fed up with shady people selling boas!!

This is basically a venting post... (not appropriate for BOI, no names are mentioned and I'm not disputing anything)

Being someone who has been investing in boas the last two years, I have been doing a lot of buying lately. It seems like that my successful transaction rate is something around 30%. I feel like 70% of people offering things for sale now a days are trying to screw me and i'm about to explode with rage!!! lol

Last year around the holidays i purchased two adult high end boas from someone who was almost a big name and was well known in the past for being a good guy. I had personally done a transaction with them in the past that went awesome, photo i.d's, great packing/shipment, awesome in the past. Well this time around they send me two adults with some of the worst mouth rot i've ever seen and a couple respiratory infections to boot. Also in the package was a cute little note apologizing for the mouth rot, a little tube of some off brand neosporin and $100 to "cover" vet bills... (in the last year I have totally rehabbed these boas and are now 100%, took more like $700 though)

Next transaction was about a week ago, a well known person once again, did a BOI search to reveal all of the good guy comments about him. I go ahead with the purchase and have some phone conversations about the boa where the seller mentions his nice rep and name drops some of the big guys to vouch for him.

Long story short he calls and offers me another high end boa for half asking price claiming it possibly has mouth rot (strike one), i say no way and question the health of my boa, he still maintains its 100%. shipping day comes, i send an email asking if he was shipping today. No response. I call him, he cries sick and for some reason can't ship because of the flu and didn't bother telling me (stirke two), he promises to ship after the weekend. Next shipping day rolls around and gueeeesssss what? lol still sick and for some reason being sick makes it impossible to ship things ( you can pay $4 and have them come and get it from your house) and I shipped 4 gecko shipments the prior day WITH the flu and then went to a 3 hour lecture at 6pm for school... (strike 3) thankfully this seller was honest enough to refund my money at this point.

One thing to note, the snake that was offered to me at half price is TO THIS DAY still on kingsnake.com for sale for full price.. I have no doubt the animal I purchased was sick and he knew it all along, maybe trying to remedy the problem before shipment (that animal has not gone back up for sale)

TRANSACTION THREE... and the last straw for me

I purchase a boa and the seller agrees to ship today thursday the 24th. this guy has one good guy post on the BOI and I checked the original breeder of the animal i purchased and he said he knows him and he bought this animal two months ago... I even again sent a reminder the day before shipment to confirm shipment and ask for a tracking number thursday.

Well here we are, its thursday night and I have no tracking number, no call, no email. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

At this point I am furious with buying boas and am just about ready to only purchase from local breeders or people with 10+ good guy posts that are within this year.

Respectfully furious,

Alberto Dimatteo
InvincibleBoas.com

Oh i forgot the best one,

Last year I paid top friggin dollar for an adult male high end boa from one of the biggest names out there. Hes got adds all up and down kingsnake and plenty of good guy posts on here. Sends me the sickest, nastiests, skin and bones, I mean spine sticking out boa Ive ever seen. I freak out on him the MINUTE i open the box on the phone and send him pics. He says oh its a hogg cross so thats how hoggs look... Gotta be honest, I have a hogg island boa and it doesnt look like death. Long story short, he shipped back the boa I partial traded him for and sent me a couple hundred dollars screwing me out of I think $300 at the end of it.

the one who was supposed to send a tracking number tonight just did, i guess he forgot or something. Either way im excited im not being ripped off again!!

Originally Posted by bear

the one who was supposed to send a tracking number tonight just did, i guess he forgot or something. Either way im excited im not being ripped off again!!

Glad to hear that this one will hopefully workout!! There definitely are some good people out here with some good animals. Unfortunately (especially for them) I'm sure I've walked away from a few of them, making sure that I didn't end up getting any of those other deals that you described.

We'll be looking for pics of your newest addition tomorrow!!

There are still some of us good guys out there. I have been in the businnes for over 10 years, been screwed around with, but once I started sticking with a certain few people, I just waited until they found something for me. I knew if they found something for me I could trust there judgement and honesty. Best of luck!

I have some good recommendations next time your looking for something. Shoot me an email anytime.

Originally Posted by bear

At this point I am furious with buying boas and am just about ready to only purchase from local breeders or people with 10+ good guy posts that are within this year.

Hey Alberto, sorry to hear about all the troubles you've been having! I agree that people trying to sell sick snakes (even at a discount ) is terrible... shipping stress and moving to a new location would almost certainly just make the situation worse and exacerbate the illness.

But don't limit yourself just because of some bad apples, there are some great hobby breeders out there that don't do tons of sales but do have quality boas.


As I'm sure you know, it's always a good idea to check references if people give them to you, half the time 'bad guys' give phony references so it's a good way to weed those out quickly.

Good luck with your future deals!
-April

Definitely check references, lol. I can think of a handful of people that got shot down immediately for using me as a reference. If I've never had a transaction with a person, I'm going to be totally upfront about that. (sorry, but sending an apologetic PM after receiving an infraction, or making a complimentary post about one of my animals does NOT count as a transaction, lol)

With that guy I figured all the good guy posts were enough for me. To be honest I bet if I had called the big names they would have said he was a good guy too, as I am sure that at one time he was a good guy. It just seems like these days, the bad guys are starting to outnumber the good guys and a lot of the good guys are going to the dark side. Just gettin sick of it..

Next on the purchase list

1.0 Paradigm
0.1 08 motley het sharp
0.1 adult th moonglow

Now I only know of a handful of people that can fill the first order and one person each for the next two boas on that list. luckily two of the three are very reputable...

But did you receive your expected boa today??