Kind of confused and food for thought

Hi guys,

I have been looking around the BOI and just noticed an interesting pattern. First off, I am not defending the bad guys they are scammers and they are terrible people but this is just to something to think about.

I think the problem comes when:
A) You ship before receiving payment
B) You promise someone a shipment of unhatched babies or something like that
C)You trust the buyer or seller.


A) This is pretty much easy thing but we all need to be sure the person we are dealing with has the money to pay it. Especially with large sums like $1000 or something, be sure that the person can pay.

B) I think this could be dealt with pretty easily and I think doing this gives someone too much time to become "trustworthy" you might talk to them and being to think they are trustworthy even though they aren't.

C)I think trust comes into this sadly as a problem for us because well most people want to trust others but sometimes bad people take advantage of trusting people. I think dealing with trust is a difficult concept and I don't want to go into a philosophy conversation. But we need to beware of how much trust we give someone. I always believe when dealing with someone that they could turn around and not give me the animal, so I always use caution.

I think what everyone needs to do is check before dealing with someone. If you are unsure deal with that person not through emails but face to face. If you can't you need to confirm that the person you are dealing with is legit. You have the sources here like the BOI and people who are on the forum who can help you find a good seller. Why not find a seller who has a lot of good guy marks instead of dealing with a new guy? I think our community needs to restructure the way we work because emails and internet use for our business is not working as well as it should. I would even think that we need laws to help online buys and sells.

I advise never shipping until you receive full payment for something. To me that's common sense.

Yeah but not to all people.

Originally Posted by birdman123

Hi guys,

I have been looking around the BOI and just noticed an interesting pattern. First off, I am not defending the bad guys they are scammers and they are terrible people but this is just to something to think about.

I think the problem comes when:
A) You ship before receiving payment
B) You promise someone a shipment of unhatched babies or something like that
C)You trust the buyer or seller.


A) This is pretty much easy thing but we all need to be sure the person we are dealing with has the money to pay it. Especially with large sums like $1000 or something, be sure that the person can pay.

B) I think this could be dealt with pretty easily and I think doing this gives someone too much time to become "trustworthy" you might talk to them and being to think they are trustworthy even though they aren't.

C)I think trust comes into this sadly as a problem for us because well most people want to trust others but sometimes bad people take advantage of trusting people. I think dealing with trust is a difficult concept and I don't want to go into a philosophy conversation. But we need to beware of how much trust we give someone. I always believe when dealing with someone that they could turn around and not give me the animal, so I always use caution.

I think what everyone needs to do is check before dealing with someone. If you are unsure deal with that person not through emails but face to face. If you can't you need to confirm that the person you are dealing with is legit. You have the sources here like the BOI and people who are on the forum who can help you find a good seller. Why not find a seller who has a lot of good guy marks instead of dealing with a new guy? I think our community needs to restructure the way we work because emails and internet use for our business is not working as well as it should. I would even think that we need laws to help online buys and sells.

If you are a new seller and no one buys from you because you have no 'good guy' marks, then how are the new sellers (like I will be in a couple of years) supposed to get their 'good guy ' marks? I know that people wouldn't know me but I AM one of the good guys, IMO, lol.

It is a problem, I guess I should take back what I said but instead say, try to deal with people in the safest way possible. I think new guys are important for our business, so I totally see your point. Thanks for clear that up, we can really help people if we try to do stuff like this. It is hard to know if someone is a good reasonable guy... Any ideas guys?

I mean it is hard to give payment first because you may not recieve the reptile, I had this happen to me. Then again, if you send the animal before you recieve payment you could end up loosing it. Maybe we need a program that allows us to pull back our money if we do not recieve the reptile but what do we do when we don't recieve the payment? Thats still a problem. I have some ideas but it is mostly like saying I will call you a bad guy on this forum or something like that kind of unhelpful.

Originally Posted by birdman123

It is a problem, I guess I should take back what I said but instead say, try to deal with people in the safest way possible. I think new guys are important for our business, so I totally see your point. Thanks for clear that up, we can really help people if we try to do stuff like this. It is hard to know if someone is a good reasonable guy... Any ideas guys?

References maybe? I would be willing. I have been in the same city all my life and at my current job going on 27 yrs. I know my references would be good (mayor, policemen, fire fighters, detectives etc...) but I know possibly everyone else might not be. A scammer could give you numbers of people that might actually be in on the scam.
I know when I got back into Boas and ordered from a online breeder, I was a bit nervy till I got my snakes. Luckily, I just happen across 2 good reputable breeders and have gotten to know one of them pretty well.
But knowing if someone is a good guy? I guess thats one reason the BOI is here.

There are laws to cover your arse when you pay for something. Not so much if you send out before payment.

I didn't know about that... ok cool. I think we just as a community need to be careful. I mean we should be careful.

Maybe we could create something that could be something that you must post a photo and then the program runs through all photos and if it finds a match then it automatically does something to keep the person from scamming people like hide the email or something. I don't know but it could help.

I think the BOI is only an after the fact thing. There needs to be something that happens when the transaction is going.