| Author | Subject: John Paul of Diablo Reptiles(Deadbeat Dealer!) |
| John Hedger | Posted At 02:19:51 01/16/2001
I know I should have been wary of a business with the name Diablo Reptiles, and I know this business has gone silent on the web for some months but, should he ever reappear as Diablo or with whatever other name for his business I want to warn people about John Paul (also may not be his real name!)of Pompano Beach,Fla. I had a serious shipping problem with John Paul of Diablo Reptiles back in January,2000. He had a nice, healthy looking male Emerald Tree posted on the Kingsnake Classifieds. I bought it and sent him $350 for the snake plus $64 for Delta Dash. In his first attempt to ship he told me that Delta wouldn't let him ship because he owed them money. He then said he would have a friend of his ship the snake. When I finally received the snake on a Tuesday, it was sent freight collect and I had to pay an additional $65.88 for shipping(remember I had already paid shipping!)! I had given him specific instructions for shipping (heat paks, airport, N. O. A., my address, etc.) because it was a touchy weather situation with daytime highs in the mid to upper 40's. What I found out from Delta was that John Paul's friend had dropped the snake off at 8PM the previous night. The snake was sitting at least 6 hours at both Atlanta and Cincinnati in an unmarked box with no indication (no writing on the box)of being a live animal. When I opened the box, the snake was in a bag soaked with urates and feces, cold, no heat paks, not even any newspaper to pad the snake bag. The snake was alive, but within a week developed a serious respiratory problem as I knew it would. I took the Emerald to my vet , treating it with Amikacin shots. He became thin,anorexic and died within two months as I suspected he would. It was such a shame, because that emerald was a really nice animal. If Mr. John Paul of Diablo Reptiles had taken any care or consideration for the welfare of the animal he shipped I would have been very happy with that emerald. I guess, once he got his money, he really didn't care about keeping his customer happy or-worse-even keeping the animal he shipped alive. He initially apologized and said he would "make it right," but soon he just deleted my emails. I guess it was just 'water under the bridge' to him. He got his money! John Hedger |