Jeremy Clark, being ripped off

Ok. Here is the full story.

Jeremy contacts me on a trade add i had posted on Kingsnake. I was offering a 3ft male CB amazon tree boa up for trade, looking for some colubrids. He emailed me, offering me a list of things I had on my wanted list. We agree upon 1.2 sub adult trinket ratsnakes, and he offers me 0.1 female triple het(lavendar, pewter) cornsnake to "sweeten the deal", as i really did not want to ship. I then ask if I could throw in something extra for a male of the same clutch to go with the female triple het corn. We agree on my Tucson Blonde Tarantula, and some pregnant female black widows that I have in trade. So that totals it up to 1.0 amazon tree boa, and some spiders of mine. He wants me to ship first, and says he has no pictures, but describes his animals to me as best he could. I will not ever ship first in a situation like this, and told him such. We agree to ship at the same time, on Wednesday(11-12-03). I ship out as promiced, using Airborne Express as I always do. After this I do some arrands with my boyfriend, and we go back to his house, where I check my email. No message from Jeremy, so I email him, letting him know I shipped that morning with Airborne, and gave him his tracking #. I ask for my tracking #, and who he shipped with. I then go out and do more errands for most of the day, come home, check email. There is 2 from Jeremy, asking if I had shipped yet, and if I did to tell him before it was too late for him to ship. I respond telling him that of coarse I had shipped, as we had agreed upon that day to do so, and that I had sent him his tracking #. No response from him for 12 hours. I email him 3 or 4 times, after calling his cell which was turned off, asking anxiously if he had shipped yet, and what my tracking # was. He finally responds telling me he had shipped "and it should arrive by 10:30am". Thursday morning, no package. I try calling him a few times, again, cell turned off. I examine his emails, and my boyfriend points out that one of the emails he sent me said "i need to know if i can ship before 9 o clock deadline". I assumed he had ment 9am. But the postmark on the email said around 8pm when it was sent. So i email asking if he had dropped off the box at 9PM on wednesday, and if so, it would be arriving FRIDAY, not thursday. After a lengthy delay he returns the email that night, saying yes, friday arrival, and he had gotten my package, but that "both snakes were DOA"... Now I only sent him ONE snake, and said so, asking for photographic proof, or to send the box back to me. He quickly corrects himself saying "spiders not snakes", which isn't that big of a deal, although odd for them to of died and not the snake. I offer to replace them, if he would return the dead. No answer. I send yet another email asking about tracking # and carrier. After a long delay he responds with "I sent it while at the office, did you not recieve". I say no. No responce. Still none as of this morning, when it should of arrived. I email him, pretty pissed off, telling him that he needs to give me a tracking # and carrier name, or I will report him to mail fraud, unless he wants to return my animals on monday with 48 hour heat pack, AND tracking # given. Got a quick reply asking for my address again so he could return my animals. I replied to that telling him that I will give his carrier til 5pm, if he indeed did ship, and that I needed a tracking #, NOW. And no reply as of yet. Last email was recieved earlier around 1pm.

A friend looked into mail fraud for me, and it seems its only applicable if USPS is used, so I guess i'm out of luck there. What should I do with this? I know an amazon tree boa isn't something like an albino ball python, but i was kind of attatched to the snake and it had sentimental value. I've done same day shipping on trades before and everything was always fine. But I guess this guy is just a moron.

Btw, his info is:

Jeremy Clark
920 11th St. N.E.
Cleveland TN 37311
423-315-7731

His emails are almost always once sentance with no punctuation, and very brief, usually ignoring all my questions.. Has anyone had any experiance wih him, other then those who replied to the earlier thread?

I would suggest you CALL (don't email) the Police Department in his neck of the woods and advise them of what he has done.... they MIGHT be able to help you get your animals back.... if they can't help you, I'm afraid you're SOL....

In the future.... try to....

Never ship first (to someone you don't know and have never done business with)....

Never ship same day, (to someone you don't know and have never done business with)....

There is NOTHING you need that badly that won't come around the corner again if you just wait.... it's just not worth losing your animals....

Good luck

Neil

Ok.. I will see what I can do there. But what do I do? File a report? I've never delt with anything like this before.

I realize the mistake, and i wasnt totally comfortable from the beginning, but i'd been SERIOUSLY wanting some trinket rats, and being young and currently jobless, its kind of hard for me to get my hands on a something i've been really wanting, so I jumped on the chance to secure these. Guess I learned my lesson..

it's easy.... you call information and ask for the Police Department in the town he lives in.... when you get one of the Officer's on the phone, you say.... "Hi, my name is ____, and I've got a problem that, hopefully, you can help me out with".... tell them exactly what happened.... just ask them if there is anything they can do for you, like making a phone call to him, or going to his house to retrieve your animals.... usually, one phone call from the Police will scare him into doing the right thing.... USUALLY....
If they are successful in retrieving your animals, then it's up to you to figure out how to get them back to you.... they MIGHT not want to box them up and ship them out.... I don't know what you could do in that instance.... hopefully, this guy will get the hint that you're not playing games and he will consummate the deal.... HOPEFULLY....
Good luck!

Neil

Well, just called Cleaveland police department. They basically told me i'm SOL. That it was a civil matter, and no officer was going to bother themselves with calling the guy. eerrrggg.

Also seems the guy is using a friends address. So I can't do a search with this address to search for his home number or anything. Ugh.. Guess it really does seem i'm SOL.

I am very sorry to hear about your experience with this guy.. best of luck in either getting your animals back or in having the other side of the trade successfully completed.

I know this is not of much help, but I would personally try to file a complaint with Kingsnake.com, since that was the ad that he responded to. I doubt that they will do anything at all, but at least his name would be noted in the event that there are further problems down the road.

I also don't know if this would be possible, but I would try to file a formal complaint with the police department in his area. Talking on the phone to someone was a good thing to do, but if it is in writing then all the better. Even if they will not make one phone call to Jeremy Clark's house on your part, just like with the KS.com complaint, they will be able to go back and pull up the record with his information and a detailed account of the situation.

I hope everything works out for you.. keeping my fingers crossed that this guy will go ahead and do the right thing.

Regards,

Lauren Rost

Update.. I sent a complaint to the IFCC as well. I emailed Jeremy and told him such, and also that I contacted his local police department over it. Here is his latest email. I use hotmail, so there isn't any fancy header or anything..:

"i am going to bed as i have to be up in 3 hrs for work at the
sheriffs
dept. so that should tell you i am not a scammer but will return
your
goods as you did not hold up your end of the deal and i am not
at fault
and you did not report me as i have checked so do not try to
scare me as
i could bill the shipping back to you as you did break the
contract
yourself"

This guy seems very childish, and making sh!t up to try to turn it back on me. He claims I had a "live arrival guarentee" and some sort of contract, which was never discussed. The tarantula and black widow I sent him seemed to of arrived DOA. I asked for photographic proof, but was never sent any, but I offered to replace them as soon as I was sent proof. This is probably what he's considering "breech of contract". And now he claims to work for the sherriff's department. I never claimed to of "reported him", just told him that I had contacted his local police department on the issue, as a kind of scare tactic. Wasn't lieing, as I did contact them. I asked for an explaination of why he did this, and this is what he said:

"i do have a good explanation that i will send with the package"

Seems like a kind of threat. He claims i'm at fault here because the 2 spiders arrived DOA, but the fact of the matter is that he NEVER shipped his animals as he said he would. He better ship my snake back in a decent matter, and not purposefully leave out a heat pack or insulation.

i am going to bed as i have to be up in 3 hrs for work at the sheriffs dept. so that should tell you i am not a scammer

I recall another scammer saying basically the same thing a while back ... can't remember who it was though .... oh, yeah ... by the way ... I'm the President of the United States (pretty easy to say you're something you aren't). Stay on him, don't let him scare you.

will return your goods as you did not hold up your end of the deal and i am not at fault

Has he returned them as of yet? Sounds to me like you DID hold up your end of the deal and YES, JEREMY, YOU ARE AT FAULT. You didn't ship on time/as promised.

i could bill the shipping back to you as you did break the contract yourself

What a load of crap .... the "contract" was broken when HE DIDN'T ship as promised.

and you did not report me as i have checked so do not try to scare me

My kid brother is a County Sheriff's Deputy up here. If you had called to complain about him and he WAS an officer ... he'd have gotten a phone call, atleast to warn him about what was going on (LE is a tight-knit community). He would also have been pushed to make the situation go away, a black cloud over an officer buts a shadow over the entire department. Also, unless he worked for the department you called I doubt he would have access to any "unofficial complaints" about him (unless he were called).

The tarantula and black widow I sent him seemed to of arrived DOA. I asked for photographic proof, but was never sent any, but I offered to replace them as soon as I was sent proof. This is probably what he's considering "breech of contract".

I have seen it be common practice (understatement) to give proof upon claiming a DOA ... if he can't provide the proof ... there is no DOA, and your offer to replace the animals is quite fair. If all things are as you say ... you appear to be faultless in this situation.

You may want to e-mail him this thread and give him the opportunity to respond. Otherwise, I'm sorry to hear about your dealings with him and thank you for warning the rest of us about him.

Once again, all this is only my opinion based on the information I have been given.

Definetly email him this thread, so he can see how everbody in the reptile community is on to him and it will atleast apply a little heat on his arse.