Holy cow folks, I know that this has become an extremely long thread, but unfortunately people seem to be jumping in without reading the whole thing because of its length. Just taking bits and pieces and then forming and posting opinions about it. At the risk of lengthening things further I will try to address some of the inconsistencies I noticed. Unfortunately, I am not adept at copying yous quotes here like the erst of you so I will attempt to paraphrase. If I don't get the EXACT wording please don't take it as an attack.
Many people have attacked the post in which I itemized the series of events that lead to my decision making process. Please READ it before commenting. As I stated, none of it was intended as each item being a critical wrongdoing, only a series of events that, in their totality, caused me concern.
Ritchie Luna- You took the first two items and blew them way out of proportion. Those were the first two items that occurred in the series and were ON my mind, but not a cause for concern yet. Yes, I though of the possibility of shipping before she left. I also posted my thought process that there wasn't time and wrote that that was ACCEPTED by me. I also thought that there might have been a possibility to ship them from where she went (She had privately told me that she was going to her mother's.) I am sorry that I am not clairvoyant and did not know she and her mother had gone in opposite directions. In either case, if you read my "Thought process" I still dismissed this as being too inconvenient and ACCEPTED that as well. I BEGAN to get suspicious when I was told from an "experienced herper" that the animals had died. Events continued to unfold as I listed in the "items" list. That list was simply things I had taken into consideration at that point. If you read the e-mails, she sent the mass e-mail telling everyone that she was leaving. Fine. She sent a mass e-mail upon her return stating she would be gettin in touch with everone by that evening. Fine. Even when she didn't get in touch with me that evening, I still had no cause for concern- I simply believed she was too busy. If you take the time to read the e-mail posts you will see that my only contact her the following day was:
"Just checking on the status?"
I get it NOW. I can see where that would be considered insulting and antagonistic. Heartless BAST**D I came across there!
By the Way, Ritchie has over 3,700 posts and a rep power of 97. That should instill confidence in a buyer, yet his proposal is:
Sell the snakes to someone else and keep his &*^% money.
Lets see, Isn't that the exact thing I stated I was trying to protect myself from?!!!
Thanks for making my point for me Ritchie, you have shown the exact situation I have been trying to express to everyone my thoughts led me to believe COULD have happened.
JamesWilson-
Where do I begin? Jump the gun, jump the gun, jump thegun, jumpthegunjumpthegunnnnnn
If you would read my thought process list you would see, I checked the rules with PayPal and found out that even if I filed the complaint I would NOT GET A REFUND if there was not enough money in the sellers account to make it. So the issue is not whether I still had time to make the complaint thirty days later, It was whether I gave a stranger time to empty the account and leave me no recourse.
As for being somehow motivated to "Punish her because she did not give me the number of her wholesaler" all I can say is READ THE THOUGHT THREAD AND THE E-MAILS. I explained that I simply wanted some assurance that I would be getting CB animals not imports. In the "thought" I explained that had she simply said "I don't want to give out the number of my wholesaler" that would have been sufficient. She did not, she replied she would be away. Again, all by itself not an incriminating item, but another item in a long list that led me to believe there was a possibility she could have been like RITCHIE LUNA! and been planning to keep everything.
Aprylla-
1. Talk about me being repetitive. Enough already, we are ALL sorry you had to leave for the hurricane, including ME. You have gone on and on and on and have our sympathy. Again the "thoughts" list was neither an attack nor a demand that you respond and explain yourself AGAIN. I realize that the weather is something you have no control over and is not your fault, but neither is it mine. While you had been victimized by the storm, now I was being victimized too.
2. You quoted me very accurately when I stated I had every intention of fulfilling every aspect of the deal we made and "would be happy to cancel the complaint upon receipt of the animals" That was my intention all along. I never intended to renege on our deal. I had already sent you the money once. What did I ever say or do at that point to cause you to believe I would not cancel the complaint when I received the animals.
3. Many people stated that this requires open discourse on the part of the buyer, but when I opened up to tell you all what was going on in my mind and led me to feel I needed some protection I get a scathing rebuttal from you in which you launch personal attacks.
"you must be a very small person in the reptile business"
If that was meant as an insult, it missed the mark. You are correct, I AM. I never represented myself as anything else. I began this hobby just about two years ago, but in that time have been burned by some of the "Big" people as was explained in the e-mail posting for anyone who has the energy to look back that far and READ BEFORE COMMENTING.
As for scouring the forums to find something from me, you could have read the first sentence in my post "Sorry, new to posting"
Or a later one where I volunteered that I was a newbie and had NEVER posted ANYTHING ANYWHERE.
Junkyard,
This is a small one. In the e-mails (again, read) she actually TOLD me at one point one of my options would be to file a complaint with PayPal to get a refund "But since her account was zero, she assumed they would debit her account. That was where the threads began about her spending the money. The funds in the account were additional at some point later.
By the way, I don't have a problem with that and everyone should drop that issue. I sent it to her, it was hers to do with as she needed. I just wanted something in return.
That's all I can remember at this point. Whenever I try to go back and read I somehow lose my posting and have to start over again.
Anyhow, since Aprylla keeps saying she has answered the same questions over and over again, I feel I have a right to say the same. The biggest issue against me seem to be that I filed a complaint too soon when I had lots of time to do it later. Once and for all- as I explained in my "thoughts" list. I had checked with PayPal and the rules told me I WOULD NOT GET A REFUND IF THE SELLER'S ACCOUNT DID NOT HAVE THE FUNDS TO COVER IT.
Aprylla has explained that she was able to accept money from someone off of E-Bay because she had set up a separate account. Again this is one of my points. I'm not saying she did anything wrong, I'm just pointing out how easy it would be for someone to start over from scratch under another account and leave me holding air.
So the timeliness of the complaint had nothing to do with how much time I had to file a complaint, but my likelihood of actually getting funds from that account before it was vacated.
Anyway, my whole point in keeping the complaint open was solely an attempt to protect myself in the event that the animals were never shipped after a long series of screwy circumstances arose and left me feeling scared and helpless with no money and no product.
What I had wanted was some sort of assurance. In a small way, this forum has helped to give it to me. At the very least, a written dialogue that along with the e-mails now gives me at least a paper trail of event that I feel would give me strong stand (in the court of public opinion if not a court of law) if she failed to do as she says.
In Aprylla's scathing retort, she end with giving me an ultimatum, stating that she would ship the snakes if I dropped the complaint. With so many new "witnesses" I finally feel I have enough assurance to do that. Somehow, after trying to explain how I arrived at my decision she ends with "I trust you now even less". While some of you may DISAGREE with me or my methods, I still feel that I have never done anything to deserve distrust but will cancel the complain within minutes of completing this post. There will be no further entries by me unless they are solicited from someone or the animals do not show up on Aug 2 as promised.