Bad Guy Nikki Reptiles - Caramel Pieds

Caution about a person called: Nikki Reptiles

This individual (male/female) has been trying to sell visual Caramel Pieds along with normal pieds. As there are very few of these in existence right now it is surprising to see one for sale.

Nikki, posted pictures online and emailed them to me of Caramel Pieds they have. The pictures actually belong to MA Reptiles from Europe. I have been in contact with MA Reptiles about this to make sure of things before posting this BOI report. They confirmed that the pictures "Nikki" is using are stolen and that "Nikki" does not have these animals.

Here are some highlight quotes from emails between Nikki and I, as I have been baiting him/her along. Them to me:

"she would cost you $1280. "
" where are you located? you can wire cash via western union as it is convenient and faster."

Beware and good luck to everyone!

$1280 Good lookin' out!

where was the ad posted? Do you have email address that was used or a user name from here on fauna?
$1280 - lol

Yes, a little more info really would be helpful. Location, email, where Ad was posted, full name, etc... any available info.
There is more than one "Nikki Reptiles" (or similar) as well. Although I believe that at least one, minimum, may be able to be ruled out.

Sorry, thought I had included the email in the original post:

Nikki Reptiles <[email protected]>

Ad was posted on KS when I saw it.
Beyond the name and email, I don't have much more. I asked for a picture of the snake eating or on a scale for its weight, neither of which they can successfully produce. I sent that request to them yesterday, we will see if they respond.

The person has only ever responded as "Nikki", no last name, assuming Nikki is supposed to be a first name.

It appears that "Nikki" resides in California.
Attached are just a few screenshots with some info (BTW The "newspaper type" Ad is in the Orange County Recycler Classifieds).
At any rate, Thanks for the heads up on this person!

Yep, looks like the same person Deb.

No problem in posting the thread either

In multiple ads the same phone is listed: 530-324-5935
"Nikki" lists her/his location as: Palm Springs and San Diego, Southern California.
The phone number traces back to Willow Creek, Northern California.

Who knows...either way out to scam someone!

I took a second to see what I could find. I don't have any of my "fancy photo editing" software on this computer, so I made one big picture of what I found.

1. [email protected] lead to a seller using the username reptiles_pythonfarm.

2. reptiles_pythonfarm lead to the e-mail address [email protected].

3. Finally, "Micha" on a German forum (which I had to join to view the thread.. glad my German is decent!) posted in a thread entitled "E Mails From Africa". Micha apparently received this e-mail from [email protected] where "Reptil" states he lives in Germany.

For those of you who are interested, the e-mail was sent in 2007 listing the following prices:

2.3 Albino ball pythons - $1800 pair
1.1 Axanthic ball python - $2699 pair
2.1 Piebald ball python - $1200 each
1 Clown ball python - $999

2 female Angolan Pythons - $800 each
0.2 het albino - $225 each

Great stuff Josh, you and Deb are some smooth detectives! Great job on your German too

Over the course of emails with "Nikki", I think I would be safe to say that English is not their first language. Judge for yourself with the sentence structures from one of their emails. So if they are really from Africa, it would not surprise me at all.

"Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2012 2:01 PM
Subject: RE: Caramel Albino Pied Pair

thanks for your email i appreciate your interest. we have only a single female caramel albino pied now up for offer. we reserved the pair for another already. hopefully you are still interested.
meantime we also have piebald ball morphs currently available as we have also reserved some from our most recent birthing. if you would like i can keep you posted on any morph availability when they are ready.
meanwhile,i have attached for you pics of the female caramel albino-pied so you can see her. she would cost you $1280. she is also well feeding on rat pups every seven days and free from mites and parasites.
Shipping is priority overnight. Where are you located? Healthy arrival is a guarantee that is why we use airline to make sure flight and handling is insured.
meanwhile,we will still be posting ads in various places, and sending these pictures to other people that have shown interest in the caramel albino pied pair until if you confirm your order.
let me know if you are interested in her and if you confirm as soon as possible we can conclude before we move on. hope to hear from you soon,

thanks,Nikki"


It totally gives off the appearance that this person has cut and pasted 20 common catch phrases from the snake classifieds into one email.

The latest as of about 10 minutes ago... (part of an email from Nikki to myself)

"Meanwhile for the western union payment, here the details you will need for my partner.
Steve Garcia
18 Apollo St
Jersey City
New Jersey

Hope to hear from you soon,

thanks,Nikki"


Any every heard of the mysterious "partner" before???

Okay, finally got a facebook page out of this joker:

http://www.facebook.com/niki.reptiles?ref=ts&fref=ts

You can see the pictures from MA reptiles on his/her facebook.
http://www.worldofballpythons.com/morphs/caramel-albino-pied-upscale-line/

They have plenty of facebook friends... are you one of them?? hah

The next step in online scams, once you have shown any doubt, is to threaten you with ending the transaction and going else where with their killer deal...

"Rob, if we must proceed (I asked for a phone number to talk about payments other than Western Union) then we have to conclude right now so that i know whether or not we are reserving the caramel pied for you. I don't Facebook a lot but i have an account Niki Reptiles.
I don't have your shipping info yet and also we don't have an agreement on payment. We already have other people i have stalled to complete discussions with you before anything.

hope to hear from you again,

thanks,Nikki"

This has scam written all over it.

A--L---L over it!

Funny enough, I did see a couple of people I recognize who are actually facebook friends (knowing or unknowingly) with this person, hah.

Hmmm this kinda rings of the Scam from Africa doesn't it

Sierra0101 said:

This has scam written all over it.

Click to expand...

Robert Walker said:

A--L---L over it!

Click to expand...

It sure does have scam(mer) written all over it.

My husband, & I, just got done with a scammer (which we traced to Africa).
He wanted to purchase something we had for sale. Well, it was obvious he was a scammer.
So, we decided to toy with him for a bit.
The price was $2500 and he, allegedly, sent $4000 (via Paypal). We were to pay his shipping agent (who had an Oregon address) the overage, of $1500, before the money would be released, by Paypal, to us.
Over some days, we also received several email notifications, that were supposedly from Paypal, stating the same and giving us assurances that the money was there (also how copies had been sent to the FBI and IFCC for more security).
Meanwhile, we kept toying with the scammer.
My husband finally ended up stating that I had been in a car accident, was critically injured, and how he really needed the money (sound reminiscent of some of these Nigerian scammers? LoL). Plus, how he had sent the money (which he had not) and awaited the $2500 (which we did not expect to get). Of course, since the scammer did not get the money, he went back to requesting the $1500.
A day or two later, after my alleged accident, my husband stated how, now, he really did need the money because I had died from my injuries (OMG! My hubby had me killed off! LOL!). My husband received condolences but, of course, the scammer still requested that the money be sent (husband repeated that it had been sent).
Next thing, I get two more "back to back" Paypal notifications (not from Paypal, most assuredly, although they made it look like it was) which stated that there may be legal action since they believed we had entered into an agreement (with the scammer) and should send the money.
Finally, getting bored with toying with this guy, we sent this guy an email letting him know how it was obvious, from the start, that he was a scammer. We included, in the email, a photo of the home in Oregon (which, allegedly, is his shipping agent's address/home), showed how his IP address matched the IP address in the "Paypal notifications", etc. Plus, told him how we had notified the FBI, Secret Service, Homeland Security, etc. (we didn't). Then stated "You never know who might be watching you, and your activities, now" (and, In small print, my husband added "Maybe a U.S. Military Drone flying overhead"). My husband, & I, laughed at the thought of what if a plane actually flew overhead at the time the scammer read that email. LoL!
Well, we have not heard another thing (in these last several days), from him or "Paypal", after daily emails. Gee, couldn't have been anything we said.

Great story Deb, that is exactly what I would like to do with this clown (drone and all) but I will stop where I am with them for now.

I am afraid that if I "reveal" myself to them, they might close up shop under the name Nikki Reptiles and move on to an unknown name (perhaps they are already doing it) that we can't trace on the BOI.

If they close up shop under Nikki Reptiles, then we have to start from scratch with them.

The funniest thing would be if 20+ people from the herp community bombarded them with requests for the Caramel Pieds and just wasted their time and toyed with them.

Again, best of luck to all in avoiding groups like this. THANK YOU FAUNA for at least giving us a resource to check people out

Just when I thought I was done...
Thanks to Josh finding his/her other email: [email protected]

Guess what? I found a link taking me to an old 2007 BOI report right here on Fauna for Eron Yepet, surprise surprise!

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103641

Some day, someone will be glad this was posted:

Condensed version of alias and emails that I can tell thus far:

Names:
Eron Yepet
Aaron Yepet
Aaron Reptiles
Nikki Reptiles
Niki Reptiles
Blanch McAdam
Mel W
BRAD
Yepet Birds
Steve Garcia


User Names Websites:
Karen (Kingsnake.com)
gorgousreptiles (Venomous Reptiles.org)


Emails:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/niki.reptiles?fref=ts


Same person running other alias:

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117426

IDENTIFY AND AVOIDING THE CAMEROON PET SCAMMERS
Over 1300 known Scammer E-mail addresses
http://blogg-erton.blogspot.com/2009/03/over-1300-known-scammer-e-mail.html