Samantha Walters / A&S Reptiles

Originally Posted by millipede

Something that bothers me about how many of these threads are handled is that people automatically go in on the seller. She may be in the wrong about a lot of things but what do the confrontational posts accomplish? The first course of action, after identifying who the 'bad guy' is, should be to encourage said 'bad guy' to make things right. I'm convinced people chased the seller away so they could bash her. Maybe if people were a little more accommodating we could have gotten her to send money for the vet. It's a fact of life that all sellers aren't going to have the perfect attitude or knowledge. I feel like this is being blown out of proportion. I feel she got her facts wrong and made a few mistakes that she refuses to own up to, and has too much pride to apologize after what's happened here.

Melissa, the beauty of the setup here is that each individual has their say. Next thread if appropriate you can come in early in a thread and have your say. Everyone has a chance to influence the path of a thread as long as they are courteous.
It is not very successful to try to tell someone else how to frame their opinion but you can certainly stand up and voice your own in a way that might make a difference.

I just recently found this thread and spent a lot of time reading every post (intermittently at work). That reminds me of my other point; the length that these threads achieve when they are handled in this manner. From my experience, if you want to formulate an opinion on a seller you should read the whole thread, and the length may be counter productive if it gets too burdensome for most. Now people are asking for feed cards, ect, but the seller has fled. I think this could have been handled better. Jmo.

Sometimes the truth is ugly Millipede....

Originally Posted by millipede

I just recently found this thread and spent a lot of time reading every post (intermittently at work). That reminds me of my other point; the length that these threads achieve when they are handled in this manner. From my experience, if you want to formulate an opinion on a seller you should read the whole thread, and the length may be counter productive if it gets too burdensome for most. Now people are asking for feed cards, ect, but the seller has fled. I think this could have been handled better. Jmo.

I was asking for the info from the feed card to be posted because it could have cleared up some of the contradictory information.

For example:
She said that the snake would not eat anything larger then a small rat, and was scared of anything bigger.
Then she said that the snake gained a bunch of weight from eating a couple of large meals.

At first it may seem like those two statements can not both be true, and some thought she had been caught in a lie.
However, if the feed card showed the animal eating multiple small rats in consecutive feedings, both of those statements could be 100% true.

That info would also explain a 1600-1700g snake weighing in at 2k+g only to go off feed after moving to it's new home, and losing the weight of the gutload.

The card could have also put a timeline on exactly how long the animal was in her care, and exactly when it ate. It may have also included monthly weigh ins, or other helpful info.

I was not bashing the seller and actually asked her to post the feed card info because I thought it may help her out, and explain the conflicting statements.

Anyway, I received a PM letting me know that the feed card was thrown away.

Originally Posted by millipede

From my experience, if you want to formulate an opinion on a seller you should read the whole thread, and the length may be counter productive if it gets too burdensome for most.

I totally agree some of these threads are very long. But there are many members and each, like you, can have their say. How would you have felt if comments were closed after so many (The New York Times actually does that with their reader opinion pieces) and it got closed right before you posted. I think you had something valuable to contribute.

Is this a great Country or what? If the PM was from Sam.... There never was one .

I love BP's and I will buy more of them over time but I would not buy from someone who I do not trust. I realize that money is an issue, that people sell these animals to make money, but you should also care about them as living beings. If you don't, if they are no more than product to you, I would personally never want to buy from you.
That being said, this is the impression I get from Samantha. It may not be how she really is but it is how she comes off in this thread and I will avoid her when looking to purchase snakes in the future.
I am not a big time buyer, dealer or breeder so my little bit of sales won't break anyone's business but things like this add up and there are a lot of us reading these posts who I would be feel the same as I do.

Just wanted to post my two cents about this.

From the moment I saw Samantha post, and realized that she has an established Fauna account as well as a website, I wondered why she was using Craigslist.

One situation seems very likely to me.

She has this problem feeder, wants to sell it, but doesn't want to disclose that it's a problem feeder because that will lower the price. She also doesn't want to post an ad for it online because she doesn't want this to link back to her on Fauna.

So, she posts an ad on Craigslist to sell the snake. Craigslist is a fairly anonymous place, and most people you meet you will never see again. Easy enough to put a breedable female ball python on there, someone snatches it up with few or no questions asked. You can also charge more than a snake is worth if local demand is high enough.

When the buyer starts contacting her, she throws out some reassuring lies because now that the sale is made, she really doesn't want to be bothered with it.

I don't think she figured on the buyer being aware of Fauna, or being fairly well versed in ball python husbandry.

There's no way that snake lost and then gained 1000 grams in her care. That's an obvious lie. If by some miracle this HAD happened, I doubt the buyer would have purchased the snake as it would have been obviously sick looking.

Her lies began to snowball, as anyone knows; to cover up a lie you have to keep on lying. It didn't take long for her to begin contradicting herself in her rush to get rid of the customer and cover her butt.

In a nutshell, she wanted to get rid of the snake quietly and ended up shooting herself in the foot. I doubt there's anything horribly wrong with the snake. I think it's just a problem feeder that now has a very interesting back story.

^^^^ Knows their stuff!

Originally Posted by Lucille

I totally agree some of these threads are very long. How would you have felt if comments were closed after so many (The New York Times actually does that with their reader opinion pieces) and it got closed right before you posted. I think you had something valuable to contribute.

Oh I agree everyone should say their piece if they wish. But, I have noticed some members posting the same thing, repeatedly And whenever the seller replied, it would intensify more. Logic will denote that the seller will eventually stop replying unless she's masochistic. One of the first comments recommended she stop owning snakes. I felt that went too far. But thanks for telling me that about the NY Times, I was wondering why my comments didn't show up once lol.

Anyway, about the non-feeding snake, maybe try to address the stress it may be going through. I don't know what set up it's in right now, but often the whole tub/rack setup people use is stressful for some balls, I think. They like to feel really covered and secure. I had a ball that wouldn't eat outside of a pillow case (that also only likes smaller prey). Balls are inclined to sleep in places like rodent burrows.