Andrew Schnell

Originally Posted by aschnell

What I can do is make a conscious and genuine effort going forward.

A public timeline of when and how you plan to make financial amends would help give credence to your words. When can people expect their money back?

Originally Posted by aschnell

I want to begin this post by apologizing not only for the delayed response to this thread, but also to apologize to those I have personally wronged as well. For a while now I’ve been on and off finding myself in increasingly difficult financial situations, and in response I have made some very poor decisions in regards to how I have been conducting my business in order to try to keep myself afloat. Let me also add that I made all of these decisions on my own while hiding them, and the full extent of my situation, from those that I consider myself closest to even. I will spare you the details as I have come to realize that most will simply translate this into me trying to play the victim in this situation. I would like to make it very clear, however, that these decisions were not based on greed, but were a poor response to a desperate situation. And for whatever reason, I figured that the results from not doing what I did would have left me in a worse situation than I am in now. I see clearly now that this thought process was completely flawed. For those of you who truly know me, I believe you do know that I genuinely have a passion for these animals and the hobby and that I do possess vast knowledge pertaining to our industry that I am always more than willing to share with others. I love my animals, and I love the herp community. It was never my intention to leave anybody in a position where they came out with nothing but lost money at the conclusion of a business transaction. I truly thought I always had a plan in place to make sure that, in the end all individuals would receive either a full refund or their order fulfilled-albeit not always in a timely manner. This in no way justifies what I have done and I will have to live with the consequences of my actions for years to come. People have every right at this point in time to be upset and angry with me. I am completely deserving of the lack of trust and respect many have harbored toward me. Obviously, some of the allegations against me are true and accurate. Some, however, are spiteful exaggerations and/or fabrications by those who enjoy bringing others down in a time they are defenseless (I’m sure you know who you are and will leave it at that). For those I have wronged, I am deeply sorry. They say actions speak louder than words, and up to this point, regrettably, my actions have not backed up my words. In fact, avoidance is yet another poor choice I have made throughout all of this, so in a lot of circumstances there are no words to even go by sadly. What is done is done, and there is no changing the past. What I can do is make a conscious and genuine effort going forward. Many of you believe I feel no remorse over this situation, but I can honestly say this is not true. I have been carrying the guilt of my actions for some time now. Would this all have become public knowledge if I had not been called out? Surely not, but this is where we are now. Would I have continued doing what I was doing indefinitely? Most certainly not, I would have left well alone once financial matters had settled-but that is of no consequence now. I want to do everything in my power to make things right for those I have wronged. For any I have not been in direct contact with already, please feel free to contact me via private message, email, phone, text, etc. I will get back you as promptly as possible. I ask those who have been sending me communications that are nothing more than hate mail to please desist. I understand your anger, but it hinders my ability to find relevant communications when I have to sort through insults and death threats. I understand my words mean little to most anyone these days, but please believe me when I say this: I fully admit I have wronged people and my only goal right now is to work on rectifying the situation. I have made mistakes, but the time of excuses has passed and I am fully aware that I need to step up and make amends. I also know that even this will not make things better, it is simply a start. Once again, those of you I have wronged-I cannot express how sorry I am or the level of regret I feel. And to those of you, who by every right could throw me to the dogs but are choosing to support me and allow me one final chance to get this right, you will never know the depth of appreciation I have for you.

I don't know who you're referring to that you claim are making fabrications or exaggerations but I can probably speak for most of us, all of us are tired of made up dates when you're going to refund us. I understand the whole money is tight but I appreciate people when they are more honest about their claims otherwise who would trust anyone. You lied to some about getting their food out, or getting their animals out, and like I said before giving dates you "promise" to have refunded everyone. You have already killed your reputation in the hobby and disappointed a lot of people including me when I was referred to purchase $$$$ animals from you myself and in turn received a dead animal in the end due to improper shipping practices. It takes years to build a reputation and seconds to destroy.

Originally Posted by Lucille

A public timeline of when and how you plan to make financial amends would help give credence to your words. When can people expect their money back?

I have no doubt you read this post, and yet you chose not to answer. In my opinion if your post was truly about your victims (and not you) you would have given substantial thought to repayment, and had at least a rudimentary answer to what steps you were taking to get those victims paid.

I would suggest that everyone who is able to do so, open a Paypal or credit card dispute immediately. The lack of any response makes me think that the post is a play for time. If Andrew declares bankruptcy you may never see your money.

For anyone who is ever asked (as people apparently were, here) to make a Paypal payment as a gift when it isn't, just. say. no. It is agreeing to take money away from Paypal, and that money helps pay Paypal employees and thus is how they feed their family. And if something happens, it leaves you in a position where you are unable to get your funds back from Paypal.

Originally Posted by aschnell

I want to begin this post by apologizing not only for the delayed response to this thread, but also to apologize to those I have personally wronged as well. For a while now I’ve been on and off finding myself in increasingly difficult financial situations, .

Do scammers ever use the '"financial" excuse,or apologize profusely when called out on the BOI?

Lucille - I did read your post and I've been working out a timeline for either refunds or getting people their animals with the individuals themselves. Once I have a good idea of what said timeline looks like I can share it with the board of you'd like. But since I don't even know what said timeline looks like myself yet - I can't really post anything up. I should have a pretty good idea where everything sits fairly soon though.

Kaitlin - I completely understand where you're coming from. I did state that some allegations are true, I just wanted to also mention some (not all) are not, or are only partially accurate. I fully admit I have done wrong, I was merely trying to convey that some of what has been said against me is not wholly true. That is not meant to demean from the fact that some of it is. This is why I have in no way asked for forgiveness, I am only asking for patience and understanding as I work to fix this awful mess I have caused in our community.

Originally Posted by aschnell

Kaitlin - I completely understand where you're coming from. I did state that some allegations are true, I just wanted to also mention some (not all) are not, or are only partially accurate. I fully admit I have done wrong, I was merely trying to convey that some of what has been said against me is not wholly true. That is not meant to demean from the fact that some of it is. This is why I have in no way asked for forgiveness, I am only asking for patience and understanding as I work to fix this awful mess I have caused in our community.

Your best bet is to stop responding to comments. No matter what you say someone will find a problem with it and say your lying or this or that.

Just make amends to those involved and everyone else.
If they don't accept what you say so what, you said the right things just make it right to those damaged.
The rest of us don't matter in the end.

Originally Posted by jusmebabee

The rest of us don't matter in the end.

If Andrew has no intentions of rebuilding his reputation, &/or no intentions of future dealings with any potential customers (be it reptiles or other), you may be correct.
However, if Andrew does have intentions of attempting to rebuild his reputation, &/or intentions of having future customer based business (be it in reptiles or other), then you are incorrect. "The rest of us" are people who could be future potential customers (or even employers). I think it would matter, to those individuals, how Andrew handles this huge downward spiral/error that he created. Thus, "The rest of us" should matter to Andrew.

Andrew may not need to respond to Everything/Everyone, especially where it could lead into a bunch of nonsense and back & forth, but what he is doing (or not doing), to rectify his "RobbingPeter to pay Paul" ways and making things right to those he wronged, matters.

Andrew, you haven't responded to any of my messages in the past couple of weeks, so I'm putting it here:

I need to hear from you, both regarding my order, and the orders of everyone I referred to you.

Your actions have been damaging to my reputation as well. I vouched for you, and your failure to follow through hurts my name too.

Before I start let me be very clear I am not defending or excusing Andrews actions in anyway. I only want to point out what has happened since the start of this BOI on my end.

I had pending business with Andrew when this BOI started and I must admit I thought I was going to be left in the lurch like everyone else. I was waiting on a few geckos and food to be sent to me. All items were paid for. There were substantial delays that included missing a great shipping window because he literally disappeared for two weeks almost, (which caused me to not have my wifes birthday present on time)

With all that said I have known Andrew for quite some time. If you ever met the kid in person you would know he is not some criminal scamming to get peoples money. But because of his situation he did consciously choose to make some epically stupid decisions and I told him as much on the phone when we spoke. Once again to be clear I am not excusing him in any way at all. I let him have it when I read all the issues on here because it is very surprising to me he would stoop to this. Now if that is going to stick with him long term or not I have no idea, but here is how my deal concluded.

All geckos have arrived ok and as advertised (with a freebie). And I had purchased 3 lbs of food but 7bs, cups, and ledges have been sent.

I am now 100% squared away with him and our transaction and I hope he moves to do the same for the rest of the people he has done wrong and misled.

Andrew you already know how I feel about all this. You know the damage its done, and you know you may never recover from it all. But take it one situation at a time and resolve things as you can as quickly as you can.