My experience with Ray Hunter from ERJ
I will attempt to give only the facts with as little assumption / speculation on my part as possible. I recently made an order with "cobraman" from ERJ and this was my order:
0.1 Sumatran spitter
1.1 snouted cobras
0.1 Forest cobra
1.0 EDB (animal control capture)
I received the animals as we planned and when unpacked, the animals were alive although the EDB and the snouted cobras were a little sluggish which I attributed to the shipping. The snakes were a little thin which doesn't surprise me as they are WC animals and I expected such. No big deal. The next day the EDB was dead. I called Ray Hunter and he was very apologetic and assured me that he would make things right with the next shipment if I were to make another order. Again, no big deal. I was ready to accept that also as he told me prior to ordering that it was an animal rescue. I let the snakes acclimate and let them alone for a few days before I attempted to feed / change substrate, etc. I was particularly pleased with the Sumatran as he was brighter yellow than what the pics portrayed. On about the 3rd or maybe the 4th day, I was transferring the Sumatran while cage cleaning and as I was tailing the animal, I looked at the vent and thought that it looked like it was male. Just to verify that I wasn't mistaken I probed the animal and it indeed probed male going back easily 7-9 scales. I called Ray and he said that although possible, it was unlikely that he made this mistake. Again he was apologetic and said that he would do whatever was needed to make things right. I probably should have checked all the animals at this point but did not because I thought that surely he couldn't have made the same mistake on my other animals. The next day I got around to cleaning the snouteds and while tailing them, again they both looked to be male. Just to be sure I again probed both animals and they both probed male. I called Ray again and at this point he was in disbelief and said to just send the whole shipment back. I told him that I was not a verified shipper and he said that he would check around to see if I could ship on their account. We corresponded both by phone and email to attempt to make these arrangements but could never find a way to ship them back. Bottom line is that I didn't get what I paid for. He said that with over 19 years of experience, he didn't see how he could make that mistake, especially on multiple animals. I am in total agreement with him on this as cobras are fairly easy to sex even with just visual assessment. So what can I conclude from this? Were the snakes checked at all for the proper sex because I seriously doubt that he would make such a simple mistake, especially with his experience. At this point the correspondence was not nearly as pleasant and he even suggested, not accused, that I may be trying to scam him. How am I trying to scam him when all I wanted to do was return the animals and receive a refund? I sent pictures of the tails of the animals in question and he agreed that they were obviously males but doubted that they were the animals that he sent in the first place. I have no way to prove that these were the animals he sent other than to send the animals back, which I have no way of doing since I am not a verified shipper. Bottom line is that I am stuck with an improper order and no way to return them. I have no complaints about the animals themselves, the animals are fine, especially taklng into account that they are WC. My only problem is that they are the wrong sex. I dropped the issue since I realistically can't prove to him that these are in fact the snakes he sent me without him seeing them firsthand. I will just take it as an expensive lesson learned. I hate to think that he would purposely send me the wrong sexed animal but that is what I have received. Again, the Sumatran is a beautiful animal, just the wrong sex. The snouted as well are nice animals, just the wrong sex. I cannot even begin to speculate on how this mistake could be made by such an experienced individual.
Monte Maderazo
(I haven't communicated with that organization in the past year, since they verified they would ship venomous, and that they did not require shippers to be verified).
