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Bad Guy Backwater reptiles

mudpuppy49

mudpuppy49

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alright so this happened a while ago but i wanted to share my experience with them.
i saw they had chinese water dragons, and since i hadnt had one in a few years, however i decided on an adult. now i contacted them and it took a few days to respond which was slightly aggravating but they got back to me. i asked questions like "CB or WC, age, mostly fed on, and size" they avoided the age and wc or cb question, said insects and pinkies and between 24-30 inches(for a male). i ordered it and it came and i was a bit unprepared for the sickly looking boy that looked up at me. He was very skinny and very lethargic, worst of all he never showed any interest in food. i tried crickets, roaches, worms, f/t pinkies, and fish, never touched any of it. i contacted them and they said they fed all those except strictly live pinkies. i tried a few and same result, called and they said strictly frozen pinkies. i had a vet visit scheduled but sadly the little guy died the morning of the visit 2 weeks after getting him. i have heard other bad things about them and just wanted to share my experience.
 
LLL Reptiles is the same way. Got a snake from them and it lasted not even a week. Luckily they gave me my money back. Saw the LLL booth at the Tinley expo a few weeks ago and all the animals just looked like they were in very bad shape.
 
Backwater reptiles (wholesale exotics.com) beware same company

Ok to start I don't know if this is the right spot to put this but November 12 2014 i had an order shipped .I made an order off a site called wholesale exotics close to $500 come to find out all the animals come from backwater reptiles it included 2 adult yellow-foot tortoises ,2 hatchling sulcata tortoises ,1red ear slider ( they sent me a yellow belly slider).3 green anoles, 6brown anoles ,and 3 house geckos. Ok so the box arrives at my house November 13 th with no heat packs 2:00 in the afternoon I'm in the mountains of pa pretty cold . Both hatchling sulcatas were like jello heads and arms had no life to them so put them in a heated rack to see what happened nothing did they were dead , the anoles and geckos were like they were hibernating but them in my 3 year old daughters terrarium we got them from with lights heat on sides no they later died that day both of the yellow foots eyes were sealed shut I put some Vaseline on them so they could open them up there eyes were all hazy white when opened had mucus coming out of there mouths and a really bad cough mumbling sound they mad put them in an enclosure with some heat ,food ,water ,vitamins no they wouldn't eat and died the next day. Now last the suppose to be red ear slider had a pea size cyst,growth in her neck that I removed with a sterile sewing needle. Out of that order I have a yellow belly slider that I recieved instead of a red ear o we'll atleast she has a nice life now.Ok now i contacted them threw there contact us on both sites they own the same day this order arrived with no reply now there contact doesn't fwd you what you wrote so that helps them lie more. I had sent messages the entire year phone calls no one wanted to talk because they didn't have access to there wholesale messages ok what about the other site so a year now I have got nowhere so I see a post by them on kingsnake for alligators the other day figuring maybe I'll get a response if they think I'm interested in waisting more money below I will put up the only messages I have got before the order shipped and now a year later when I finally got them to talk also the shipping label the girl Amanda claims I wasn't here to recieve it claiming it was my fault and says they never recieved messages ..So I'm trying to warn and hope people listen unlike myself to purchase elsewhere there are better companies out there that won't rip you off.
Thanks for reading and happy her ping
Christopher Curran
“There are two mistakes one can make along the road of truth...not going all the way,and not starting -- BUDDHA.

Keep this in mind when seeing the message by Sam saying the order will ship tommorow and the date he said this then the newest by AMANDA claiming my order was delivered a day late voiding there warrantee anyway..making it look like I wasn't here to recieve them.I own and run my own farm I'm allway home.
 

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This is where he states it will be shipping the 12 th for the 13th rember this
 

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As seen from the last they never even replied if it was sent out.great customer service
 

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Here's another one trying to blame me ..
 

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The last one was funny she doesn't have much information of my order but this packed and shipped it ??
 

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Ok now last but not least I also have the shells of the tortoises buried to take photo proof but wasn't that's all I have I wasn't keeping dead reptiles in my freezer where my children's food goes until these people decided to contact me back a year later thinking I wanted there sick alligators...

Also in this message she still try's to blame me saying it was delivered late and not contacting them I did sorry there sites don't send me a fwd of what I wrote so that's all they have.

Thanks for reading
Christopher Curran
 

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I have one question. Do you actually have the email stating that they arrived sick and dead? I see where they delayed shipping, but your "email sent a year ago and never replied to" does not seem to be in the ones you posted?
 
I wrote to them more then once on both there wholesale exotics.com site where I ordered from and there backwater reptiles site with the contact us. Since I wasn't even answered if the order was shipped.Hoping to get the owner or a manager to reply. When contacting that way you do not receive a FWD( as I stated in a previous post) of your messages to them to your email.I should have screen shot them before sending but didn't think I would be ignored about the situation.MY answer to that was they didn't have access to there wholesale messages..
 
These are the contact us forms I'm talking about you send the message and do not receive a fwd ,copy of what you sent hopefully it helps.
 

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I'll post my story on them too and keep this review fresh in everyone's mind with Spring around the corner.

Just a warning for all of my fellow Herp collectors out there, do NOT buy your animals from the Backwater Reptiles website!

I ordered a ball python from them two years ago and the animal arrived perfectly fine. More than fine, she’s a great snake who grew fast and has never once gotten sick or gone off feed. She’s perfect. So this time, I thought to order a Chocolate Albino Leopard Gecko from them as well. A mistake, it seemed.

Not only did the poor little creature arrive dead, but when I emailed them, I was told they could replace it IF I paid them another 40$ for overnight shipping, or I could have my money for the lizard only refunded, and in that case would need to provide my credit card information over the email, as they “did not have access to customer payments” on their own website.

Here is a screenshot of the email;

c8699fb300fc637047f783692dd2cf13.png


That’s a bit small, here’s what it says;


[email protected]
11:05 AM (26 minutes ago)
to me

Of course Wendi! Thank you for the revised snapshot :)

Under our Live Arrival Guarantee, you’ve got a couple different options:
1.) We can re-ship a free replacement, and you would only cover the shipping cost of $39.99 or2.) We can refund the purchase price of the animal, less shipping
If you choose to have the replacement, you can pay the $39.99 via PayPal and send it to [email protected] or since we don’t have access to customer payment info., you can email us your credit card info (cc number, exp. date and three digit code) and we can process it here.
Please let me know which option you would prefer and we will take care of it! :)

—

Putting aside the unprofessional use of their emojis after I just told them the lizard they sent me was dead and that I was distraught about it, my options given are to pay ANOTHER 40$ for a second gecko, which may or may not arrive alive, or else give them all of my credit information over an unsecured email address for a refund.

And why, exactly, are they using a Paypal address?

This website is suspect, the customer service is a joke, the packaging for their lizards is poor at best, and you are likely to receive a dead animal if you buy from them. There are other accounts of similar interactions with them from other collectors all across the web as well. I should have researched them more thoroughly first, and I did not, that was my mistake and now I have a lizard to bury.

Learn from me, friends, do not buy from Backwater Reptiles.
 
conquerorworm said:
I could have my money for the lizard only refunded, and in that case would need to provide my credit card information over the email, as they “did not have access to customer payments” on their own website.
Click to expand...
Bravo-freaking-sierra. According to BW's own web site their back-end merchant processor is authorize.net, so there should be no problem with issuing a refund on any transaction. Authorize.net's web site has a neat little tutorial instructing merchants in that very basic business function. Requiring customers to send an unencrypted email with a credit card number / expiration date / CVV to them for a refund is insane - and let's just throw PCI compliance out the window to boot.
 
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