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Bad Guy Sellers Beware of John Franco!

S

seanleigh

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SELLERS BEWARE OF JOHN FRANCO

On Feb. 2 John Franco contact me about buying a female Chahoua I had for sale. He asked a couple questions like where I was located, and inquiried about a couple leachies I also had for sale, but ended up settling on a 10mo 15g probable female Chahoua that was imported from Europe. He asked what the best price shipped I could give him and I told him $675. He asked a few more questions and offered $550 payment plan. I told him the absolute lowest I could do would be $650. He asked for my paypal and then sent a $150 deposit. There was a little hiccup with receiving payment but we got everything smoothed out.

On Friday (Feb. 5) he sent another payment of $150 leaving a balance of $350.

Then yesterday (Monday, Feb. 😎 he sent me a message asking if the Chahoua was definitely female. I told him I'm almost positive the Chahoua in question is female but since she's 10mo I can't guarantee anything. He said he needed a sexed female and asked that I refunded his deposit. I informed him that because of my Terms and Conditions specifically say Deposits are NON REFUNDABLE, I unfortunately cannot refund his deposit. I offered to give him credit towards another purchase but he declined it. We went back and forth and he threatened to File a Claim with PayPal. I told him I would have to post on Facebook and Fauna because that would be a clear violation of my T&C and I even showed him the original ads and where my Terms and Conditions are listed (which is about 6 different places on my Facebook Profile and 2 places on Fauna).
I even offered to refund $150 leaving the original $150 deposit but he continued to ignore what I was saying, accused me of stealing $400 from him ($145 + $150 doesn't =$400 FYI), and ended up filing a claim with PayPal. PayPal now has the money on hold and he is requesting that I refund the other $150. I included pictures of our whole convo and as well as my T&C (where you can clearly see it says deposits are NON REFUNDABLE).


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He could have asked if you were sure it was a female but you should have let him know that you didn't really know the sex instead of referring to it as a female in all of the messages. I'd refund and move on. The "my hands are tied" statement was kind of silly as if you didn't have a choice.
 
That conversation would have ended for me at (or more likely before) "625".

Also, whenever I am selling a probable [insert sex here], I make strong efforts to be explicit in repeating that the animal is only probable at that point and not definite nor guaranteed. TSM and TSF have this by implication for TSD species. I also tend to use the neutral it instead of him/her/he/she most of the time for those. Probable (and TSD) sexes carry an inherent risk as purchase options. In some cases, this results in a price adjustment. There are some people who want to lean hard on a probable [X] to "will" it into being a definite [X] through wishful thinking and then try to game sellers when fate plays out otherwise, but that is too bad. It was the risk accepted in the scenario. I have had plenty of unsexed , probable, and supposedly temp-sexed go in divergent directions compared to expectations. Part of the game with those from time to time.
 
Bobby Douglass said:
He could have asked if you were sure it was a female but you should have let him know that you didn't really know the sex instead of referring to it as a female in all of the messages. I'd refund and move on. The "my hands are tied" statement was kind of silly as if you didn't have a choice.
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I would, too, if I somehow tolerated that escalation of offers enough to accept payment in the first place. It is rare that I do.
 
I would return the payments. You continually refer to the animal as a "she" or "her". You still have the lizard, so return the money. Whatever his/her reasons are for backing out, it is not worth the hard feelings. Sounds like purchaser may may buyer's remorse, but let it go.
 
He contacted me so that means he read the ad. The ad specifically stated no pores so poss female and I told him the gecko was 10 MO.

I understand that everybody makes mistakes, but that means that's quite a bit of time of my time that he wasted. My Terms are stated multiple places on both here and Facebook. Deposits are Non Refundable. I was even willing to refund the second $150 but then he filed a claim.
 
What you have to decide for yourself is how much hassle (and potential impact) holding onto the $150 or $300 is worth to you.

I do understand where you are coming from, but the (possible) victory may prove Pyrrhic.
 
Buyer deserves a full refund no questions asked. If you were not sure 100% it was a female you shouldn't go around making it sound like it is. It was a mistake on your part and you should learn from it. The buyer shouldn't have to ask if you are 100% sure if you call it a girl/female on multiple occasions.
 
I can see where both of you are coming from and personally I would just return the money to avoid the headache but part of me thinks his comment about having gotten out of chewies and doesn't need her could be the reason why he pretended he never read the add which specifically says probable female to use the fact that she didn't repete that in any of their messages to get his money back. It really seems to me that he decided he didn't want it anymore and the sex thing seemed like a good way to get out of the contract. Id probably feel a little torn between giving it back to avoid the drama and not letting him out of the contract simply because he changed his mind.
 
Wait I see the AD now....it does say possible female.

Still I think it was bad judgement to call it her/she/female with such confidence in your conversations. Personally I don't think it is worth the trouble, but I see where you are coming from now.
 
He even cuts and pastes the text from her ad that says POSS female and sends it to her. He had to have read what he copied and pasted.
 
when I consider the term "deposit", I picture money sent to hold an animal so no one else can buy it. The deposit reserves the animal for me. What he sent you was payments towards the purchase. About 40% of the total cost of the lizard, in fact. If he thought he was buying a female, and you cannot guarantee the sex, you should simply cut him a check and sell to someone else.
 
Yea I'm not sure why you're so stuck on keeping his money. You referred to it explicitly as "her" or "she" multiple times. It's easy to skim over a "poss" in a block of text when every other word stated implies that it is a definite.

To me you seem very adamant about keeping the $150 when you should have stressed the fact during the sale that you are not 100% certain it's a female. I really don't care what your terms of service are, you referred to it as a female in every single correspondence and never once mentioned that there's a chance it's not. If he was excited about getting it I completely understand him not noticing until after a bit of time has gone by.

Why can't you do a refund if he opened a claim again? Or is it just that you don't want to?
 
The first payment when a payment plan is established is the deposit, usually 25% of the price plus shipping. Everything after that is a payment towards paying off the animal. Most sellers i know including myself have the rule of a 25% non refundable deposit, imo it's pretty standard. Now since we all write our own tos the terms can be changed if we decide the situation warrants it. Like this case, it's up to the seller to decide if she wants to bend her own rules to make the buyer happy. When the first money was sent the buyer agreed to her tos.
 
It looks like the buyer was hasty and didn't slow down to ensure this was truly a female. However, constantly referring to the gecko as "she" is potentially misleading. I do not think the buyer is in the right here, and you are entitled to some compensation for him wasting your time, but keeping the $300 seems like a bit much. From the conversation it sounded at first like you wouldn't refund anything, so maybe that is why the buyer filed a claim. I'm not trying to criticize you, really, just point out the many "she" descriptions could get a buyer off track.

I don't know, keeping even $150 seems wrong to me - although I'm not a seller and I realize I might feel differently if I were. I personally would just refund the whole amount and chalk it up to lesson learned: be super meticulous about always saying "unsexed" or "probable" female.


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juliasara said:
The first payment when a payment plan is established is the deposit, usually 25% of the price plus shipping. Everything after that is a payment towards paying off the animal. Most sellers i know including myself have the rule of a 25% non refundable deposit, imo it's pretty standard. Now since we all write our own tos the terms can be changed if we decide the situation warrants it. Like this case, it's up to the seller to decide if she wants to bend her own rules to make the buyer happy. When the first money was sent the buyer agreed to her tos.
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Even in the money is all sent at once I completely agree with this. Part of the payment is always considered non-refundable in the case of buyer's remorse or some other unforeseen circumstance, just to prevent seller's from wasting their time and holding an animal for nothing. In this case however I don't think a deposit applies, the animal was misrepresented in my opinion.
 
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