c4942469 (hooblahdooblah@yahoo.com) Chris Reardon

Has anyone ever dealt with Chris Reardon, hooblahdooblah@yahoo.com, user ID of c4942469? I have noticed he is looking to buy boas and had a couple hogg islands (then they were hypo hogg crosses) listed for sale. He contacted me wanting to trade me a few balls for my boas, but things have not went so well in dealing with him and I am looking to see if anyone else has dealt with him or if I am just being overly suspicious. I will post details of our attempted dealings once I hear back from him on a couple issues I have addressed towards him directly.

I wouldn't do business with him.

I offered to buy the boas if he'd send me pictures in a more natural light, he said sure, then never sent them. When I saw him offering them on other animals, I decided to just steer clear. When you have a serious buyer who says they'll send the cash asap, you don't go making other offers.

Just my .02. He may be perfectly reputable.

Ok, I was contacted by Chris (on 2/12/09) )through Hoobly about a couple boas I had for sale or trade. I had them listed for $150 each. We e-mailed back a forth several times. He offered me 2 balls for the boas. I asked for pics, and got pics. We ended up settling on an adult male mojave and an adult female spider ball. There was red flag #1. Why would anyone offer more than what I was wanting? He told me they were all proven and he had papers on them(?). Red flag #2.

"Yeah I know all sexes and all my snakes are proven I have papers on them and im sorry I would love too meet half way but im in a wheel chair and can't use bottom half we could ship on same day and provide tracking numbers for our trades"

I asked for specific pics, one of the mojave with a soda can and one of the spider with a soda can and then one of the 2 together. He told me he couldn't get a pic of the 2 together because the mojave is aggressive because he is a breeder. Red flag #3.

"I will try to do it togeather but mojo is agresitive because he is used as a breeder he has produced three litters with peggy my cino"

I asked for weights. The mojave weighed 1463 grams and the proven female spider weighed 1003.4 grams. I questioned how she could be a proven breeder at that size and he changed his story to the spider was a male. Red flag #4.

"OK here's what i did i had them weighed my mojo 1463 grams proven breeder and i took a pic mojo for you i also took a pic with a red sheet brigs alot of colors out here you go .and also spider with a pic of her in housing she weighed 1003.4 proven breeder and i already took the pics and my wife said she's done helping me lol well hope too hear from you soon ! Oh i also want to let you know i have plenty references if need ! thank Chris"

"Ok im not into games and spider is a male and at 1003 is not small for breeding I thought you where interrested in males I have a smaller spider she is not able to right now I would say in about a 1 yr she should be ready see that's why I named them when I posted them too you what are u looking too do with these balls look I too have been ripped off but I got the police involved and it was settled im no con artist im a family man . Im sorry that happened to you I don't know what else I can do too prove it to you but im not a dirty scam artist ok plz believe me I have a spider at 2045 grams but she has a temp that scares me lol I held her a few times but breeding them u leave them alone for months to come and they become aggressive !"


Then he went on to tell me he has a proven female spider that was bred to his gravid broken stripe male. Red flag #5.

"look i have a male at 1003 grams and is a proven breeder i have a female at 2354 grams a spider and is a proven breeder i have one clutch with her she bred with my gravid broken stripe male who is only 1134 grams is a little smaller but still can get the job done i'm not out too rip anyone off and steal the one thing i hate is a theif and a lier i'm trying to conduct straight bussiness with you and like i told you i have references if needed if your interested in my male spider or female spider let me know as well as my mojave male who is beautiful you could statrt a project with my mojave and my spider male mojave and female spider"

He then sent me pics of one of his spider females and a normal male he claimed was a spider. When I told him he sent pics of a normal ball, not a spider, he told me it was 20% spider. Then goes on to tell me that if I had paid attention in science class I would understand genetics and know that each baby produced from a spider breeding carries the spider gene that it just gets weaker each time. Red flag #6.

"ok look i made a mistake i have a female spider that i just showed you she is a spider and the male is a spider witch is 20% spider he then carried the trate your right i made a mistake i know what GRAVID means ok and like i showed my female spider at 2354 grams i showed you my male mojave what one do you want to trade i will trade both for your pair ! do you want the male mojave and the female spider if that's what you want let's do this also i have attached the pics of spider jenny i need you too understand i have a large collection i own roughly about 300 hundred snakes and mojo is up for trade and so is beauty also my other spider jenny 1 that is cuz i have 4 other jennies ok i'm trying to make you happy as well as too make me happy i'm sorry for the mess up on my behalf . thanks Christopher R"

I started getting leary and he was starting to sense it, so he offered to throw in a baby cinnamon for free. Red flag #7.

"well did you get my email ? and too be honest it's going to be beautiful monday if interested we can ship on monday i have like 10 references for you too contact if you like people who have bought snakes from me in the past ! if you want to do this trade i have a batch of baby cino balls i will throw in a baby cino ball if wanted !"

I asked him to meet me half way, which would be 2 hrs for each of us, but he said he can't because he is in a wheelchair. So, I figured let him ship first and if he keeps up his end, I come out ahead, if not, no big loss. We set a shipping date. I ask him how much he would want to add a mate for the cino baby and it started at $150, then $100, and finally he said $50 just so I would take it. So, the deal stands at 1.0 mojave, 0.1 spider, 1.1 cinos for my 0.2 dh snow boas and $50. Now I guess I wasn't answering his e-mails fast enough so he starts texting me. He confirms he will be sending the mojo, 2 spiders, and a cino baby. Which was different than what we had agreed on. I remind him I was wanting the cino to make it a sexed pair. He claims he is shipping, so I wait for a tracking number. Never got one. Then he said FedEx never showed so he was taking them to Fedex to drop off. Then says he got there and it was to late for an overnight delivery so we reschedule the shipping. He is supposed to drop them off at Fedex the following day at 5:00. I text him to confirm. He askes me if I got his message, which I did not, he said he had to ship early because his mother in law was in the hospital. Ok, not a problem. I ask for tracking info. Once again, nothing. Claims he shipped on the way to the hospital but can't use his phone to give me tracking info, but can tell me he shipped and he is at the hospital. Next I hear from him, his mother in law passed away. At this point I am feeling bad for bugging him while at the hospital, but at the same time wondering what is really going on. He tells me he dropped them off and that Fedex had called him 3 times. Not really sure why they would call but.... At 1:05 AM he starts texting me again. telling me that he was at the jail because fedex caught him shipping live snakes and he is facing $10,000 fine, jail time and they are going to "terminate" his snakes. He is being charged with illegally shipping snakes across state lines without a license. Then asked me if I was a cop because they ran it throughan xray machine. I told him he was full of it. Then he told me the dectective would be contacting me in a few minutes and my local police had been notified. Then he says they only caught 1 of the 2 boxes he sent. Never once did he even mention there were 2 boxes. He claimed the cino baby was in a box by itself, but they gave it back to him and he would send it Delta Dash the next day. Then he tells me he has a tracking # for the other 3 snakes and they will arrive at 8:45 am at my door. I know FedEx does not give exact delivery times, so I tell him this. So he gets pissed because I accuse him of lieing. He claims the last scan was at 5:52 pm in Detroit and then they will be on their way to Indiana. The next morning I start getting text message again asking me if they had arrived. I still have not gotten a tracking number. He texts several times and since I didn't answer when he expected me to, he said he was packing up and coming to my house. I told him if he really shipped, he could track them and would know there were no snakes. Then he said he is on his way and his snakes better be ok and if they are not he would make me sorry. He said he was bringing my local police with him. I told him to bring the balls too if he really wanted to do the trade. Claims his wife sent the tracking number and the balls would be at my door within an hour. He claimed they were just late because of the snow in MI, yet they were supposedly out of MI before the snow hit. Simple enough, I told him if he sent the balls and they arrived at my house, then I would send him my end of the trade. He was still threatening to make me sorry. I told him to have a nice trip. He still is claiming he shipped and they would be here anytime, and told me if I tracked them I would know this. I told him I would track them if I had a tracking number. Then he claims he called FedEx and had them stop the package. Bull. He never shipped anything. I wouldn't trust him to do a trade with nor would I buy from him. Too many things just didn't add up. I do not recommend giving him a phone number because he will call/text at all hours of the night.

I have 35 e-mail from him and at least that many text messages on my cell. Everything in quotations are the actual e-mails he sent.

He has a pair of hogg islands listed, as I said in my first post. He started claiming those belonged to a friend. I asked him why he would meet someone halfway to Columbus, OH (same distance as meeting me) for a $50 boa and he claims that was his friend as well. I asked why he didn't have any ads for his balls, since he has over 300 and is trying to thin them out. He said he listed them here on Fauna, snakes.com, kingsnake, and Greg's list (I am betting he meant Craigslist). I had already searched fauna and kingsnake and there were no ads. snakes.com is not even a real site. I checked cragislist for his area, and no big surprise, no ads. So, I questioned where his ads were because I checked all the sites he told me. Then he said he doesn't use any of those sites because people were sending him trade offers that were outrageous and people were just trying to get something for nothing from all those sites. He claims he has his own website, so I asked for the address. Claims he has sent me the address 3 times. So, I asked him to send it again. Now he is at his mother in laws funeral and he will send it once he is finished there. I googled him, and found nothing with his name other than his posts on fauna. I did get references for him, but only heard back from 2 people and I am really wondering if it wasn't just him answering the e-mails I sent. It took him a few days to get me references.

I can't really say he is a bad guy because I didn't ship at the same time as he wanted me to. I do however believe it would have been a bad guy post had I shipped the boas at the same time. It all seems too odd to me. I suggest anyone dealing with him use their judgement before sending him anything, be it a trade or cash.

BTW, I forgot my full name on my first post, so I added it to my signature, but here it is again just to make sure, lol:
Sydney Alcorn.

So... Chris.. Care to explain why you have photos off other people's sites in your supposed ball collection and are claiming those animals as your own?

Here's this scumbag's website.
http://chrisballsunlimited.synthasite.com/

If you look through there, you'll notice that MANY of those pictures were stolen off Albey Scholl's website. Hell, several of those animals.. I OWN. The cinnamon pastel, mine. The male super pastel, mine. I don't appreciate people trying to rip off close personal friends. Albey has worked very hard to produce the animals he has, and he has a good name in the community.
Here's Albey's site.
http://www.albeysreptiles.com/default.htm

I called Albey and notified him this was going on. What a shame that I had to give him that news.

You lose, scammer.

Good thing you kept screenshots.
Looks like he pulled down the site now.

Interesting that he's changed his profile so that he can no longer be PMd or emailed through this site.. After sending me a sweet PM of course.

A couple screenshots. Anyone recognize the animals?

I believe the paradox albino is the one the Eugene and Cindy Bessette had listed a few weeks ago on KS.

And a few more screenshots.. I got shots of everything, but in the name of not hogging all the server space I'll just post a few. Including 3 supposed super pastels that are in actuality the same animal and he's sitting in a tub in my snake room. LOL I will however save them all and can readily email them if someone wants to see them.

Huh. Just realized the wording on his super pastel sale page is essentially copied and pasted from Albey's sale page where this animal was originally listed.