannot, in good faith, ask full price for them, and am even questioning whether I should sell them at all. Of course, this results in some potential financial loss to myself.

My only other issue was that instead of deli cups, these snakes were shipped in bags (5 in one bag, 4 in the other). I don’t have pics yet, but a few of these snakes could have escaped the bags. Also, I personally feel any snake has the potential for cannibalism, and prefer them to be separate anyway. Now I did not specify that I wanted the snakes shipped in deli cups. I just assumed that as small as they were, he would use deli cups. I don’t know; maybe I’m just spoiled (shrugs) on using deli cups and assume too much of some people.

All in all, I got what I asked for from Joe Switalski (except perhaps the photos I requested initially). So that said, I’m not intending for this to be a “bad guy’ thread nor am I pointing my fingers at him, and requesting a partial refund or anything. Again, overall, a few of the snakes are unique and are “keepers”, so I’m happy I got them. This is just more of a learning experience for myself, specifically things maybe I should specify to anyone I’m buying from in the future. And hopefully, others can learn from it.

Would I ever buy from Joe Switalski again? Possibly, if he had something I wanted. LOL, I would probably just specify separating snakes and perhaps inquire more fervently for photos before money was exchanged.

Joe is a great guy. Funny seeing him do all this non ven stuff. He is a big venomous guy. And usually he wouldn't mess with House Snakes. With the messed up species. Most likely he imported them and he was told they were house snakes. So therefore he sold them as house snakes. And to address the deli cup situation. People ship in bags because it is much safer. Deli Cups air holes can be clogged very easily. Bags don't clog. Snakes can breathe much better in a bag. But hopefully you enjoy the snakes and they all get up to health to be able to be sold. But Joe is a good guy in my book. Never had an issue with any of the Hot Shipments from him we got in. Hope you do more business with him in the future.

Yeah, finding house snakes in any large quantity can be difficult, so there aren't many options anyway.

Yeah, one of the keepers ate like a piggy already, so I'm hoping once the others get doen shedding, they'll start eating good, too. Little scars here and there never bother me, since I know they'll shed away eventually. The busted ribs were my main qualm.

thanks for your incite!

I have made several purchases from Joe over the past few months and other than being slow on shipping he has produced some impressive, healthy reptiles. I will continue doing business with him based on my past experience with him.