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Bay Area Reptiles

P

prehistoric

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One of my employees recently wanted to purchase 1.3 Mali uromastyx from Bay Area Reptiles. He had asked for pictures and they refused, unless he paid in full first. I figured that maybe they would send some pictures to me since I’m a business. I sent this email to them:

Hi,
One of my employees is interested in purchasing 1.3 Mali uromastyx from you. He has contacted you a few times and would like some pictures of the 1.3 group. I will use my pay pal account today if you can provide pictures and ship those exact animals. Thank you.

This was there response:
As we informed him, once we receive the verification of payment, we will take pics. They all selling very fast and if he hasn't paid, we cannot hold the 1.3 for him.

I don’t understand this line of thinking, I offered to Pay Pal them the same day if they could provide pictures. My gut instinct tells me these Uromastyx are in bad shape. Has anyone ever had any problems with them or am I completely wrong and they are actually reputable people.

Thank you,
Jim Alles
Prehistoric Pets Inc.
www.reptileguru.com
 
I am kind of out there with them as well. I had contacted them about purchasing a pair of white lipped pythons from them. These are the emails that transpired with my dealings with them:

----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2006 1:26 AM
Subject: Message about: WHITE LIPPED PYTHONS (LEIOPYTHON ALBERTISI) BORN 2006> VERY NICE!


> Hi,
> I am interested in the white lipped pythons you have for sale. i would be
> interested in 1.1 of them, however, with it being too cold to guarantee
> live arrival in my area would you consider a payment plan? Just curious.
> How much would the total be with shipping and all? Thanks in advance!
> Angela Ray

Bay Area Reptiles <[email protected]> wrote: Angela
We need your zip code to give you a shippimg rate.
Tell us what your day and night time temps are.
Thanks,
Bay Area Reptiles, Inc.
Ray

Fri, 3 Feb 2006 21:44:08 -0800 (PST)
From: "Angela Ray" <[email protected]> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Subject: Re: Message about: WHITE LIPPED PYTHONS (LEIOPYTHON ALBERTISI) <CAPTIVE BORN 2006> VERY NICE!
To: "Bay Area Reptiles" <[email protected]>

My zip is 37022, and temps are running around 30 or below at night and 40 or so during the day on a warm day. Let me know what you think about a payment plan. Thanks, Angela


I was planning to pay on them every week, they dont guarantee live arrival outside certain temps right now, and where I live is well below those guaranteed levels, so my thinking was that I really wanted a pair and they would have to hold them for me anyways, so what would be the problem if I sent them 10% or whatever and paid the remainder over the course of two months. Well, they never did email me and give me a yes or no answer, so I decided to forget it. They have, however, sold one of the four they were offering at the last look at the ad on kingsnake. Hmmmm..... Maybe they are too interested in making money than to hassle with making customers happy or fulfilling requests. They lost a sale with me, thats for sure, as I cant pay for the snakes outright. I can see where maybe they couldnt guarantee that THE animals they post pics of will be available if they sold them, say in their shop, but would they could do is be like Amazon Reptile Center and post pics of some animals (maybe all??) out of the uromastyx they are selling and say "these are REPRESENTATIVE of what you will be getting, the lizards will be of the same quality, but may not be the exact specimen." Or maybe not, I dont see what is so hard about taking a pic and sending it to you....other sellers do it all the time, if it sells in the meantime, so be it. What they ARE doing is potentionally stunting their sales, as I will not buy anything I dont see first, and I would advise you to do the same for safety sake.
 
I just recieved a pair of adult mali uros from bay area and they are in GREAT shape and completely surpassed my expectations. They were also very curtious over the phone and answered all my questions very well. I recomend highly recomend them and will do business with them again. Just my 2 cents:)
 
My Experience Was Good..

I received a pair of Mali Uro's from them this morning. I saw the ad and the pics that were in the ad. The Uros look good and what I wanted.

They answered all emails promptly and sent tracking info when shipped.
It was my first dealing with them and everything was perfect.
 
Someone called our store the other day that would disagree with the good guy posts about Bay Area Reptiles. Unfortunately, they did not have a fauna account and couldn't post. I'm happy to hear that jusmebabee and gracie received healthy reptiles from them. I just don't understand why Bay Area Reptiles could send me pictures first. They wanted us to pay first and then they would send pictures. They lost a sale over simple customer service. Maybe they don't have the lizards in stock and simply pick them up from a importer whenever they make a sale.
 
Jim,

It sounds like this may be the case. Many of those that are unwilling to provide pictures are brokers or worse (they have the animals "drop-shipped" from the actual company offering the animals for sale). Without fail, these businesses care more about the bottom-line than the life of the animal. I've always thought that this is shameful behavior and detrimental to the herp industry, but people continue to buy from these individuals/companies. Go figure.

I just don't undertstand the logic in so-called "businesses" reselling animals via wholesale lists that are available to virtually anyone else who should seek them out. These people then sell the animals even though they have no way to verify their health and physical state. This exhitbits a blatant disregard for the lives of the animals and is disgraceful.
 
I just wanted to point out that in the ad on kingsnake Bay Area Reptiles posted 3 pics of 3 different pair of adult uros ment to represent the quality of the group. They had/have quite a large number of these animals which is why i think they did this.
 
Gracie, I don't think that is a valid excuse for not sending pictures of the animals. Bay Area Reptiles was going to send me pictures after my employee purchased them, but not before. That implies he did not have the animals on hand and if he did, it implies laziness and poor customer service. I also have a lot of reptiles in my store but have always provided pictures of individual reptiles. Jennifer from Jungle Gems can back this statement up. Bay Area Reptiles can choose to run his business this way, I just disagree.
 
"Has anyone ever had any problems with them or am I completely wrong and they are actually reputable people."

Prehistoric asked the above and people replied. If you don't know for fact where his animals are housed why throw accusations around?
We replied how our dealings with them went. If you don't like the response that's fine. We received what we wanted our dealing were fine.
Prehistoric decided to not purchase because they wouldn't give pictures which is fine. That doesn't make Bay Area a bad business.
As for Jennifers comments I won't dignify that with a response since I care about the animals I purchase.
Bottom line, take the good comments with the bad without trying to insult someone because you don't like what you hear.
Joel
 
No "broker" is truly concerned about the well-being of the animals they sell... period. If they were, they wouldn't be selling them in such a way.
 
As to Jim's post, I can absolutely attest to his legitimacy as a large scale animal retailer who is also devoted to top-notch customer service. I asked him for a single picture of a monitor he was selling about a month ago and not only did he oblige my request, he sent me three photos of the exact animal he had for sale (and I would speculate that Jim does tens of thousands of dollars worth of animal sales each month alone, correct me if I'm wrong). I wound up purchasing the animal from Jim and to this day it is thriving.
 
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