It's only illegal without their consent, which can be asked via text. imo Refusal would be taken as suspicious by most buyers.
I can see that. But...
I have a hard time setting up video chats and phone calls times with friends, family, and co workers.
A lot of people just have to work long hours to make ends meet.
I guess if you just sell the reptiles for a business, then I guess you could.
But in the last year, I was told by 2 different major breeders that they needed an answer if I was going to buy the animals in question right away, because there was a wait list for them. I just asked how much was it and was it still available.
The number one complaint I hear from major breeders is someone wasting their time with endless questions and contacts just to not buy the animal.
I understand what you are saying, but I don't know if suspicion should fall on a person for having a busy life and/or willingness to waste a lot of time for no sells.
I would love to video chat with someone professional breeders over the animals that I am going to buy, but I also accept that they time, energy, and food they give the animal I am buying may be just on the limit of making it worth breeding at all. Having 30 customers each demanding a video chat over a 200-1000 dollar animal, may just be a big enough time suck to make it not worth breeding them at all.
Of course, I only get the low price animals, localities mainly, so I can not speak about people putting thousands of dollars on the line. And at some point you spending 3000 dollars on a pair of animals there is an expectation of better service. For 3000 dollars, there better be a video chat or two, maybe? I don't know.
I do know that I am currently laid up in bed, with nothing better to do then watch youtube videos, yet it took me over 10 hours to reply to this thread. Some times, life takes over and you just don't have the time. Even when you do.
And all that will not really save you from a good scammer. Because they will preload video for you to watch, do some type of video tricks, or simply say they don't have a working camera, and still scam you.
I hate to blame the victim, but scamming is lying. It takes 2 people to lie. It takes the person telling the lie and the person believing the lie. Once again, not going to victim blame here because anyone can be tricked into a con. But if you just spent a little time researching and fact checking scammers, you can avoid most of them. I believe better then any video scam. As a buyer. Being a seller is a different story.
And yes, no amount of due diligence will prevent you from never getting ripped off. Yes, I have been ripped off. Which is why we have the BOI and buyer and seller protections for paypal.
At some point you have to trust the person selling you the object and a the person selling the object needs to trust you. Video chats maybe the way. Or they can just be a huge time suck. I don't know.
I would be interested in hearing from professional breeders about this. Do you have the time to do video chats with every sale?
