Bad Guy Beware of Panther Company

[jishillencik]

As I stated above my name is Joshua Illencik and I am attaching images that show the way the male, Gojira, had been advertised and sold to me as from the Panther Company. On 4/2/14 I contacted Panther Company regarding whether or not they had any males available from their breeder Cyclone. After a brief discussion, I had examined their Facebook page to see if I could find any posts of the male I was shown and to see if they had pictures of siblings as well.

Two of the images attached are screenshots taken from Panther Company's Facebook page. One of the screenshots shows a post of a male that matches the pictures Panther Company sent via PM. The male I was to purchase was clearly labeled Cyclone/Grimbold.

The second post I found was one of them advertising another Cyclone/Grimbold male (currently owned by Choppy as well) that was older than Gojira by 1.5 months. The post states that Choppy's male, T-Rex, was one of two males to hatch from a small clutch between Cyclone and a Grimbold female from Kammerflage Kreations.

After seeing T-Rex, my jaw dropped and I inquired as to whether or not I could make a deposit and pay for him over the course of two weeks. I made split payments to Vincent Maggio and shortly after, I was the proud owner of a beautiful Ambanja with unbridled potential.

 

[jishillencik]

As I watched Gojira develop over the next few months, I began to wonder if he was going to show any of the traits from the dam's side of the lineage. Shauna's post (the one with the male resold to Choppy) drove me to look into the lineage of Gojira as well since both of our boys were said to be related by Panther Company.

The next few screenshots are a conversation between Josh Pritchard and myself concerning the lingering questions on the lineage. Josh even states that Choppy's male is in fact 1.5 months older than the one I purchased, which led me to believe that they were indeed from the same clutch (or so it was advertised).

Josh went on in public to explain that Gojira and Shauna's boy came from the same female but since they had purchased her from a third party they could not confirm the Grimbold lineage.

After much deliberation and a few distasteful interactions with Josh (my opinion), I decided to send back Gojira and I did receive a full refund.

While this my be my opinion I say it with the utmost conviction...If Panther Company is bold enough to deceive customers on the lineage info of their future pets/breeders, how many females (indistinguishable between the different locales) have been mislabeled and are now currently in other breeding programs? The whole industry will suffer for years to come from the half truths and bold faced lies of two individuals (opinion).

 

[Ronstafari]

Hello my name is Ron Givens and I purchased a male from Panther Company which was supposed to be from Kaepernick/Grimbold pairing. Well it could never be confirmed that that the damn was out of Grimbold. With that being said he's a beautiful male Ambanja but with his questionable lineage no one wanted to sell me a female for the fact that I might end up with a related female or corrupt their lines. Josh contacted me after I posted pics of my male on a thread on Facebook.

 

[Ronstafari]

Sorry I posted that in the wrong order.

 

[Ronstafari]

First mesaage

 

[Ronstafari]

Second

 

[Ronstafari]

Third

 

[Ronstafari]

Fourth

 

[Ronstafari]

Fifth

 

[Ronstafari]

Sixth

 

[Ronstafari]

Seventh

 

[Ronstafari]

Eighth

 

[Ronstafari]

Ninth

 

[Ronstafari]

Tenth

 

[Ronstafari]

Ok last one. Now he did give me a refund and I returned the animal. But still.

 

[shaunaroxanne]

So the misreprentations that have been documented with evidence in the previous messages are.......

1) The chameleon was sold to me (shauna) as ambanja.
2) The chameleon was sold to Shauna as Cyclone Grimbold.
3) Shauna was assured later that the ambanja was sired by Cyclone for sure, but not from Grimbold after all.
4) Chameleon listed for sale as a lot on Fauna (thread deleted) as F1 faly.
5) When lineage was questioned by James, Panther Co assures that he is pure F1 faly from WC parents, but no guarantees will be given on lineage if he ends up looking like a cross.
6) Panther Co. tells James that the cham in question was in the wrong cage and they didn't know it was from the same clutch as the other falys.
7) Chameleon sold to Lam as F1 faly without being given history of animal.
8) When questioned, Panther co asks Lam where he got the pics of the "faly" that was previously sold as ambanja before blamimg his partner for mixing up babies from clutches of differing locales.
9) Panther Co told Lam that Shauna was sent the wrong locale (although Shauna was not informed of this.....in fact, they assured Shauna that her male was showing teal coloration from his strong Cyclone (ambanja) influence.
10) Joshua realizes that his male may also have questionable lineage.
11) Although in a previous screenshot, we see Panther Co confirming that Joshua's male is from the same clutch as Lam's older male, we then see Panther co stating in a later screen shot that Joshua's male is NOT from the same clutch as he was represented he was sold to Joshua.
12) Ron also has a male confirmed to be of misrepresented lineage, and Panther Co encourages Ron to '"just list the offspring as CB ambanja".

I am not frequently involved in transactions or conversations on Fauna, but I thought that more participants/mods would be willing to give an objective evaluation of the discrepencies that have been documented. I understand that there are other topics which may require more attention at the moment, but I am really hopeful that others may be able to weigh in after reviewing the evidence provided.

There was also a question presented to the mods about whether or not a thread that was deleted by Panther Co. could be retreived to review the evidence that was originally represented with the lot of 10 F1 falys. I do not believe that question was ever addressed.

My concern is for the potentially hundreds of panther chameleon eggs that could be incubating at this very moment and will be hatched and mistakenly sold as pure locales by clients who have purchased those breeders from Panther Co. True, we can't change the fact that the eggs may have already been laid, but we can do our best to get the word out so that the new owners can make informed decisions about the future of their potentially crossed eggs/offspring. Many of us who are passionate about breeding panthers of pure local could have our reputations jeapordized if any of these females ended up in our breeding program as misrepresented locales.

 

[Panther Company]

This is a slightly altered version of Shauna's narrative of what happened, representing my position, though as I've stated I don't refute any of the screenshots.

1) A chameleon was sold to Shauna as Ambanja.
2) The chameleon was sold to Shauna as Cyclone (our breeder) and Grimbold (a female we purchased as Grimbold).
3) Shauna was assured later that the Ambanja was sired by Cyclone for sure, but not from a Grimbold female purchased directly from Kammerflage.
4) Chameleon was NOT listed for sale as a lot on Fauna (thread deleted) as F1 faly -- but was shown as a representative male from the same pairing, but the older clutch that he hatched from.
5) When lineage was questioned by James, Panther Co assured that he is F1 faly from WC parents, but no guarantees will be given on lineage, since he's a F1 and James has already questioned lineage of the line based on the oldest male sibling.
6) Panther Co. tells James that the cham in question was in the wrong cage and they didn't know it was from the same clutch as the other falys.
7) Chameleon sold to Lam as F1 faly without being given history of animal.
8) When questioned, Panther co asks Lam where he got the pics of the "faly" that was previously sold as ambanja (since we didn't take them) before explaining his partner for mixed up the babies from clutches of differing locales (when separating alphas from clutches of similar ages... note we have ~250 babies hatching each month).
9) Panther Co told Lam that Shauna was sent the wrong locale (although Shauna was not informed of this.....in fact, they assured Shauna that her male was showing teal coloration from his strong Cyclone (ambanja) influence -- because at the time that's what we Panther Co believed. And Cyclone is/was quite often mistaken for a Faly, so that's not so surprising.
10) Joshua Illencik realizes that his male may also be from a female that Panther Co didn't buy directly from Kammerflage.
11) Although in a previous screenshot, we see Panther Co confirming that Joshua's male is from the same pairing as Lam's older male (he was from a pairing with Cyclone and a female sold to us as Grimbold), we then see Panther co stating in a later screen shot that Joshua's male is NOT from the same clutch as he was represented he was sold to Joshua.
12) Ron also has a male confirmed to be of misrepresented lineage, though Ron had inquired about a Kaepernick male, with no concern about the Dam's sire. Panther Co says Ron could realistically '"just list the offspring as CB ambanja" and guarantees we'd even buy the clutch. That was among options including a full refund. I [Josh Pritchard] also ask him not to make any posts that would misrepresent what happened.

Full refunds were given promptly.

We assumed responsibility for several mistakes -- which boil down to us selling offspring as being from our breeder, Cyclone, and females we bought as "sired by Grimbold" -- but not directly from Kammerflage. We couldn't prove the females came from Grimbold with certainty, so in face of that, we offered refunds promptly. We sent prepaid shipping labels and issued full refunds.

Most of our chameleons sell in lots, but, as I think is clear from these screenshots, all chameleons we sell individually effectively come with a full satisfaction guarantee -- even though we don't advertise it. I think most of our customers are quite happy, but any that are not are of course encouraged to contact us.

Thank you.

 

[jishillencik]

Has Panther Company any proof of reaching out to other customers that may have purchased a Cyclone/Grimbold offspring??

 

[choppers1]

Why did panther co deleted the thread about that lot? I hope the person who bought that lot read this boi. The thing that amazes me is the you guys label as a faly from wc sire and wc dam. But in fact you know even know what he is.

 

[choppers1]

If a mod is reading this, please bring back that thread because it's consider as evidence.