I have also recently had an experience conducting business with Dena Freeman. The timeline of my experience runs concurrently with this story, but starts much earlier.
At the beginning of August, a Facebook based effort known as Breeder Shield began running auctions to benefit Ashley Jawiche of Scaredy Cat Geckos. The purpose of Breeder Shield is to raise funds for breeders in the community who have serious, unexpected trouble fall onto them. A prior Breeder Shield benefit was run to raise funds to support a breeder whose husband had recently been diagnosed with a serious cancer, for example. Dena Freeman donated several geckos to the auctions for Ms. Jawiche, including three female Tremper Tangerines from Tangelo lines, each worth about $165. On August 4th, I won those auctions for a combined total of $100. The $100 was sent by PayPal directly to Ms. Jawiche.
As the temperatures were hot, and I was preparing to start up school again, I held off contacting her about shipping for a while. I didn't yet have the room, and several other reasons. Turns out she wouldn't have been able to ship anyway due to the temps on her end. We chatted back and forth during the next few months about the geckos. I was in no rush. She got me a couple of updated pictures of the three during this time as well, though I hadn't seen all of them. As I said, I wasn't in any hurry, so I was fine getting update pictures of only two of the geckos. They looked healthy and that's what mattered. She also told me that these tangs weren't nearly as pretty in the pictures as they were in person, so she wanted to give me a little bit of a surprise when they arrived and I could see how pretty they were in person. I liked this idea, especially knowing how hard it can be to capture the true beauty of some of these animals. I would get to see how amazing they were with only a general idea of what they looked like. During this time I also entered in her giveaway contest for a 1.1 pair of Bold Stripe Lavender Snows that originated from GeckoBoa, as I qualified for entry with my Breeder Shield purchases. These geckos were worth $239 each as priced by John Scarborough of GeckoBoa, $478 for the pair, and I thought it might be fun to have them if I happened to get lucky as I've gotten interested in bolds lately. I didn't expect to win anyway because I have terrible luck when it comes to that.
October came around and temps began to cool right around the beginning. We saw a break in the heat in her area and scheduled shipping for Oct 5th. I sent her the shipping cost around this time and she let me know she had recieved it. While we were discussing the shipping, she asked me the hypothetical question that if i could choose any female gecko from her various lines, which would it be? I looked and I told her I loved her Red Stripe RADARs and her Pacific Greens. I'm a bit on the clever side and I had a strong feeling she might be including a surprise gecko for me. Turns out my hunch was very correct as she messaged me saying that she had forgotten to include a letter she had written to me that explained how she was giving me this Pacific Green as a bonus for having participated in the Breeder Shield. I was so excited by her generosity toward me.
Oct 6th I got the box, opened it up, and was blown away by what I saw. What I saw was three Tremper Tangs that were the most stunning orange, and a Pacific Green worth ~$225 with incredible green/orange contrast. Every single gecko looked healthy and plump. I took some quick pictures and tucked them away as they were jumpy, as was expected after such a trip. The only thing wrong with the shipping was that I noticed two of the birth dates on the lids appeared switched. I double checked with her and with the original auctions and matched the geckos properly. No real harm done there. I found in the next few days that the PG she sent was (and still is) an extremely personable gecko. He loves keeping an eye on me.
October 10th (I think) I was taking weights and better pictures in better light, when one of my Tang gals squirmed free of my hand and broke her leg. Freak accident, torque must've been just right or something. I alerted Dena and she told me to let her know if I needed a replacement for her. I told her I'd let her know if I needed a replacement for her, if the healing of her leg didn't go well or anything that made her unfit to breed. So far the healing is going quite well. The bone appears to have fused back together. During her healing though, I noticed she appears to have what I believe to be polydactyly, extra toes, on her front feet. It took me a while to notice them and unless you are looking at them extremely close, you wouldn't really be able to tell. I only noticed because I was taking the time to tong feed her food with extra calcium. I told her and showed her pictures and she again offered me a replacement since the gecko would be considered defective. Right now I've tabled that offer, not declined it, simply because I don't have the space.
Then, lo and behold, the contest for the 1.1 BSLS geckos I had forgotten about and actually discounted because I never win luck-based contests, produced me as a winner. She used that random name generator to pick the winner, and has the video on her page as proof. We arranged shipping for the following week. I sent her the shipping payment, as per the conditions of the contest, which she told me she got when she got alerted by PayPal. We were worried a little bit about the temps, we didn't want them to be too hot or too cold. She detailed how she went about packing them with a heat pack. I actually recieved them yesterday and they are calm, beautiful, and the heat pack under the lid was still nice and warm.
If you noticed throughout my story I made note of what each gecko was worth. This was on purpose to prove a point I want people to see...
Gecko Values
Tremper Tangs: $165*3 = $495
Pacific Green: $225
Bold Stripe Snows: $239*2 = $478
Total Value of Geckos: $1178
Total Paid (not including shipping): $100 to Ashley Jawiche
The only dime that ever went to Dena was the shipping costs, which she doesn't even get to keep. She did not profit from any of the geckos sent to me, though the estimated value is almost $1200. Not to mention she has offered several times to correct the issues with Temperance (the polydactyl gecko who broke her leg) without me even asking or prompting her for such. Such generosity is not the behavior of a sketchy business owner... And I have seen many a sketchy business just in the past year. It's extremely unfortunate Rachel's situation went down the way it did, but despite the mistakes I do see through her story the same woman who is carefully boxing up my geckos so they don't get too hot or too cold, who is giving me a surprise bonus gecko that is ridiculously beautiful, and who is offering me a replacement for a minor defect she missed and an injury that wasn't her fault. That is the Dena Freeman I have come to know these past few months.
