How long should the sex of a sold animal be guaranteed?

Great thread!!

Agree with everything already written.

Here's my stand on the subject. I will offer a gender guarantee for 30 days. I feel the buyer should double check, as mistakes can and will be made. I am not perfect. I will not refund after the 30 day period because of most of the reasons already posted above. Buyers remorse, husbandry, perhaps they've bred the tar out of the critter before reporting the issue to me, etc......... Way to many things to worry about.

I do believe a buyer should get what they paid for, but since I am not perfect, they must accept that fact and double check.

I'm still thinking about what kind of proof I would accept for wrongly sexed snakes.

Melinda.... question I have is....at day 29 .... do you really want the animal back in your collection not knowing how it was taken care of? And since you mentioned it.... how do you know that it wasn't bred (if its obviously breeding age) while it was out.

Lets say you sold it as a female... and it was a legit male. Lets also say this male was a co-dom morph BP. Whats to say they didnt put it with everything in their collection then sent it back to you Now they get their money back.... and they have a boat load of possible co-dom morph babies in the future.

just sayin......

Originally Posted by RidgeTop Reptiles

Melinda.... question I have is....at day 29 .... do you really want the animal back in your collection not knowing how it was taken care of? And since you mentioned it.... how do you know that it wasn't bred (if its obviously breeding age) while it was out.

Lets say you sold it as a female... and it was a legit male. Lets also say this male was a co-dom morph BP. Whats to say they didnt put it with everything in their collection then sent it back to you Now they get their money back.... and they have a boat load of possible co-dom morph babies in the future.

just sayin......

Good points, maybe I should shorten my guarantee.

Seriously though, you are absolutely correct. I am willing to risk the scenarios mentioned and hope I don't make a mistake. I also hope I don't sell to someone that would do that kind of thing. But, it's definitely a risk.

I have thought on the forever guarantee and I look at it this way, If I ordered a pair of shoes and received the wrong ones, it wouldn't be right for me to use the item forever and then ask for a refund based on "wrong item sent". By keeping the item and using it, I am accepting the item and I feel the seller shouldn't be on the hook forever.

I've only sold one mis-sexed animal and I did not check it's gender before I sold it, I trusted the seller I got it from. I now do triple quadruple checks on every animal coming in or out.

This also brings up an interesting dichotomy between snakes, and lizards. Critters like Crested Geckos all "appear" female until the males start maturing, developing prominent pores, and dropping the hemipenal bulge. So on animals like this, a genuine mis-sexing error can happen and not be apparent until months after the fact.

I loupe animals with a 30x jeweler's loupe. If I see clear, prominent pores, I'll sell it as a "probable male" but with no guarantee.

As soon as a bulge drops, it's a "guaranteed male".

All other cresties get sold as "unsexed", you get what you get, no gender guarantee, until they reach 15 grams.

At 15 grams with no pores or bulge, I'll bump the price a bit, call it a "probable" female, but offer no guarantee on gender.

At 20 grams with no bulge and no pores I'll guarantee it a female.

VERY occasionally there's an outlying late developing male that can take a month or two or three, but still drop a bulge after 20 grams. (I think I've had it happen to me, personally, once.)

So in my case as a seller I'd offer a life-long guarantee on any animal I sold as "guaranteed gender" since it can take weeks or months to "show" otherwise.

I'd consider appropriate proof a good, close-up pore shot, a shot of the bulge, or shots of the animal with eggs (if it was a mix-sexed 'thought to be male' was a girl) since they will lay without being bred.

My TOS stipulates a 7 day sex guarantee. The truth is it would be a rare circumstance that I would adhere to that and not extend it, but it's there just for those rare circumstances.
That being said, I think a month is a reasonable enough time limit to place on sex guarantee. Experienced people who know how to sex really shouldn't need more than a couple of days, but people who can't do it, and possibly don't know that many others around them, might need the additional time to locate someone to do it for them.

While it's true the sex will never change, the gender of a snake can be determined anytime. With genetics it may take 2-4 years or perhaps longer to conclusively prove that it isn't het for something.
If a buyer buys a missexed hatchling, raises it for 2-3 years then discovers it's a male upon first trying to breed it, I just can't agree with the buyer being expected to refund after that amount of time when it could have been discovered far sooner.

I've made sexing mistakes, and bought snakes that were sexed wrong. Anyone who says they've never made a mistake sexing snakes is either lying or hasn't sexed very many snakes. This being known by everyone, that snakes are sometimes difficult to sex, a buyer needs to take some of the responsibility for not double checking.
Offering a lifetime guarantee of the sex with the option of full refund at anytime is fine if that's what the seller wants to offer, but to expect that from a seller is asking too much in my opinion.

As far as verifying the mistake, if it's a low value animal I might just refund and be done with it, but if it's worth quite a bit I'd probably require the buyer to return the snake and upon my verification that it was indeed missexed I'd refund the purchase price and both shipping charges.

With babies, especially snakes, it's hard a guarantee the sex, and it's damaging to sex them by probe until they're not quite so small, so it's very difficult to say how long a seller should guarantee sex. I like Diana's answer; when it's a hatchling, consider it unsexed regardless of what the seller says and take your chances. For adults, anyone experienced with the animal should be able to easily probe it/otherwise identify it, or else find someone who can probe.

I have been breeding for a little bit before I started breeding for myself in my home. When I placed my dragons up for sale I put probable, I had recieved my first bearded dragon and it looked female to me. A few months later it became apparent that it was male. I bought Duke unsexed so it didn't matter. Older dragons are easier to sex because of their size, and then I would place the sex, not just probable. I have never probed snakes when I worked as a breeder in San Diego but I was trained and did pop the snakes without causing harm and sexed them correctly. I was double checked later when my manager probed them. I take things on the seller's word because right now I can negotiate wrong sexes and move my projects around since I am looking to the future with that besides Duke being proven het hypo now that he and Lucy together produced a clutch containing hypos. All I knew of his genetics was that he is a citrus red cross. I was no longer working there and they had since gained new dragons.

I think it all falls back on the sellers TOS. As for guaranteeing the sex, it should only be guaranteed to the person that bought it for as long as they own it. If the buyer still has it, the sex is guareenteed. once they get rid of it, and sell it on thier own terms, the original seller should no longer be responsible. This is just a thought I had and wondered what you all thought about it. Jeff

Originally Posted by Clay Davenport

As far as verifying the mistake, if it's a low value animal I might just refund and be done with it, but if it's worth quite a bit I'd probably require the buyer to return the snake and upon my verification that it was indeed missexed I'd refund the purchase price and both shipping charges.

What if, upon receiving the snake, you find that you were correct? At that point, the snake is back in your possession, and the customer wants his/her money back.

Originally Posted by hhmoore

What if, upon receiving the snake, you find that you were correct? At that point, the snake is back in your possession, and the customer wants his/her money back.

At that point if I have no doubts that I was correct in the sex, I'd refund the cost of the snake because I have it back. I wouldn't refund either of the shipping charges though. I don't feel the seller should have to eat shipping charges due to the buyers mistake.
It's a situation I hope never happens, because the outcome I'd expect is for the buyer to insist he was correct and I was stiffing him on the shipping and it'd end up on the BOI.