I'm writing this because I want to warn anyone who may meet up with this guy before they get screwed.
His name is Doc and he works from the back of a sales store in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He's an extremely sweet guy, but he would screw his own mother over, if it meant another dollar in his pocket. He has alot of stock come through his place (burms, retics, corns, rats, hondurans, BPs, RTB, Blue-tongued skinks, water dragons, iguanas, etc.) and even does a little breeding of his own. He advertises his animals as being "the cleanest in the united states". Well...we'll get to that later.
I originally saw an ad in the newspaper for burms. That's where most of my interest lies and I called to see what he had. He was offering albino burms for 150 and I thought I could save on shipping, so I went to take a look. His animals were kept in tiny tanks (he even had a 12+ foot albino male in a 30 gallon tank, yikes!). I was sceptical at first...but he had some larger cages around and his story having just sold the albino burm's cage passed as acceptable. Besides, he removes all animals from the facility at night...I thought. Having picked a cute, clean, little albino male, I headed for the cash register. At that moment, he mentioned a green burm that was coming in on a flight from missouri. I jumped at the possiblity of adding a green to my collection and withdrew from the albino deal. About 2 hours later, the green arrived. He was soooooo beautiful. The price was $200 straight out...and ended up being $226 after tax (he didn't mention that). But, I had the cash and was stoked to get such an awesome green male. Note, this green hadn't been at his facility for longer than 3 minutes before I took him home (this will come back to play later in my story).
Weeks later, I needed to move a normal male breeder. A friend of mine a few states away offered me $180 for him...but I decided to save on shipping and see if Doc didn't want him. I let him go for $100 in credit. Apparently, I waited a little too long to go rummaging through his stock...because he called and told me he sold my breeder for $80(WHAT?!?). He renigged his deal for $100 credit down to $80 (uh huh...I think he made a REALLY good turn-over there, no?). Knowing that he was probably going to try and screw me again, I immediately scheduled a day to finalize our deal by cash or trade. I came in and sat down to negotiate. Apparently, I came across as stupid because he offered me a male black rat snake. When I told him that I wasn't sure the retails were anywhere near matching...he added that the rat was het for albino. I asked him what percentage...and he told me 72% (hm...must be a new one). I told him I didn't think I really wanted the black rat. He then offered me a corn snake. When I inquired about the retail of them...he fervently told me that corn snakes retailed for $100+. Another new bit of information. I finally took cash and went home.
As you can see, Doc figures most people for idiots. This is why I recommend no one go to him.
At a local herp meeting, I met with a young man who'd purchased a couple of BP's from him (he paid $300 for two). The young man thought he'd gotten a good deal because Doc "has the cleanest animals in the U.S." When I told him he'd really been had, I saw tears well up in his eyes. Apparently, his balls had mites, ticks, worms and some sort of spinal defect and a few days after taking them home...they died. He'd gone back to Doc who refused to acknowledge that he'd sold them to the poor guy...but reminded him of the "no guarantees" deal he made when buying them.
It broke my heart but I went home and made an appt with our vet to have my green checked out (like I said, he hadn't been in his facility but 3 minutes...but I wanted to make sure). We had a couple of fecal tests run to make sure he was clean. He was. No mites, ticks, worms, spinal defects or outward injuries. I attribute this to us getting him right when he arrived.
Considering everything I've gone through with Doc, I would not recommend him to anyone. It took me living here 19 years to find him...but it may not take others that long. His animals are kept in minimalistic condiions that do not promote extremely healthy creatures. A smile and a handshake will only cover the buyer until they walk out the door...he holds no responsibility for anything he's done in the past or will do in the future. Looking back, my purchase was extremely risky (considering what it could have done to my stock) and I will not risk the health of my stock to save on shipping. I was extremely lucky. Anyone thinking about going to Doc, please learn from my experience and the experience of the young man who lost his ball pythons. It's not worth it. Please feel free to contact me at
Iloveboids@aol.com if you have any questions. I'd be more than happy to answer them.
Sam
i did step in his store a few days ago wearing my reptile rescue shirt (oops *wink wink*) and took a look around- he told me i had to have a permit to advertize a non-incoorperated "buisness". He's full of crap and needs to be shut down- I told him when i was there that when he finally got shut down- i had more than enough room in my facility to house the animals that would be taken from him. and I can't wait!!!! I'm desperatly looking for a way to shut his store down- definatly would have been gone long ago for animal cruelty but reptile laws around here are crap! so theres not much to do but wait- and i have ended up with A LOT of his animals after people buy them and don't know what wrong- my vet has made a living off fixing this idiots animals!!!
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