Bad Guy Anthony Caponetto - acreptiles.com

[pookiebuttons]

I think the gecko is very cute and the under bite is very minimal. I think Anthony has been very fair with you. I don't understand why this has been made into such a huge deal. Seems like a waste of energy to me. Hmm.

 

[Mister Internet]

Huh... my "princess", "daddy's girl", and "diva" alarms are all clanging full volume.

Courtney, you are done. Send the gecko back, take your money, and find another seller dumb enough to try doing business with you after reading this thread. Anthony, I'd buy from you any day of the week.

It's always amusing when a buyer starts one of these threads so convinced they are in the right and everyone (and yes, I mean EVERYONE) reading the thread is on the seller's side from the buyer's OWN EVIDENCE lol... love the BOI.

 

[pookiebuttons]

It's nice to be able to hear both sides of the story. This was posted on Pangea forum but the name of the seller was not mentioned nor was the sellers side of the story present. So everyone was siding with the buyer. Always good to hear both sides.

 

[ajc]

so proud of this gecko that you neglected to mention it had an underbite? Perhaps you all would agree with me if you saw him licking water off of his enormous eyes and his inability to stay clung to the wall.. and no, he's not shedding..

Please know that I'm only bothering to type this because I want the gecko to survive....schooling you in a thread you started in order to berate me is just a small consolation.

I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't want to fan the fire for no good reason, but you brought it up and the gecko is obviously dehydrated, so I may as well address it before someone else does.

Your gecko is fairly dehydrated in the pictures (which you took at least 2-3 full days after you got the gecko). I know it didn't look like that when I shipped it to you because I personally misted the entire deli cup right before the UPS guy showed up, and I would fire someone if my geckos ever looked like that.

Dehydration is why your gecko can't climb up the cage glass. That exact issue is covered in the FAQ section on ciliatus.com. Since you're obviously new to this, the wrinkled skin along the sides, down by the belly, is also a tell-tale sign that the gecko is dehydrated. That's also why his head looks slightly sunken in and the edges look "sharp" for lack of a better term.

The gecko doesn't need a vet - it just needs an owner who can keep it at 70-75 degrees and provide food and water *properly* 2-3 times a week. It's really pretty hard to screw that up if you're paying attention.

Until the gecko looks better, you need to mist it lightly 2-3 times a day (or more if you can) and make sure there's a large, but shallow dish of water in the cage.

-Anthony

 

[shinezilla]

so proud of this gecko that you neglected to mention it had an underbite? Perhaps you all would agree with me if you saw him licking water off of his enormous eyes and his inability to stay clung to the wall.. and no, he's not shedding..

It's not abnormal that he isn't clinging to glass... A couple of my Cresteds when I first got them as babies didn't cling for a bit... Even had a Tokay that didn't cling onto glass till after a month or so of having him.

And the big, bulgy, eyes sound adorable... Why are you digging for reasons not to like the little guy.

$100 isn't too bad, are you having buyer's remorse?

 

[ajc]

I was going to offer to cut off my pinky finger, a la Japanese mafia...you know, as a penalty for the dishonor that I've brought to her family with this abomination of a gecko.

But then I thought to myself "No, if I offer a pinky, she'll want a thumb...and if I agree to a thumb, then who knows what she'll ask me to cut off."

 

[LauraB]

EXIF data I'm pulling shows one photo taken on 6-11, the other two photos taken on 6-17.

Can anyone else confirm the EXIF I'm reading?

 

[ccourtneyj]

Hey that's funny, none of my other geckos have this problem.. he's been getting the proper care since I have gotten him. Just because I was unhappy doesn't mean that I would slack in my care. The gecko you see is the gecko I received.. A gecko sitting in a box for two days in 80+ degree weather is obviously not good for it. Yea I took pictures different days and posted the clearest ones. Whatever the gecko turned out to be I was planning on breeding it with one of my hot red dalmatians. I wouldn't introduce an underbite into my gene pool. My care is top notch, my females aren't calcium deficient from laying too many eggs as described to be the reason he had an under bite. We're all entitled to our opinions, and mine is that I was taken advantage of.

 

[Talkenlate04]

EXIF data I'm pulling shows one photo taken on 6-11, the other two photos taken on 6-17.

Can anyone else confirm the EXIF I'm reading?

I have the same thing over here too. You cannot see the ribs of the gecko in the first two pics, but in that last picture taken 6 days later the ribs are easier to spot. I agree dehydration would be a cause for that and the not climbing glass.

 

[pookiebuttons]

How exactly were you taken advantage of? Sounds like you were trying to take advantage of him by requesting books worth more than the gecko. I can understand being upset about the delayed initial contact, but once he got back to you he was very fair and willing to fix the situation. And why don't you want to keep the gecko even as a pet, it's so cute! Poor thing. It deserves to be loved too. The under bite will probably go away, but if it doesn't it's still a nice gecko to have. It should not be thought of as a reject not worth loving. Send it to me! I'll love it.

 

[KelliH]

It took 5 days for me to get a response.. and it was not until after I said something about the BOI and the BBB did I get a response back in the next hour and a half.

Reptile breeders have lives outside of their geckos. They have families, they travel to reptile shows, they take vacations, they even from time to time get sick and yes, even have personal problems. And sometimes they get just really super busy with their gecko work! I understand your frustration about not getting a prompt reply to your initial emails, but when Anthony did reply to you, he wrote-

Courtney,


I've looked at the photos and honestly, that's something I can safely say I probably missed. That's actually a pretty mild underbite for a youngster, and we don't see very many of those at all (maybe a dozen a year out of 3,000+), so I would've had to be looking a lot closer. That's actually fairly common in several species of rhacodactylus geckos, especially when they're younger....usually they grow out of it, but not always. In my colony, their nutrition is top notch, so it has something to do with low calcium reserves in mom - usually from laying a lot of eggs.


The underbite will probably go away, but I can assure you that's not genetic - our reds and red dalmatians have awesome structure. How about you just keep that gecko (we'll say for the delay in getting back to you), and I'll send you another one free of charge...and one that doesn't look like my boxer (dog).


I'm really sorry about the delay in getting back to you. I actually make it a point (usually) to make any email like this a top priority - I never want anyone to worry about not getting their money's worth and I'd never soil my reputation over a less than perfect arrival. We just get really busy keeping all the animals healthy and in clean cages this time of year, so I'm usually worn slick by the time I get to emails - and then I miss things. :-/


Thanks again for your business and hopefully we can get this worked out so that you'll want to buy another gecko from me some day. lol


-Anthony

He was apologetic and was totally nice to you!


I should have been sent a nice healthy gecko to begin with.

Of course you should have been. However, no one is perfect and mistakes are sometimes made by everyone, right? Right, and Anthony freely admitted he did indeed miss the extremely minor flaw.

I was concerned with shipping the other gecko back because of the heat over the next couple weeks, and I was told I would not get the other until I sent that one out (after he already sent shipping confirmation for this wednesday, which I had already rearrange my plans to be home for).

Understandable again, but had you been a tad more cool about the honest mistake that was made, you would not have been in that situation, and Anthony would have told you not to sweat it; ship the animal back when you felt comfortable doing so. Or of course you could have had your "little sister take care of it". OR taken his offer of a credit until you were more comfortable shipping.


To intentionally inbreed a father to its daughters is different then throwing some cousins into the mix.

Wow, how do you think those awesome morphs you like admiring in your collection came about? All the hard work that breeders like Anthony and others have done for the last decade or more has largely consisted of line breeding, which means that offspring were bred back to parents, grandparents, siblings to each other and etc. Of course all of us realize the importance of outcrossing but really with ciliatus we are dealing with a rather sparse gene pool to begin with.

A $100 hatchling should be a nice breeder, not just for a pet. It's not the money that's the issue, it's taking a gecko with a problem and passing it off on someone else and then making it like you're doing them a favor and saying oh well keep it. Either way, it's a win for him.. He culls out his unwanted stock, and if I hadn't said anything, he made a sale off of it. Oh well, either way, buyer beware.. you win some, you lose some.. I learned my lesson,don't buy anything you've never seen a picture of, or are able to handle and look over in person. If you can't trust in reputation, what do we have? Obviously I was not happy with our transaction, would any of you pay $100 and been happy with this purchase? probably not.

I'm not even going to take any more of our time to respond to any of this last part of your post. I will give you some advice however. Learn from this experience. If you are serious about herpetoculture and you are lucky enough and talented enough to expand your hobby to a business, I guarantee you a similar situation will happen to you, only you will be in Anthony's position. Don't sweat the small stuff, be generous to your customers when you make a mistake (and you WILL make mistakes) and it will not only pay off for you in a business sense but it will also make you stand out in this business.

Anthony, love ya Bro.

 

[Mystic Exotics]

Courtney,
I have to agree with everyone on here, that Anthony has been MORE than fair with you, & aside from the initial delay in response, I see nothing wrong with his responses to you.
I have never ordered any reptiles from Anthony, but based on what I see here, I would order from him.
It's time to let it go & cherish the gecko that you have.

 

[ajc]

Last post - she just touched on a couple of topics that I'm pretty passionate about.

Hey that's funny, none of my other geckos have this problem.. he's been getting the proper care since I have gotten him. Just because I was unhappy doesn't mean that I would slack in my care. The gecko you see is the gecko I received.. A gecko sitting in a box for two days in 80+ degree weather is obviously not good for it. Yea I took pictures different days and posted the clearest ones. Whatever the gecko turned out to be I was planning on breeding it with one of my hot red dalmatians. I wouldn't introduce an underbite into my gene pool. My care is top notch, my females aren't calcium deficient from laying too many eggs as described to be the reason he had an under bite. We're all entitled to our opinions, and mine is that I was taken advantage of.

A. Calcium Issue - Even with the best of care, some females will become SLIGHTLY calcium deficient after laying eggs. This has nothing to do with me being a mega-breeder (I am not) and it happens in collections a tenth the size of mine - I know this because people email me about it from time to time. This is usually noted by a wavy tail, etc.

When we notice this, the female is moved to the "hospital" rack. We don't do anything different for them - just keep them alone for a few weeks. We never, and I mean never, lose any of these geckos. And for the record, the hospital rack holds six containers and is never full.

Our breeders live well, as do the geckos that I sell - hence the 30 day health guarantee and the fact that I'm still in business.

B. Inbreeding - The inbreeding topic is something I'm obviously not afraid to talk about - that's why there's a big long article about inbreeding on Ciliatus.com.

In fact, that article is what led to a handful of ignorant people on the Pangea forum bringing it up at every opportunity. They like to cling to the "inbreeding" topic when looking for a reason not to buy from a "big evil mega corporation" like ACReptiles.com. In a lot of cases, these people have actually read the "inbreeding" article and know that I rarely line-breed, but they're jealous or think they're doing Matt (Pangea) a favor by berating my animals (like we're suppsed to be arch rivals or something). These folks do their best to con the newbies into thinking that my stuff is all inbred junk.

The reality is that everyone is inbreeding to some extent...and I'd venture to say that fewer than three or four other breeders could possibly compete with me in terms of genetic diversity, and even those I think would be hard pressed to match me. The fact of the matter is, the difference between me and the bigger breeders (and many smaller breeders) is that I pay strict attention to these details, even though it means only producing one tenth the geckos per man hour that a commercial breeder can produce.

But whatever - I have to take the bullet because I wrote the article and refuse to use big name breeders as examples, and I won't take the article down.

 

[JudyC]

... Oh well, either way, buyer beware...

Seller beware, too.

 

[SamanthaJane13]

On May 22nd, 2010 I placed an order on acreptiles.com to purchase an unsexed, 4-8 week old red dalmatian from Anthony's famous gecko Chip's line. There was no picture, but showed the father and three potential mothers. The package got delayed a day (incorrect routing) and was sitting in Virginia for a day which I worried about. I finally received the package June 9th, opened it, took a quick picture to admire my new purchase (I didn't want to overhandle and stress my new gecko out any futher) and let him go into his new home that I had set up for him.

On June 10th I took the gecko out to look him over, and noticed an under bite. The following day I emailed Anthony about it, and continued to several times over the next few days because I was not getting a response. I finally received a response on June 16th (In my opinion an email stating in the subject "a problem with my recent purchase" when dealing live animals should be answered promptly.. especially when you don’t have a phone number for you company). Several emails have been sent back and forth; originally I was told to keep the gecko and he would be sending another healthy one. I told him I did not want the original, and I would send it back when the weather permitted. I requested my money back, but was denied. Then I requested books from him, but he said he did not stock them.

At this point, my only option was to receive another gecko and Anthony allowed me to select another gecko from a picture because I did not want a gecko from the same breeding pair, he even sent me an email confirmation that the order was being shipped on Wednesday June 23rd. He said I had ten days to send back the original gecko (even though his site claims a 30 day health guarantee), and I said that the weather supposed to get really hot, and I'd send him back when the weather permits.

He then proceeded to change his mind all together and said that he did want the original gecko back (which I was trying to get him to take back from the beginning). He said he wouldn't ship me another until he got this one back. Now he says that he will not ship me a new healthy gecko at all, leaving me stuck with this expensive deformed animal.

Ultimately, I made this purchase under the impression that I would be receiving a healthy gecko free from deformities. This gecko (pictures below) has an under bite and bulging eyes.. something that I believe should have been disclosed prior to purchasing, this was not a "scratch and dent" buy. I have been raising and breeding cresteds for years and none of mine have ever looked like that. I did read (after I had placed my order) that he intentionally inbreeds, which is something I am very against because of the problems and deformities it can cause (and because it's just wrong![my opinion]).

Anthony's last few emails claimed that he changed his mind because supposedly I was nasty to him, but reviewing the emails (which I have included) I still don't see that. In fact, the only nasty emails I see are from him, calling me a jerk and problem customer. I am very direct, and believe in getting what I pay for. I don't think $100 is cheap for a hatchling, and I expected a little more and am very upset and disappointed. I now have to care for (vet bill and all) this unhealthy odd looking "special needs" gecko.
All he had to do was make good on his word, ship me a healthy gecko (or a refund) and I would have sent him the other gecko. Then I would not be posting this bad review. I still expect him to take the unhealthy gecko back and either refund my money or ship me a healthy gecko.
If anything hopefully this review will prevent someone else from being ripped off. Please read all of the emails (sorry, it will take awhile) before forming an opinion and posting. The emails are reversed starting with his last response at the top to my first at the bottom. There were several other emails regarding shipping issues (the first few) which I did not include because it did not pertain to the health issue. I would be happy to forward those to anyone seriously interested.
Thanks for reading my rant, I am quite upset. This has been dragged out for awhile and all I wanted was a healthy gecko to add to my collection. I am notifing Anthony of this post, although he did say he was blocking my emails.
-Courtney Jackson

Hey, Princess...er...Courtney-

Ship that poor baby to me if you're not capable of living him for what he is.

I have several AC geckos, and they are all SUPERB!

I also have taken in several handicapped geckos-one with an amputated front paw and a few with congenital MBD, and ALL my "special" children have FOREVER HOMES...including my 2 human children, who both have learning disorders. I also have special needs dogs and cats.

Believe me-that Chips-line baby is ADORABLE-and NOT a freak!! Have you ever heard of a GROWTH SPURT??? Not all parts of an animal grow at the same rate, but with time, patience, and proper nutrition and care, it all evens out 99.9% of the time.

Do the world a favor, and never have human children.

God forbid if they weren't perfect or failed to live up to YOUR expectations of what a child should be...you may end up with deep legal problems for trying to get rid of them.

 

[SamanthaJane13]

Ship that poor baby to me if you're not capable of living him for what he is.

TYPO-Meant to type "LOVING HIM".

 

[Dragonscalestudios]

I really must say, the "princess" name-calling, and multiple comments directing Courtney not to have children are uncalled for.

Everyone should also remember, there are people out there who are not in the herp hobby simply because they love herps (with defects or otherwise). Which it is evident Courtney is among the "non-defect hobbyists" group, as she complains about the burdens of caring for a "defective" animal...

Not that it needs further backing but Courtney, dehydration can also cause the eyes to bulge.

Courtney, Anthony has all but offered to bend-over backwards to accommodate you and get you the animal you want. If you are not willing to ship an animal because the weather does not meet the animal's welfare needs, what makes you think Anthony would?

It is a shame that this simple issue could not have been resolved simply. If I was into Rhacs, I would buy from Anthony after reading this thread.

 

[chamgirl99471]

Anthony, How dare you send a gecko with a slight underbite!? How Dare you offer to send another Free of Charge and let her keep the Horribly Deformed Gecko!? How Dare you NOT Stock Books!?

In all seriousness and from what I've read on Anthony, He's a stand up guy and he did Everything he possibly could to make this right! The pictures themselves are worth a thousand words as the gecko looks worse After you received it! In my opinion.. everytime Courney posts something on here she makes herself look worse!

Courtney... I would have taken the replacement offer and then placed the original up for adoption if you really didn't want to have him in your breeding stock! That in my opinion would have been the simple solution to this! Instead you insisted on sending it back to Anthony then complain when EVERYTHING didn't go YOUR Way!

At this point in time I wouldn't hesitate to buy from Anthony but God Forbid if I sold to Courtney and the animal had dirt on it's face.. what would happen then?!

Good Luck with this and Hope it all works out in the end but Courtney... I would take some lessons from the folks here on the BOI and admit when you are wrong because otherwise you just make yourself look worse and people in the future will hesitate to Sell to you or Buy from you!

Just my .02

 

[Matt K]

I hate to see 'big time' and VERY reputable dealers get this much cr@p from a customer who obviously has issues outside of the gecko purchase. If it were not for the large scale, over-all better and experienced breeders like A.C. and others, then us small time hobbiests would never even see much less have the cool livestock available to us. If Anthony says it will grow out, it will. If he says he can swap it for another, let him. All you as the customer has to do is FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. It does not get any easier. To me those photos look like a totally healthy gecko. Get real.

** grrrr! I dislike irrational customers..... **** Bad apples only spoil it for the rest of us....

 

[herplover47]

I have been considering purchasing from Anthony for sometime as we want to add cresteds to our collection in the near future. After reading this I have to say, I will still be purchasing from Anthony when we are ready. He was nothing but professional and beyond accommodating to try and resolve the situation.

Courtney, if you really don't want that gecko, I would be delighted to add it to my collection.