Beware: Of Reptileguru.

[Chameleon Company]

Josh, IMO you made a mistake here:

JNJ (Josh) says:
True I did ask for a partial refund. Anyone would have.

I would not have. Not if I had already agreed to accept a snake with mites. I believe that I would have made different assumptions than you, as I never have seen "just 5-10" mites. I'll bet others here would not have either.

But if its not about the money, than we started this thread just to warn the reptile buying public that Reptile Guru is only up front about some mites, but not all mites! I post here somewhat frequently, and obviously have my own perspective of what is, and is not, a valid complaint. But it seems that your complaint is now only just about the characterization of "a few" mites vs. a "lot of mites", as related in a phone conversation. If you had it in hard print, like an email, then we could give some credence to the claim. But since its from a phone conversation, which leaves much more possibility for an honest misunderstanding between parties, you decided it was enough to come here with and bash Reptile Guru, since its "not about the money". Like I said in the beginning, this thread is a mistake.

 

[jnjreptile]

I did not know that credit card companies didn't do partial refunds. I have never done a chargeback because I have never been in a situation to do so. This thread needs to end. It is not about who said what or money. It is about the snake. Everyone keeps relying on the refund, mites and who said what but the only thing that matters is that he has mites and reptileguru never treated him. But it is a done deal. everything is over with.

Jennifer Norwood

 

[Chameleon Company]

Jennifer.

To refresh the viewing public:

Jennifer, speaking on behalf of JNJ, says:
............ This thread needs to end. It is not about who said what or money. It is about the snake. Everyone keeps relying on the refund, mites and who said what but the only thing that matters is that he has mites and reptileguru never treated him. But it is a done deal. everything is over with.

While I have disagreed with you here, I do not think that you are to be avoided, or that it would be right for me to refer others to this thread, lest they draw a negative opinion from it as well. Just a disagreement. A bag full of dead mites does have me wondering about your conclusion that the reptile guru "never treated him", BTW. But in reading your above post, and some of the more recent posts by JNJ, I do have a quandary:
If its not about the money (or a partial refund), then since JNJ was the thread starter, what did you hope to accomplish, or warn people about, by your initial post? I don't need a book of an answer, and welcome any points where you may want to retract anything, or affirm anything, as we all make mistakes. But if not for the money, and call me thick-headed and blind and stupid, the theme of it all evaporated on me!

 

[The BoidSmith]

I applaud your frankness in admitting that regardless of the circumstances you should not have shipped the animal.

Ditto. Well said Scott! An animal whose health (or parasite load for that matter) is questionable should not be shipped. I applaud Jim's frankness too.

Regards

 

[Junkyard]

Just a thought, I have had to deal with mites in the past. My observance is that if a snake is left in a quarantine tank for 24 hours you will notice all the mites that you never saw, crawling all over the tank(looks like the photo of the bag). Why? Because they are in a large number and need to find a new host. I have seen this with snakes before AND after they were treated(usually because of a bad mite spray). They can travel 12 feet in one hour, so in a bag that is a lot. Also, it only takes a few eggs to hatch over night and have a mess like that.

You may be upset because no one is defending your side of a mite infested snake. I do not doubt that Jim has his employees on a mite watch for the next few days. Hopefully he will not sell any until he knows for sure that his store is clear of mites. In fact, I will personally go meet Jim and see his store. I live in San Diego and I drive a lot, Chino is not that big of a deal, I can visit my family and Laura while I am out. So Jim, lets get together and talk herps. I will post my findings.

I am in no way condoning the shipping of the snake. What I have seen here, Jim has learned a valuable lesson that he will not soon forget.

 

[prehistoric]

Michael,
I look forward to your visit. Please let me know when you plan to come in so I can be there.

Thank you,
Jim Alles

 

[GuinnyOne]

I'd like to visit the store too. However, for me, it is a 7-9 hour drive south. Anybody want to spring for a plane ticket? LOL j/k

 

[jnjreptile]

The mites in the bag as I have said before were alive not dead. Therefore he was never treated or treated with a proper medicine. I posted this thread to warn people to be careful about buying animals from reptileguru. I don't want anyone to have a snake arrive with hundreds of live mites on it. Everyone keeps saying Jim did the right thing and that we should take the full refund and send the snake back. But why would I send the snake back to him when he didn't even treat it in the fist place. Everyone should be asking Jim why he would let a snake sit in that many mites without treatment. His employee even went as far to say on the phone that I shouldn't have treated the snake before talking to them first. What does he think, that I am going to let a snake sit in hundreds of mites while waiting for him to answer the phone. I don't think so. But as I said it is done and over with.

 

[Chameleon Company]

JNJ, this would sem to be the crux of your complaint:

JNJ says:
I posted this thread to warn people to be careful about buying animals from reptileguru. I don't want anyone to have a snake arrive with hundreds of live mites on it.

Reptile Guru (Jim) made it clear from the very beginning, when he called you before he shipped, that he realized the concerns inherent with mites, to include an offer to cancel the deal. Maybe you don't "want anyone to have a snake arrive with hundreds of live mites on it", but your own words earlier in the thread show Jim thinking that canceling the deal (put another way, "not shipping a mite-infested snake") was proper, and you saying "No, ship it". Now you want to warn others, blaming Guru for your choice. You are sure now that he did not treat it, yet mite eradication takes more time than you allowed. No one knows whether it got a spray or not before it left, but what is certain is that you were knowingly and willingly receiving a mite-infested snake. And the claim is made in an earlier post that you already had an existing mite problem on your end, and therefore weren't as concerned as you otherwise would have been.
I thank you for the explanation, but as a few of us have earlier speculated, IMO if you had gotten your partial refund initially, you would have lost the motivation to warn people about Guru.

 

[gmherps]

Is it just me or did jnj say they would post some pics of the snake like 6 pages ago?

I smell tuna here.

Maybe a bit of buyers remorse? I think so. You want a refund; then you don't. Make up your mind(s).

 

[jnjreptile]

Everyone needs to actually read the post's. Jim never offered to cancel the deal. He offered to treat the snake and then ship or ship it out that day. I highly doubt he would have treated before shipping it to us because he never treated it in the first place. If he had then the mites or at least some of them would have been dead. As far as us having a problem with mites in the first place that is bull. what we had told Jim was we just sprayed our collection with prevent-a-mite to prevent mites from coming. we spray them every month. Jim's collection is the one that has the mite problem. This is nothing againest Jim. What this post was started for was to warn people to keep their eyes out for mites. As I said before it is a done deal. It is over with. I don't see why everyone keeps dragging it on. Maybe it is for their own entertainment. This is the last post you will see from us.

 

[Chameleon Company]

Taking your advice Josh ..

JNJ - Josh, from his last post:
Everyone needs to actually read the post's. Jim never offered to cancel the deal.

So, I went back and read post #1.

JNJ - Josh, from his thread-starter:
After we purchased it the Owner/Jim called us and told us that he had found 5-10 mites on the snake and wanted to know if we still wanted him shipped and he would include a bottle of mite off or if we wanted to wait and he would treat the snake before shipping. We told him that if it only had a few mites it could easily be treated and we quarantine everything when we receive it anyways, so go ahead and ship it......

By your own words, it sounds very much like you had a choice at this point, and you made it.

And then this section of Jim's (Reptile Guru) reply in post #3:

We offered to cancel the sale, treat the snake for mites ourselves, or we could remove all visible mites and send the snake with a bottle of Zoo Med Mite Off free of charge.

Which you never refuted until now. And if the offer to cancel was misunderstood, Jim has been consistent in wanting to do right by offering a complete refund at every turn, to include by his well-trained employees right from the beginning. I hope that the snake recovers and prospers for its owners.

 

[kmurphy]

We called ReptileGuru to work out some sort of partial refund from how we had already paid to have him treated.

......give us a refund upon arrival. I said no due to the fact that we had already treated the snake.

As has been said before, whether it was 5-10 mites or hundreds of mites doesn't make a difference, the treatment is the same. So the partial refund shouldn't be due to the treatment as that had already been agreed to by the acceptance of the snake.

How did the snake look? Was it healthy otherwise? And how is it doing now?

 

[liquidleaf]

Yes, where are those photos of the snake?

 

[prehistoric]

Proof

I should be able to prove with my phone records that I contacted JnJ reptiles before I billed them. I have to check the credit card copies to see if there is an actual time stamped on it as well. This may help back up the fact that I offered to cancel the sale. The only problem is it may be a few weeks before I get my phone statement. I will post that information here if it is available. The bottom line is JnJ is being dishonest about the offer to cancel the sale. In fact, JnJ was happy that I was truthful with them and made it clear during our phone conversation.

Thank you,
Jim Alles

 

[Junkyard]

As I said, I went and visited Jim's store today, here are my findings.

Let me start with saying I do not know Jim, in fact he was not there today as he was away doing presentations with his animals. I have never met him I did not know AJ, we also have not met until today.

We arrived around 2:30pm, the store is not really large, but I did notice how clean the floors and glass on the cages are. Inside the cages I saw clean substrate and clean animals. Some of the cages are extremely large, fitting for the monitors and retics they own. I met up with Aj, he was very straight forward and polite, we spoke a bit about this whole incident and then procede to discuss a little about the animals they have. I ask to hold a Columbian boa, AJ quickly retrieved it for me, the snake was warm and very active. It is kept in a bark/mulch substrate, I figured if mites were to be the hardest to spot quickly, it would be on this snake. Guess what? No mites!

From there I asked AJ about a large boa that was not looking the best, it had a good girth, semed strong but also a little emaciated. Aj and I walked over to it, the boa is 27 years old!! A snake dropped off by a person, for 27 years old that snake looked pretty darn good, I do not think it is emaciated at all. How many of us have seen a snake that old before? This was my first. There is also one animal per cage, this surprised me as a rare find in a pet store.

After further speaking to AJ he invited me into the back room to see a Honduran Boa, a beautiful snake. The cages in the back of the store were as clean as the cages in the front of the store. I even had the opportunity to hold their tame water monitor, AJ is excited about this one and he every right to. The water monitor was clean, strong, active, and tame. I checked this one for mites also, No Mites!!

Jim and his staff take care of their animals, sure the boa that was shipped had some mites, that has been established, but in the store now, there are none that I saw. I checked my hands and the cages for mites, I did not see any. I recommend this store to my friends, they were polite, friendly, and honest. The cages are beautiful as is their animals. I saw feeding charts in the back, I would not be surprised if there are cleaning charts also.

My observation has made it clear to me that JNJ blew this out of proportions, Jim's store is one I would be pleased to sell my animals too. They are good people and can be trusted, AJ was extremely nice, I am positive if JNJ had calmly and politely called AJ or Jim to go over this situation, they would have taken care of it.

Take this post as you will, I am satisfied, Jim has every right to be proud of his store, staff, and the BIG welcome sign. My position is he is a good guy.

 

[Jungle Gems]

Michael- Thank you for the first-hand insight and for making your personal account of the store public on this thread.

I would like to say that we have done business with Jim Alles twice (once early last year via Prehistoric Pets and once recently via ReptileGuru.com) and in both instances the animals we received were packed extremely well, arrived alive and healthy, and have been thriving ever since.

Jim- If you are reading this, that little monitor we recently received is doing beautfully and eats like a monster.

We haven't had the privelege of viewing the store in person, but I sure hope that one day this will be possible if Dan and I are ever out in California.

Thanks for everything, Jim. We will certainly be going to you for future purchases.

 

[TomO]

your own words earlier in the thread show Jim thinking that canceling the deal (put another way, "not shipping a mite-infested snake") was proper, and you saying "No, ship it". Now you want to warn others, blaming Guru for your choice.

Nicely put Chamco. That, IMO, is the essence of the matter.

 

[hhmoore]

jnj - how can you be so sure that this snake was never treated? Sadly, I have had my collection exposed to mites on a number of occasions over the years...and one thing that I have learned is that there is no such thing as instant eradication. Any time I have had to treat things, regardless of what treatment method was used, I was still able to find mites after a day or two (frequently in amazingly high numbers, as mentioned earlier). Dealing with mites, as you yourself have admitted is a process, not a single event. Therefore, I just don't understand the vehemence of your claim that reptileguru did not treat the snake before shipping. Frankly, after everything I have read on this thread, I am inclined to believe that they did.

 

[The BoidSmith]

Take this post as you will, I am satisfied, Jim has every right to be proud of his store, staff, and the BIG welcome sign. My position is he is a good guy.

You are more than likely right. The way he presented himself here also suggests the same thing. He also understood where some people were coming from when they told him that shipping a snake with mites was not the right decision. Anyone proud of his facility understands really fast that an animal that’s shipped from there represents his business and the way he cares for his animals. It doesn’t matter if the buyer accepts or not the conditions of the animal previous to shipping or if the animal never entered the store. It’s his business name that’s on the line. But even more important than the “business” side of it is welfare of the animal. Aside from the transmission of IBD (a huge problem in itself), mites constitute a stress for any reptile. Snakes in particular are known to spend prolonged periods of time submerged in water to ease the discomfort of the mites. By shipping an animal with mites we subject it to a huge stress. Just imagine an animal bagged for approximately 15 hours together with blood sucking parasites with no chance of relief whatsoever. When the stress of shipping and change to a new environment is compounded with that of the mites it’s easy to see how the immune system can be compromised. This can make the animal more susceptible to contract other ailments. in short, a big no-no from a business as well as an animal health standpoint. Having said this it has to be reiterated that he immediately recognized it had been a wrong decision, and he was willing to rectify it with a refund. We can talk and write all we want, but its how someone addresses a problem when it appears that reflects a person’s true character.

Regards