• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Bad Guy Jeff at Boaphile

All I can add to this is that I tried emailing Jeff several times, called several times and because of NEVER being able to get a hold of him or even a reply, I ordered from Reptile Basics.
Jeff needs to get it thru his head that he has a business that is dependent upon customers and he MUST reply to his customers.
I get so sick of hearing the excuse that he doesn't reply to emails, he's busy, etc.
 
JCCS said:
On a side note, Autumn, if he sent the replacement tub out directly after your call, why were you not entirely happy with the transaction?
Click to expand...
I did say he did good by replacing it promptly. I do appreciate that. Also I have no problems with the product itself, it's very nice. :yesnod:

My main problem with the transaction was that I bought a rack (Nothing custom, no extras, just his standard eight sweater box rack.) believing it would take three to five weeks to ship out after payment which is what it says on his website. However after week seven passed without hearing anything, I sent him a polite email asking if he could let me know how my order was coming along. No response. Nine days later I asked again. No response. There was never any attempt to explain or apologize. My rack took about nine weeks to get to me, pretty much double the time frame I was expecting, yet I was left in the dark on the status of my own purchase.

Meanwhile throughout all this I noticed him (or his employees) were frequently posting ads on kingsnake (still listing their email address in those ads as a way to get a hold of them to boot!) so someone there was working on a computer during this time. :eek3:

Personally I feel that once you realize a customer's order is going to take longer than expected, you should alert them so that they can change their plans if need be. You probably are inconveniencing them some, it's just common courtesy.
Now when it did eventually arrive and I saw the broken tub, I had to call twice to get a hold of him, and I'm afraid that I didn't get the same "happy to help" Jeff that you did. Maybe he was having a bad day? :shrug01: I really can't say, I'm simply describing my experience with him. I'm glad to hear yours have been better~
 
When I needed a 4x2 cage for my first (big) boa constrictor, I specifically avoided Boaphile because I've heard a lot of negative things about their customer service. OP, I sent you a private message with the info on the cage I did order, which I am quite happy with.

Since you are stuck with these cages, have you thought about maybe using something to seal the cracks with? Something like silicon, or even a hot glue gun?
 
They are not such a big deal Sarah. .His attitude is.
Its also how he does talk to you and thinks its not a big deal when you get broken cages.

Then does nothing about it. Guess being a new buyer was the issue,or maybe since i only had 6 boa's at the time and could only buy 2. Now i have dozens and he is losing out on my $$. Must be nice to have too much $$

I also should not have to use silicone in a 1 piece brand new cage!
 
allreptiles1966 said:
They are not such a big deal Sarah. .His attitude is.
Its also how he does talk to you and thinks its not a big deal when you get broken cages.

Then does nothing about it. Guess being a new buyer was the issue,or maybe since i only had 6 boa's at the time and could only buy 2. Now i have dozens and he is losing out on my $$. Must be nice to have too much $$

I also should not have to use silicone in a 1 piece brand new cage!
Click to expand...

Exactly, there is no reason that you should have to clean up someone else's sloppy job! Especially when you paid an arm and a leg to purchase it. Bottom line here, you paid good money for what you thought was going to be a quality cage, ended up with a not so great cage and no answers from the guy who made them. Bad reputation well deserved on his part. I don't understand why people are here trying to fight his corner. They may have had good transactions with him, we didn't. This is a bad guy thread. Unless he comes on here, himself, to repair his reputation, take your kind words about him, and your defensive attitudes to a good guy thread. We want results and answers from him, not excuses from his past customers who are happy and are trying to cover his back for him.
 
btbutler said:
Exactly, there is no reason that you should have to clean up someone else's sloppy job! Especially when you paid an arm and a leg to purchase it. Bottom line here, you paid good money for what you thought was going to be a quality cage, ended up with a not so great cage and no answers from the guy who made them. Bad reputation well deserved on his part. I don't understand why people are here trying to fight his corner. They may have had good transactions with him, we didn't. This is a bad guy thread. Unless he comes on here, himself, to repair his reputation, take your kind words about him, and your defensive attitudes to a good guy thread. We want results and answers from him, not excuses from his past customers who are happy and are trying to cover his back for him.
Click to expand...

Glad you said it man. I agree totally.The person backing him up is probably friends with him too.
No big deal man and dont sweat that guy.He is a professional ..
 
All right ... I am not friends with Jeff. I do not know the man on a personal level. However, I have ordered caging from both him and Animal Plastics and I feel the need to state the obvious that seems to be missed every time people complain about lead times for caging to be completed. It does not matter which company it is, people seem determined to complain about it all the time without thinking about it.

First off, a lead time is just that, a lead time. This is the earliest your order will arrive. It is not a hard deadline set in stone. Neither Animal Plastics nor the Boaphile delivered the items in the lead time I was given. For AP it was 5-6 weeks (rack arrived in 9 or so) and for the Boaphile the lead time was 6 weeks (arrived in 8). Caging is not kept on hand at either of these locations unless they are stocked with cancelled orders or whatever else.

This is a quote directly from the Boaphile website:

Orders can be shipped in 3-5 weeks after payment has been received and or cleared. We are building in "cycles" most of the time meaning the entire crew is working on building cages for several days or up to a week at a time and then we shift over to racks. This is the most efficient way to manufacture keeping our costs as low as possible and the therefore prices to you as low as we possibly can. Once started, your cage/rack will not take this long to build, but we must build and ship orders as much as possible in the order they are received. There are other mitigating factors such as material availability and efficiency of building similar cages are racks at the same time. Shipping to you will take an additional 1-5 days depending on how far you are from our shipping location. Please keep these things in mind as we work as hard and as fast as we can to build your special customized order as well as we can.

It is always your responsibility, as the buyer, to read all Terms and Conditions pertaining to whatever it is you are purchasing. At the very least, it is your responsibility to ask.

The fact that Jeff builds in cycles is incredibly important. I happened to catch him at the beginning of a cage building cycle (which I asked if he was in it or a rack cycle) and was able to get all five of my cages and the pedastal in a reasonable time frame. If you are ordering caging during the rack cycle or vice versa, obviously it is going to take longer.

I have heard of this same exact issue with every major cage/rack manufacturer from varying people.

There is always going to be people that are happy and people that are upset. It is the nature of the business.

I am not making mistakes for Jeff's CS issues. I have my own headaches with it, but I wanted what I wanted so I persued it.

I do not know the details to your conversations with Jeff when your cages came in damaged Rich, so I have no real comment on it.

I was just pointing out lead times for cage manufacturers.
 
Personally, the lead times do not bother me. I understand that and i know he builds in cycles.My issues were the splits.Then the crappy customer service and his chuckles when i asked bout them. After not answering the emails that he answerd when i wanted to give him the money.
The slpits,no big deal as stated before,just his attitude when trying to get fixed after calling him as suggested.
Diem,i wasnt saying you were the friend so please do not take that towards you.
I still think he has the best cages and would always buy them when they come up around here.
Rich
 
allreptiles1966 said:
Personally, the lead times do not bother me. I understand that and i know he builds in cycles.My issues were the splits.Then the crappy customer service and his chuckles when i asked bout them. After not answering the emails that he answerd when i wanted to give him the money.
The slpits,no big deal as stated before,just his attitude when trying to get fixed after calling him as suggested.
Diem,i wasnt saying you were the friend so please do not take that towards you.
I still think he has the best cages and would always buy them when they come up around here.
Rich
Click to expand...

No worries, Rich, I knew it wasn't directed at me, I was clarifying.

I do not feel your issue was justified and, as I said, I have had my own issue with Jeff's CS, but the issue people take with lead times just makes me scratch my head.

Of all the cages I have seen and used, his are the best in my opinion. It was between him and Constrictor's Northwest when I chose to order and because his cages did not need assembly and are sealed and seamless in the manner they are folded, I chose them. They are also the most visually appealing in my opinion.

It's just one of those things where you either take things with a grain of salt or move elsewhere. I am not slighting your issue, just speaking in terms of unhappy vs. happy customers. I think the cage building business for this industry is always going to be split in that manner.
 
SPJ said:
All I can add to this is that I tried emailing Jeff several times, called several times and because of NEVER being able to get a hold of him or even a reply, I ordered from Reptile Basics.
Jeff needs to get it thru his head that he has a business that is dependent upon customers and he MUST reply to his customers.
I get so sick of hearing the excuse that he doesn't reply to emails, he's busy, etc.
Click to expand...

Steve, you obviously do not understand what an important person the Boaphile is.

If you did, you would understand that you should be grateful that he quickly takes your money. Focusing on the fact that the Boaphile won't return calls from lowly people like me and you or answer the e-mails of lesser peons make you unworthy of greatness of his saggy and split cages.

Those splits and sags must be design features, for the Boaphile does not make mistakes - either in building cages or answering e-mails. The fault lies within you Steve. When dealing with an artiste of the Boaphile's celebrity, you must be prepared for the occasional minor irritation.

Wait times are all the same with everyone but Goldzung. Ali and Goldzung are delights to deal with and will return e-mails, calls, smoke signals and semaphores. Why stand for being treated like a runny sack of crap when you can actually deal with people who act like they WANT your business.

{play track of sadly quacking duck here}
 
I always read everything beforehand, but I guess I read things differently as you. :shrug01:

ShadowAceD said:
This is a quote directly from the Boaphile website:

Orders can be shipped in 3-5 weeks after payment has been received and or cleared.
Click to expand...
See when I see that I'm taking it as three being the minimum and five being the maximum. In my mind that'd be like if told him "I can mail you that check in 3-5 days after I get paid tomorrow" and then when he inquires a few weeks later, I say "I said that I can, not that I would!" :p IMHO If taking up to nine weeks is normal, then perhaps he could tack that on after that sentence for the slow folks like me who may misinterpret things~
Also it makes sense that it'd be quicker if you catch him in the beginning of a rack building cycle as you said, but his words say that each cycle is just "several days up to a week" long before they switch off again, so I'd expect such a delay to only be that long instead of a whole extra month. I did take that into consideration though, which is why I waited until over two weeks past the 'three to five' to say anything.

I understand such delays, I've had lead times take much longer in the past, that's why I made sure to order the caging long before I was going to "need" it. :) As for being one of those unhappy customers who don't get it - I thought I made it clear, my problem was always the lack of response and being left in the dark. I never got upset with him any, I never hounded him, it was just two polite inquires over a week apart asking if he could let me know when to expect my rack since I was no longer sure. I even told him that I may have misread the "3-5 weeks"! Even though an explanation would have been nice, I figured it was something like that so I didn't bother asking, I merely wanted an estimated date if he had an idea. It is my responsibility to ask questions, but I feel that I shouldn't have to email and call multiple times to get them answered. If he had ever replied, I honestly would have forgotten all about it and he would have been a 100% good guy in my mind. As it is, I'm just on the fence. Can't rave either way. I know it's petty, but he could have made a perfectly happy customer if he'd only taken the time to type out a sentence. Seems silly that he doesn't care. :eek3:

P.S. Not trying to fight either, just clarifying that my problem has always been with his customer service~ ;)
 
ShadowAceD said:
No worries, Rich, I knew it wasn't directed at me, I was clarifying.

I do not feel your issue was justified and, as I said, I have had my own issue with Jeff's CS, but the issue people take with lead times just makes me scratch my head.

Of all the cages I have seen and used, his are the best in my opinion. It was between him and Constrictor's Northwest when I chose to order and because his cages did not need assembly and are sealed and seamless in the manner they are folded, I chose them. They are also the most visually appealing in my opinion.

It's just one of those things where you either take things with a grain of salt or move elsewhere. I am not slighting your issue, just speaking in terms of unhappy vs. happy customers. I think the cage building business for this industry is always going to be split in that manner.
Click to expand...



Split cages and bad customer service,and you think its not justified to make this thread? How does someone need to talk to you before you think its justified to speak up?

This thread was perfectly justified when he started ignoring my emails and then laughed on the phone when i told him the cages were split.
And said he was not going to do anything even after telling him i would pay to ship back. I dont get you Diem. Sorry,but i think your wrong and i had all good reasons to start this thread ..
 
Could you provide pictures of these cracks, Rich? Anyone knows Jeff knows that the guy always laughs. That goofy belly laugh is one of Jeff's defining features. I'm pretty sure you could punch him in the face and he'd probably laugh like that. It doesn't mean he didn't take your issue seriously, it's just Jeff being the quirky guy that he is.

I am interested to see these cracks. I personally have a lot of cages from Jeff and have seen many, many more and have never seen cracks on the edges, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. I just want a more tangible example of your problem, here.

Thanks, Chris
 
Doh! Guess it has been a while since I read this whole thread. Thanks, Davey.

Chris
 
JCCS said:
Could you provide pictures of these cracks, Rich? Anyone knows Jeff knows that the guy always laughs. That goofy belly laugh is one of Jeff's defining features. I'm pretty sure you could punch him in the face and he'd probably laugh like that. It doesn't mean he didn't take your issue seriously, it's just Jeff being the quirky guy that he is.

I am interested to see these cracks. I personally have a lot of cages from Jeff and have seen many, many more and have never seen cracks on the edges, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. I just want a more tangible example of your problem, here.

Thanks, Chris
Click to expand...

I dont have pics on my pc anymore.
They are attached to someones reply on here or the 1st thread that was an inquiry on this whole matter.
At that time i didnt know how to upload pics so someone else was kind enough to help me.
But i can tell you Chris, that the 1 was over sanded so much that a credit card slipped right in the long split.

As far as knowing his jolly laugh,didnt know him,these were my 1st brand new cages. And if you heard the whole conversation you would know it wasnt jolly and by the end results of offering no solution,it was a laugh at me for asking about the splits and wanting something done.. Imo.

Like you stated,he could have sent me something to seal it and maybe i would never have been here taking a beating by some.
I was here the whole time and he has not showed up because he is too big for this. Whats 2 cages to him and another 20 possible sales to me. I am growing by leaps and bounds in short time and would have bought many many of his cages and racks.
His loss in many ways Chris. I will treat a person buying 1 boa the same as if someone was buying my whole litter.
 
allreptiles1966 said:
he could have sent me something to seal it
Click to expand...

NO. He should send you a brand new cage without any defects free of charge.
You should not have to fix his mistake. You paid for a cage free of defects. That is not what you got. Jeff needs to get his act together and start taking care of his customers.
 
Thanks Steve ! I thought my boi ad was warranted. But i would have not done this ad if he was respectful and at least offered some way to fix.
I am glad that some see it for what it is. A blundered up job by someone who couldnt even sand properly.
 
Be back later to answer anyhting asked.
Have agreat day all and try to stay cool.
I'm going out to help family pave a parking lot in this crap.I'm retired,Dang family.. LOL
 
allreptiles1966 said:
Split cages and bad customer service,and you think its not justified to make this thread? How does someone need to talk to you before you think its justified to speak up?

This thread was perfectly justified when he started ignoring my emails and then laughed on the phone when i told him the cages were split.
And said he was not going to do anything even after telling him i would pay to ship back. I dont get you Diem. Sorry,but i think your wrong and i had all good reasons to start this thread ..
Click to expand...


You are not alone on the cracks and the splits.

People have had these issues before with these cages, and the usual suspects come forth and defend the Boaphile.

I used to have quite a few of the 421 cages and the racks. Several of the 421s came to me with bad chips at the edge (not my fault *belly laugh!* that happens during shipping! *belly laugh*) and others developed splits over time. (supposedly due to the wicked heavy RHPs hanging from the ceiling- chortle!)

I have one of his racks left (but as with every other rack I've purchased from the.......Boaphile the bottom has sagged to the point the bottom drawer is useless (must have been placed on carpet - belly laugh chortle wheeze).

It was not. It's on a tile floor.

There are other options out there. People who return calls, return e-mails, refund shipping costs if the wait time exceeds what was quoted and who stand behind their products without belly-laughing at your concerns.

As for the production cycle: if his Highness would deign return a call or an e-mail and explain where he currently is in the production cycle, maybe people would actually get an idea on how long the cage will take. That production cycle nonsense only works when the manufacturer is effective at communicating where he is on the production cycle.

AP or RBI or FB tells you (when they return your call of you e-mail) how long it will take. Unfortunately, unless you are on of the one's blessed enough to have him actually answer your call, the Boaphile's production cycle is largely a mystery.
 
Back
Top