Question about typical business practices

Do people show pictures of an animal in an ad, then ship you a DIFFERENT animal of the same type? If so, how common is this "problem"?

I only ask because I paid a price I wouldn't normally, except that the snake in the photo of the ad was -- to me -- of superior quality to ones I'd previously seen. The guy selling to me has been polite and courteous and did mention he was in fact selling TWO of them (only one was pictured).

So in my e-mail before purchasing I said, "...buying the pictured snake..." -- kind of like a hint-hint only interested in that one. Would it be considered shady or slightly unethical, then, for him to ship me a different animal in your eyes? Tell me what you think, and thanks.

Using stock photos isn't uncommon when selling quantities of animals that don't show significant individual variance in appearance. If an ad suggests that there is more than one, and appearances matter - ask if the animal pictured is the one for sale.
If I made a purchase, and received a different animal, I would certainly not be accepting of it.

Thank you very much for your input. The photos (there was more than one animal for sale) were clearly taken from this man's home/facility as he had more than one of different snakes all in the same area/with the same background. The photos weren't of a wholly professional quality (like a BHB stock photo, etc.) which kind of lead me to believe that these weren't just a case of "I have a lot of these, I'll just photograph one then sell them all." Perhaps I'm too much of a newbie or just didn't want to be too rude but hopefully he got the drift! We'll see here in about 30 min.

It depends on the critter. For a particular morph where there are different standards of quality and you are planning on breeding for a specific look, you want pictures of the animal you are getting.

There are some critters where that doesn't matter. For instance, I bought savu pythons a year ago. They change color drastically as they age so I went off of stock photos from the seller, as the age/size, sex, and health was most important.

It also depends on the ad itself. There are some vendors who drop ship and never even see the critters they sell. And they will say upfront on the ad that the picture is representative and that they cannot send a picture of the actual animal.

I just picked him up and he is alive and well. Also very beautiful, and definitely the same snake from the photo! Thank you all for your input and while I feel like I lucked out this time I'll definitely ask more questions next time.