Inquiry AC Reptiles, Anthony Caponetto

[AJ S.]

I am thinking about making a purchase from acreptiles.com, Anthony Caponetto. I am new to this. I have never purchased a pet on line and am just trying to get lots of information. Please let me know your opinions! So far my research seems positive but thought I'd check here!

 

[MikeCurtin]

Buy with confidence!!!

 

[Shadera]

Beware, his email has been giving him issues. It seems quite a bit doesn't get through to him. Call if you can, to complete a deal.

 

[AJ S.]

I talked to my UPS guy yesterday and he didn't seem to think it was a very good idea to ship a pet through his company. Do they receive some special haldeling of some type?

 

[MikeCurtin]

Shipping via UPS or Fedex is perfectly safe as long as the seller knows proper shipping methods, which I can guarantee AC does. Priority overnight with insulated boxes and heat or cold packs as they apply.

 

[AJ S.]

Great. Thanks for your info! I'll let you know how the purchase goes!

 

[KelliH]

I've had many transactions with Anthony and he has been great to deal with. He has beautiful animals that are very well cared for, and he is very knowledgeable. You can buy with confidence.

 

[Leibowem]

I just received an order from Anthony last week. I was very pleased with the way they were packaged and the quality of the geckos. It seems he does have some problems with his email, but the quality of his animals is high.

 

[FallenAngel]

We have purchased from Anthony last year, he's a very nice guy and definitely a pleasure doing business with

 

[AJ S.]

Thanks everyone. I feel much more secure hearing nothing but positive info on the guy. I appreciate your feedback!

 

[AJ S.]

So I decided to place my order almost 48 hours ago. The website says that he will contact the purchaser when order is received to arrange shipping. No contact so far. I sent an email and have not had a response. I guess these are the email problems someone mentioned. I was so excited and now becoming very disappointed. And yes, the money has been deducted from my bank account.

 

[TheVipersHouse]

So I decided to place my order almost 48 hours ago. The website says that he will contact the purchaser when order is received to arrange shipping. No contact so far. I sent an email and have not had a response. I guess these are the email problems someone mentioned. I was so excited and now becoming very disappointed. And yes, the money has been deducted from my bank account.

Dont worry no reason to get disappointed . hes a stand up guy . if he is still having email issues then i would strongly suggest giving him a call to make sure he got the order info ..

 

[Shadera]

Whatever you do, don't tell him you want your money back because he's having trouble on his end that you aren't responsible for. That's what happened with the purchase I had made, to which he basically said he doesn't give refunds, good luck getting my money back, and he put that animal back up for sale within an hour.

He did end up refunding after I went after him through paypal and my CC company.

 

[AJ S.]

I have not been able to find a phone number on his website. Does anyone have a contact number?

 

[Shadera]

He's parked on this thread with his username here, so I'm sure he knows about ya. Best of luck. He's got some awesome geckos.

 

[ajc]

Not quite how it happened...

Whatever you do, don't tell him you want your money back because he's having trouble on his end that you aren't responsible for. That's what happened with the purchase I had made, to which he basically said he doesn't give refunds, good luck getting my money back, and he put that animal back up for sale within an hour.

He did end up refunding after I went after him through paypal and my CC company.

Hey everyone,

I try not to get into this stuff, but the above post is "less than truthful" and I'm not going to stand for it.

In the end, I told Shadera that her business is no longer wanted.

By the way, PLEASE read the whole thing before you make a comment...

1/27/09
Shadera ordered a crested gecko for $120+shipping. It was too cold to ship that week.

2/4/09
I sent an email asking if we could ship on 2/11/09.

2/12/09 - Long day, so I'll have to number the highlights...

1. Shadera sent me an email requesting a refund because I didn't ship on the date specified.

Apparently I missed her email, and consequently missed her shipment.

Remember, we're talking about a two week shipping delay in the dead of winter. This is totally normal this time of year, so I didn't think anything of it when I didn't get a response from her.

Normally I'm much more friendly and avoid quoting my Terms, etc. Shadera's email, however, had a snide tone (asking rhetorical questions, that kind of thing), so in a very matter-of-fact manner, I explained how the mixup happened, explained why I don't ship automatically without hearing from the customer and I reminded her of our no-returns policy (which I always try to stick to) and said that I could ship the gecko out asap.

As bad as it is to miss a shipment, you have to remember how scary the opposite situation is...shipping when you aren't supposed to ship and geckos may sit on the porch (or in a hot/cold truck) all day. We're shipping living animals cross-country in a styrofoam box...I think making sure they don't get stuck on the porch (or on a truck) all day is the least we can do for them. Call me a big wuss, but I take it pretty hard when my "babies" die because of something I could have prevented.

2. Shadera sends me a scathing email this time, telling me things like "your poor customer service isn't my problem", threatening to put me on the BOI or do a chargeback if I don't refund her money, yada yada.

At this point, I knew I was in for a long day, so I went in and changed the status of her order to "Pending". I did this so that I wouldn't accidentally send her an automated email about shipping her gecko tomorrow (or something like that). I just figured that would look like I wasn't paying attention and probably set her off further.

Well, when I changed the status, the cart changed the inventory on that gecko back to 1, so the sold tag accidentally got taken off. It was only a matter of minutes before I realized and corrected it.

3. Unfortunately, Shadera saw the sold tag was gone before I fiexed it, so she sent another email threatening to put me on the BOI. This time, she was threatening to put me on the BOI if I sold the gecko out from under her.

Remember, an hour earlier, she was threatening to put me on the BOI if I didn't refund her money! lol

I immediately explained the status issue to Shadera (and reminded her that it was already fixed). Apparently she doesn't want to hear that because, to this day, she's still running around telling people that I put her gecko back up for sale!

4. I get home from work 30 minutes later and low and behold, I have a chargeback notice from paypal.

5. At this point, I realized that this isn't worth it (darned if you do, darned if you don't), so I started processing the refund.

Before I can make three clicks, she's typing me another email.

This one is telling me why I'm wrong (again), but then it gets much better....

Shadera goes on to say that she would still like to have the gecko and that she would be willing reverse the chargeback and keep this off the BOI, but I would have to give her a reason to do so.

Wow, nothing makes me want to take extra special care of a customer like extortion. lol

6. Obviously, no amount of money is worth that kind of stress, so I promptly explained that I had already refunded her money and explained why I did not need or want her business.

Bottom line, I want all my customers to be happy and I'm notorious for sending out free geckos when I do screw up...but occasionally you have a customer whom you're better off not serving. Shadera is the second customer in seven years that I've told "don't come back" and I still stand behind that as the right decision.

----------------------------------------------------

As for the email shipping/issue, that's admittedly been a problem and it's not cool with me. The main problem is spam filters (coming and going), but I've also had trouble getting the hang of our new online store system. My business has literally tripled in size in just over two years, so that combined with a new facility and website format made for a VERY rough year. I'm now aware that it's no longer possible to do everything through email all by myself...it's like a chef turned restaurant owner trying to wait all the tables. You might have the best intentions, but it still won't work!

The good news is, the growing pains are almost over and we'll have more help soon. We also just had a new phone line installed and we're now trying to work out the logistics of how to do phone calls, before I put it on the website. Oh yeah, we're also going to implement a new shipment scheduling system in the next few days (the online scheduler we were using was terrible...people were scheduling Sunday shipments, etc.)

 

[ajc]

So I decided to place my order almost 48 hours ago. The website says that he will contact the purchaser when order is received to arrange shipping. No contact so far. I sent an email and have not had a response. I guess these are the email problems someone mentioned. I was so excited and now becoming very disappointed. And yes, the money has been deducted from my bank account.

Hi AJ

There's actually a notice on my home page about shipping this week. I put it up there early Monday morning, but I'm guessing you didn't notice it? We'll be shipping on Monday if the weather is safe.

Check your email!

Thanks,
Anthony

 

[ajc]

I talked to my UPS guy yesterday and he didn't seem to think it was a very good idea to ship a pet through his company. Do they receive some special haldeling of some type?

I've been doing this for seven years with excellent results. My UPS account has a special exception because we're a business and spend a certain amount every month, so we're approved to ship reptiles through UPS.

UPS and FedEx are pretty much industry standard for geckos...nothing at all to worry about there.

 

[AJ S.]

Thank you! I wasn't trying to get all this started, just trying to do some research. Thanks for your feedback everyone!

 

[Shadera]

Post the emails Anthony. Not just a story telling your side of it.

My side is this:
1) I order gecko from Anthony. He sends email asking if date will be okay to ship, to which I send a reply of yes that is great.
2) 2 days after the gecko was supposed to arrive, I emailed asking for a refund of my money since My. Caponetto is not interested in holding up his end of the deal. The weather's getting cold again and I have no desire to wait another month.
3) Receive a reply saying he never heard from me that the shipping date was okay with me, tells me he's not canceling an order and will not refund my money. Tells me good luck getting a refund through paypal as they usually side with the seller. No "I'm sorry", not even any humanity in the email. Just matter-of-fact and good luck with that. If he won't 'voluntarily cancel the order', that makes me think I must take the gecko. THAT is why I bring up the gecko again. There was no offer to ship asap, as he claims.
4) He puts gecko back up for sale. To which yes I did get extremely angry. To tell a customer you're not giving them their money back for an error on YOUR end and to put the animal back up for sale? I was shocked that he's grown his business to this point taking money and giving nothing in return to unhappy customers. The animal being put back up for sale was not explained to me, as he claims it was.
5) I file with paypal, since he's made it clear to me that I'm not getting anywhere with him. If he's not sending the gecko, I certainly want my money back. Is that SO wrong?
6) He sends me a refund a couple days after that, and I don't figure what happened is enough for a BOI post since he did eventually refund me. But I don't think refunding my money should be an order for me to keep my mouth shut forever should the opportunity arise.
7) Receive email from Anthony this morning threatening legal actions for my "slander".

And here are emails. People can decide for themselves whether or not you handled it well. I don't feel I was a bit unjustified in being angry for the way you spoke to me.

fromShadera Lorrain <[email protected]>
toAnthony Caponetto <[email protected]>

dateThu, Feb 12, 2009 at 8:55 PM
subjectRe: Anthony Caponetto Reptiles: Order #10372 Next Shipping Day
mailed-bygmail.com

hide details Feb 12 Reply


I don't feel I'm being unreasonable. This is an error on your end, and I feel that asking for a refund rather than waiting what could possibly be weeks before the animal is shipped when you had a perfect whole week to ship and didn't nor did you contact me is reasonable. It wasn't due to weather, it was due to you not paying attention. You didn't have to go from 0 - jerk. You could have explained, apologized, and tried to set up an alternative. How do you expect people to react when you tell them you're not refunding their money and then relist the animal?!?

I've asked you to communicate with me, yet you refuse. The paypal claim can always be cancelled, but I'm not taking it down without reason to. If you're going to hold me to your terms that don't give clause for a mess up on your end, then I have no choice but to hang onto paypal for what I feel is rightfully mine.

Or, if you want to stick to your word, that you gave in emails saying that you wouldn't cancel the transaction, you need to let me know what's going on with the gecko. Did you resell it, do you plan to still ship to me...what?

I would appreciate a response.
Shadera


- Hide quoted text -
On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 5:19 PM, Shadera Lorrain <[email protected]> wrote:

Please reply as to what you intend to do. If you cancel this order after you told me you would not voluntarily do so, I have no choice but to go to the BOI. Others should be warned that this is how you react when customers are not happy because you aren't getting emails which isn't the customer's fault.

I've filed a claim with paypal, I feel I have no other choice.

Shadera

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Shadera Lorrain <[email protected]> wrote:

YOUR words. Bolded, underlined, and italicized. You have no right to relist that animal.



On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Anthony Caponetto <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Shadera,

1. I never got any sort of response to the email that I sent last week, so I held off on shipping. It's very clearly explained on my terms page that I will never ship an animal without having explicit confirmation that the customer will be there.

2. As per my terms, the ones you were supposed to read before checking the box at the check-out page, there are no cancellations on animal orders and this expressly includes animals that are ordered when weather makes shipping difficult.

If you'd like to file a chargeback with your credit card company, you're entitled to do so and see what happens in a couple months (sometimes they hold customers to the terms and sometimes they don't) but I will not voluntarily cancel this order because there was a shipping mix up.

Thanks!
Anthony Caponetto
www.ACReptiles.com
www.CarpetPythons.net
www.Ciliatus.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Shadera Lorrain [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 12:15 PM
To: Anthony Caponetto
Subject: Re: Anthony Caponetto Reptiles: Order #10372 Next Shipping Day


Hi Anthony. I thought this gecko was going to ship this last Tuesday? I gave you the benefit of the doubt, figured you were busy, and waited until today to see if he would show up. This week has been beautiful warmer weather and I have received several other shipments of reptiles during this break.

Unfortunately, we go back to freezing temps next week.

No communication from you and you didn't ship on the agreed date..?

Please refund my money at your earliest convenience.

Shadera


On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 8:48 PM, Shadera Lorrain <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Anthony.

Wednesday works great for me. Thanks, I appreciate the email!

Shadera


On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 7:06 PM, Anthony Caponetto <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Shandra,

Unfortunately I will be gone all day on Monday...how does Wednesday look (thinking we could ship Tuesday) for you?

Cresties definitely take the cold better than pythons, but anything under 32 is still freezing, no matter what species. lol

Thanks!
Anthony Caponetto
www.ACReptiles.com
www.CarpetPythons.net
www.Ciliatus.com