Carolina Reptile Exchange - orange king cobra FRAUD

Well, I had a look at the photo that Carolina Reptile Exchange is passing around, claiming it is a venomoid female breeder and the mother of some of their offspring.

The photo is one that I took of my high orange phase male king cobra posed in front of my bedroom window. I have some unusual horizontal patio shade blinds and that's what he is in front of. No question about it, that is my photo, my animal and my bedroom window. He skewed the blinds at one point in the shoot with his tail, and that's what you see in this photo.

http://www.venomousreptiles.org/images/orange-king2.jpg

Again, this is my fully intact and healthy MALE king cobra, not a venomoid female, and it doesn't belong to Carolina Reptile Exchange/Bruce Eisenmann. No one who deals in venomoids is allowed to get anywhere near my animals to mutilate them, so I don't release any of my offspring on the open market. They go only to qualified institutions or to keepers who are personally known to me. Bruce never had his hands on this animal or any of its offspring, and he never will.

If you care about the details, apparently these people have been stealing photos and representing them as the parents of the snakes they are selling. They like to buy loads of wild caught animals (eg, ball pythons), then they post pics they stole of somebody else's albino or piebald animals, then they sell a lot of "heterozygous" offspring. More info and evidence here: http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/foru...threadid=31975

Anyhow if you are offered some high orange king cobra offspring and you are shown this picture, it's a fraud. Don't fall for it because who knows what you'll actually get in your FedEx box (yes, that is how he likes to ship cobras). It won't be related to the animal in the photo, I can guarantee that.

The reasons I originally didn't post the name of the business in the subject line are:

1. Same people could be doing business under different names. Wouldn't put it past these guys. Bruce goes by Harry and Noah and CRE and other names; am I really supposed to put all of that in the subject line?

2. Different people could be running the same scam. This is actually the second time I have caught somebody passing around pics of this particular orange king and claiming it was their animal. I don't know who else may be doing this, but it is more than one individual at current count. I'm bloody tired of it and I want to make sure that people recognize this scam when they see it.

I don't think there was any confusion at all over identifying the specific scam being run in the subject line. But I guess even if the information in the subject line is actually the most targeted and useful for all practical purposes, I get a warning. Finding out who did it this time under what name is important, but it's the scam itself that is the identifying factor.

What a dirt bag!
Not that she needs it but I can definitely vouch for Tanith that the snake in the photo belongs to her. I've seen that king in person back when it was a fresh import and it took a lot of work for her to acclimate it and make it the healthy, beautiful animal it is today. I can also attest to the fact that Tanith is very selective about who her hatchlings end up with.

It's definitely a shame that a known crook would try to misrepresent that snake as his own to lure unsuspecting customers into an obvious fraud.