Looking for some advice on a recent transaction

Around the first of Sept 2005 I put an ad up for 4 adult female ball pythons on kingsnake. As you can imagine there was a lot of interest and they sold quickly.

A little background on the snakes. I have owned them all since they hatched, either hatched by me or purchased at a show or two. One produced for me last year and the others were in the 1000 gram range and not ready to be bred in the 2004 season. Before posting these snakes I sexed them again, and had Ian G. sex them for me.

Fast forward to Jan 6th.

I get an email from the buyer saying this:

"hello I have a question regarding the 4 females that I bought from you about 2 months ago...Please email me back so I can throw a question at you thanks"

I reply sure let me know what is up.

His reply

"When I received the 4 pythons I was excited about their size and looks and health...I appreciate that so much, but I've been breeding them lately since the season started and I have come to find that when I put two of your females with my high end male, one of your females was the one that was doing the breeding. I was shocked, I haven't even sexed the other 2 yet, but from what I have seen I know that one is a male and I was promised 4 females... Before I sex the other 2 I would like your honest response of the sexes of the other 2 and why I have a male instead of a female...After your response we will figure out how to deal with this matter, thank you for your cooperation and honesty, I'd appreciate it.. "

Now personally I have had males try to breed males and females try to breed females, just because they were "breeding" doesn't usually determine the sex. I told the buyer this as well as expressed my concern that he didn't sex the animals before they arrived. As I sex every animal I buy or sell before they enter or leave my house.

I ask him to sex them and see what he finds out. He tells me:

"I am going to take them to my local pet store, I know the guy personally and he's been doing snakes for 20 years at least...so I will let you know tomorrow, thanks for your help and cooperation "

So today it turns out he did have the animals sexed and responded to me with this message:

"hey I was just going to let you know that one of the snakes was infact male...personally I am quite upset about this and would like to know what you want to do about it...if you need me to have the vet sign something of verification then let me know and I'll scan it to you...you owe me a snake let me know what ideas you have about getting this all straight."

My question is what would be the correct thing to do. If we would have had this problem with the snakes were delivered I'd have no problem refunding his money or doing whatever it takes to make it right, however we are going on 5 months and now he is saying they are not females. I can't even remember what the snakes looked like so how I can be sure the ones he is talking about are even mine? I know the snakes I sold him were 4 females, and I can't control the fact that he didn't sex them when they arrived and I still had pictures on the web of them.

I am a small breeder and want to make this right, but just can't afford to send him $400 back for the snake. I thought about seeing what his "high-end" male was and seeing if I had some het babies that would help him out. I don't want to get a bad name for myself so I am asking here what you guys think.

Any advice, suggestions, or flames (not really haha) would be great.

Thanks!

Paul Farmer
F and B Reptiles

Paul,

We’ve discussed this issue several times. In my opinion (minority) the animal’s sex should be guaranteed for life, provided it can be identified correctly. It’s like selling heterozygous animals if one guarantees their genetics for life, why wouldn’t it be the same with their sex? After all it can’t change. Now, if either party can’t prove it’s the same snake that’s a completely different story. If you don’t have pictures, he doesn’t have them either, and nothing was specified in advance as far as guarantee, it’s going to be your call. In this case you had the animals sexed by a knowledgeable individual. The problem is that you can’t determine if it’s the same animal.

Regards.

I agree with Dan.

Granted, your customer should have sexed the snakes when they arrived, but you can't always count on your customers doing what they should, or even what you tell them to do.

Since you cannot positively identify these animals as being the ones that you shipped (a mistake on your part) this whole thing boils down to what is the right thing to do.

You really have two choices here.

1. Offer your customer a replacement female. You can then decide if you want to ship the male back to you at your expense or sell it to him at an appropriate price.

2. Refund your customer an appropriate amount for receiving a male instead of a female.

The bottom line is this, your customer should not be out any money for having dealt with you. Take care of your customer, chalk it up to lessons learned and move on.

When doing on-line sales, your most important asset is your reputation.
The true professionals turn a mistake into a reputation-building opportunity.

Good luck with your situation.

From the first two answers it appears I am in the minority, though industry wide, I do not think I am. I wouldn't guarantee sex for that long. The difference between a het and the sex is you can determine the sex immediately, you can not determine a het until it is old enough to breed, then breed it, then have eggs (or live birth) hatch. The only time I may work with the buyer, is if the probe depth is in the marginal scale depth as sometimes happens. Even then though it is something that should be discovered within the typical guarantee span. As you can see by the different responses, many breeders handle things differently.

I agree with reptilebreeder. You had them sexed at least twice and sound very confident that you sold four females, but how about your buyer? Did he have the guy at the petshop or the vet sex them? Can you be sure those people know how to probe snakes?

Yeah that is my worry. How do I know that his Pet Store friend knows what he is doing? I do feel that I should have kept pictures of the snakes I sold, but I just didn't think it would be a problem. I take pictures of all Hets I sell so I can provide paper work and guarantee them for life.

I was thinking it is different then selling hets, because like reptilebreeder said the sex is something you can find out as soon as the animals are delivered, while the genetics are something that could take years to prove out.

Still trying to think what I am going to do on this one.........thanks for the input.

Yeah that is my worry. How do I know that his Pet Store friend knows what he is doing?

I would have the same concerns.

It is important to have your sex guarantee written into your terms. I believe requesting the buyer to address this concern within a week or two of purchase is adequate.
Even if your terms included how long they have to verify gender, I wouldn’t fallback on it in every circumstance. I would be willing to address the concerns of each customer on individual bases.

I honestly believe this situation comes down to how certain you are about the sex of the animals you have sent out. Mistakes can be made by anyone and although there is a lot of dishonest people out there, I choose to believe that most are not and will give a customer the benefit of the doubt, before I assume they are lying and trying to con me without proof. I would be extremely leery, as you are if I was positive about the sex of the animals I sent, compounded by the fact the “local pet shop guy”, could be anyone and may not know the first thing on properly sexing the animals.

Matter of fact, I have been on the opposite site of this issue. I purchased several females (not BP’s) and received a male in the group. I did not verify right away, which was a mistake on my part. I just mentioned the fact to the seller that I received an incorrectly sexed animal but due to the timeframe, I didn’t expect them to do anything. I just wanted the person to be aware of the situation so they could correct their procedures. The seller immediately wanted me to be completely satisfied with our deal and offered to pay for shipping back and send an animal of greater value than I had original purchased. I declined but would never hesitate to do business with that individual again. This is where reputation comes in and is extremely important with on-line transactions.

Now in an instance like this, what you state is a key factor to give someone the “benefit of the doubt”. It is important to state all the facts clearly and to be honest. If the email that you typed were accurate, I would have some concerns here.

When I received the 4 pythons I was excited about their size and looks and health...I appreciate that so much, but I've been breeding them lately since the season started and I have come to find that when I put two of your females with my high end male, one of your females was the one that was doing the breeding. I was shocked, I haven't even sexed the other 2 yet, but from what I have seen I know that one is a male and I was promised 4 females... Before I sex the other 2 I would like your honest response of the sexes of the other 2 and why I have a male instead of a female...After your response we will figure out how to deal with this matter, thank you for your cooperation and honesty, I'd appreciate it.. "

The questions posed to you by the buyer shows a lot more than what is being noticed. The person obviously has no ability to sex the animals properly. He/she is relying on what he/she sees visually, with one snake that appears to be mating as a male. I would say his question about asking you to be honest before he sexes the other animals is a strong indication that he does not have the ability to sex them or have anyone else sex them and is worried that he may have received something other than a female. Before you sent your reply he has already committed himself to saying that one of the snakes was absolutely a male without sexing the animal based on the visual acts he has stated.

‘Benefit of the doubt”, goes only so far
After the nice polite emails back and forth and saying you will discuss the situation after he has them sexed he went straight to this
“you owe me a snake let me know what ideas you have about getting this all straight."

Give Me, Give Me, Give Me.

Now when shopping in a store, I make a point to know the return policy and if I am sold something that is defective and I give it as a gift to someone, Let’s say for Christmas. Then the person I gave it to finds out the product does not work but it is past the return date. I can try to return it to the store, with being fully aware it is past the return date. If they make an exception and give me a replacement or refund under the circumstance that is super customer service. If they don’t, well I am aware of the policy ahead of time but I will not shop or recommend them ever again.

On the other hand, If I was a manager in that store and I was giving the “benefit of the doubt” and assumed the customer was telling me the truth but when I opened up the product it had signs of extreme abuse and was used considerably. Because of the statement, “I tell them that I never used the product and it is just the way I received It.” was untruthful, I could care less on losing this persons business and would fall back on my terms of service.

What I guess I’m saying is, If you believe your customer to be honest in their communication, don’t fall back on any TOS or timeframe. Work something out and give the person excellent customer service.

If you believe them to be dishonest in their communication, STICK TO IT.

I was thinking it is different then selling hets, because like reptilebreeder said the sex is something you can find out as soon as the animals are delivered, while the genetics are something that could take years to prove out.

You both made good points, but not everyone is profficient in sexing animals. In fact you stated that Ian G. sexed them for you. The point is that when you are selling animals the sex should be guaranteed. This is specially true when selling a sepcies such as ball pythons where there is a huge difference in price favoring normal females. The seller should be absolutly certain of the sex before sending an animal out. You have probably learned here also the importance of keeping pictures in your records.

Regards

Thanks for all the advice.

It looks like things are working themselves out.

I emailed this guy for a picture, in hopes that I could see if I remember the snake. In the mean time I did some searching through my old emails, Faunaclassified posts, and files and guess what?!?!?! I managed to keep the pictures of the 4 females I sold him. He doesn't know this yet but he is digging himself a deeper hole as we go.

I emailed him and asked if he had weighed the snake and if so how much. He told me that when the snake arrived it was 1600 grams. Since I labled each picture with the weight of the snake when I sold them I was able to check this with my records. The 4 snakes I sold him were:

>>1164 Grams
>>1251 Grams
>>1333 Grams
>>2059 Grams

These were the actual weights when the snakes left my house. 1600 grams is quite a bit of weight for a female to gain or lose in just a few days.........

In the mean time he managed to send me a picture of the snake in question. CameraPhone, hard to really see what the snake looked like. At first I was understanding about not having a regular camera, but this guy claims to breed spiders and pastels, and most people breeding spiders can afford a real digital camera, and need one if they plan to sell them......

After working on the picture in photoshop to lighten it up it turns out that the picture he sent me doesn't match any of my snakes. The snake he sent me has a very distinctive pattern, and I have the other 4 snakes pictures, and you can clearly see that these snakes don't match.

So it looks like all my worrying about how to make the customer has worked it self out. Now I just don't know how to finish this deal, part of me wants to tell him on the phone, about having pictures of the snakes I sold him. Another part just wants to send an email and be done with it. Then post his info so everyone will know to stay away from him.

I am glad I managed to find the pictures and know I know I was in the right the entire time and that he was trying to scam me.