• Responding to email notices you receive.
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    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

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    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Big Squeeze (Matt Martin)

A

ajc

Guest
Here's what happened...

"Big Squeeze" had 2 LTC Adult Female Ball Pythons for sale. He said that they were both feeding on Frozen Thawed Rats, treated for external and internal parasites, and had been in the country 9 months....

- When I first paid for them, I asked if he would hold them for two weeks if I gave him a $50 deposit.

He agreed, so I sent $50.

5 days later, he emailed me and requested that I send more money immediately. I told him that I couldn't do that yet because I had over 100 other snakes to pay for (which I told him up front) and reminded him that he told me I could have two weeks. He denied it. So, I sent him a copy of the email where he had agreed. He then said that I could have two weeks, but he threatened to not feed the snakes if I didn't send him more money (Now I find that funny because neither one of the snakes are feeding). I told him that I was very tired of his antics and I sent him the money the following day.


- Here's where it gets good...I received the snakes when I was supposed to, which I was surprised about.

They were packed in a dirty pillow case, thrown in a beat up brown box that had been lined with various broken pieces of styrofoam...not a good sign.


Remember how he said that they were both feeding on Frozen Thawed Rats? As of now, neither one has eaten anything and neither one look as if they've eaten in months...no muscle tone, very soft, etc. I have a ball that's been off feed for 8 weeks and looks much healthier than these two.

Remember that he said they were both treated for external parasites? One of them had several ticks.

Remember how he said they were healthy and had been in the country 9 months? These are nothing more than a couple of $20 Wild Caught Ball Pythons. Neither one will eat and the one that didn't have ticks showed up with a large abscess on it's neck, which was full of puss and blood. These don't sound like healthy LTC Ball Pythons do they??


- It get's even better...I called him to voice my concern.

When I called him about the abscess, which was BEFORE I saw the ticks or found out the other had mouth rot, he claimed that he knew nothing about it and said that he found it very hard to believe.

I offered to send him a picture via email. He still denied it.

I asked him what he planned to do about it. He started cursing at me, using the "F" word, among others. I find that kind of odd, since all his adds end with "Thank you, and God Bless."

So, I told him that I would share my story with everyone on the net that I could. He finally agreed to refund my money, but I would have to ship them at my expense. Later on that night, he offered to refund half of my money and let me keep the snakes. Only knowing that one had an abscess and the other had ticks, I agreed.

Then I found out that one has mouth rot 6 days later...It seems to me that Matthew knew about the mouth rot and figured that it was well worth $75 not to have to take the snakes back. I haven't told Matthew about this, as I'm sure he'll soon find out by reading this. I have no desire to talk with him at this point.


*** Here's the bottom line. ***

There are too many reputable, honest breeders and dealers out there for any one of us honest people to have to deal with low life crooks like Matthew Martin (AKA "Big Squeeze".) He is the petty thief of the herp world.


----------------------------------------------------
Real Name: Matthew Martin, aka "Big Squeeze"

Home Address:
7 Tahoe Ln.
Winona, MN 55987

Phone: (507) 454-1712
Email: [email protected]
----------------------------------------------------


This is my story

Sincerely,

Anthony Caponetto
[email protected]
 
Anthony,

Yesterday I was looking at the kingsnake adds and was impressed with your web page, nice looking. Keep up the good work!

With regards to your problem with Matt I am surprised. If you check the old BOI you will find I had a problem with the Big Squeeze over a year ago. We put that problem behind us as it was not with Matt, but with a partner he had then. Matt offered to settle the difference with cash (which he did) even though it had been his partner's fault. The transaction went really smooth with Neil Gubitz acting as a trust. This is probably a misunderstanding and he will make up to you.

Regards,  <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>
 
Anthony,

Sorry to hear of your troubles. Sounds like we have another Brian Rogers JR Wanna be.
I almost made a deal with Matt for some high-end snakes, but he kept on putting it off and gave bs excuses, so I dealt with someone else and made out even better. It just wasn;t worth my time.
Thanks for the heads-up. Hopefully others will be wary.Good luck with the bp's.
 
I am sorry to hear about your troubles Anthony.  Thanks for the heads-up.  I was going to buy a few LTC balls from this guy a few months ago.  I am glad I didn't.
 
Sorry to here about your problem with his animals. Hopefully he will make this all right by you.

The only dealings I have had with the Big Squeeze was selling him a pair of Yellow Anacondas. The deal was smoth and I recieved payment fast. So As a buyer I believe he is an asset.

Hopefully he'll make this a good tranaction with you so he could make himself a asset as a seller-breeder. Frank

Once again sorry about your loss.
 
Well, about 3 years ago I had someone try and scam me. His name was Matt Martin from Minn. I had some Woma Pythons for sale (sub-adults and were worth ALOT of cash 3 years ago). I get a email offer from this guy wanting to trade me a Axanthic Ball Python that he said he produced from VPI hets. He sent a blurry pic and seemed to be Axanthic, so I wanted to go into the deal a little more. I told him Id get some input on the pic and email him back later that day. He stated to ship the Womas first and to ship them THAT day or Id lose the deal. That was my first red flag. You contact me on the deal and expect me to ship first !!!
 I contacted Dave and Tracy Barker (I guess this idiot didnt know Im pretty good friends with them) and asked them about it. Tracy informed me that there was NO way he could of produced their line of Axanthics yet as the even the oldest Hets they sold were not old enough to breed. They had NO record of selling any Het. Axanthics to a Matt Martin. They also stated that the pic looked fuzzy and was more than likley a pic of a snake in shed. They even called him to the plate and said IF their wrong, have Matt email them and enlighten them on his purchase.
 Well, I emailed Matt their reply. Guess what <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='???'> Never heard from the dude again. Im not sure if it was his so called "partner" or him, but the name and state does match up. That would of been HUGE lose for me if it wasnt for Dave and Tracy Barker. BE CAREFUL !!!!

Joe Dembinski

Dembinski Reptile's
 
Oh, by the way. The "Big Squeeze" wasn't in the email. The email from a Matt Martin from Minn. that tried to scam me had a email of [email protected] or Refugee. Something to that effect. I guess it doesnt make that much difference as you can change your email name. But, just in case it rings a bell for anyone else.

Joe Dembinski

Dembinski Reptile's
 
Anthony sorry to hear about your problems with him, it was only a matter of time, the way he spoke to you is nothing new for his treatment of his customers or potential customers, a couple years back I almost got ripped by him, I inquired about an ad for Dumerils boas and asked for pics well he sent me pics he stole from someone web site, when I emailed him back and told him I knew who those pics belonged to he emailed me he claiming he was a picture collector and simply sent off the wrong pic, well a couple days later a female freind of mine from FL emailed about the dumerils, guess what he sent her the same pic when I emailed asking why he ws still using the pics he emailed back cursing me out and threatning me, not only did he do that but Kate made the mistake of giving him her phone number to discuss the tranaction further, before she figuered out what was up and when she emailed him asking why he was using someone elses pics he called her on the phone and threatened bodily harm to her,

on the old "Blacklist" that was around for a while he was a favorite, he was posted on there by several people, as Joe was saying he has gone through many email adresses and buisness names, he used to go by "reptile refuge" and a bunch of other names and has had 5 or 6 email adresses I know of and would post in various for sale forums under the differant names and email addys at the same time

as far as the partner deal, has anyone out there ever spoken to both of them that they could tell the differance and verify there was a partner, he has been using this parnter excuse for years and personally I belive its BS, when the blacklist first vcame out he was claiming it was his partner however his so called "partner" was still ripping people off under his name using his email addys and everything, so if he was aware of his "partner" ripping people off, why did he do nothing to stop it? IMO it was an excuse, he may have one or two good deals under his belt but hes nothing more then a knucklehead that you should stear clear of, anyone who wants to give this a guy a second chance, IMO youll be sorry............
 
Anthony,

Take my advice from what it's worth. Just an opinion. From what I read from your web page you want to do things right. If you want to keep up that image I would hand pick not only your snakes but also where do you get them from. Buying CH, WC, "LTC" pythons is a risk for your other well established animals. Keeping animals with mouth rot (next step maybe RI), mites, etc. can be devastating for the rest of your more valuable animals. But moreso, people will inevitably associate your suppliers with your business (You said it was just a hobby, but if you are buying pythons in 100 lots and selling most of them to local pet shops you are doing business).
Just think about it.  <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

Best regards,
 
Not going into details, but the big squeese is the most annoying/lying customer I have ever had (he is 1 of 2 <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':p'>)!.

He expected me to ship supplies to him by airborne (which would of cost me $45.00), when he paid $3.50 for shipping.
 
Thank you Anthony for your post. I too wrote to Matt Martin about his ball pythons.  He had about a dozen for sale ads up a while ago for female ball pythons. I wrote to him telling him that I was interested in buying a couple.  Shortly after that I saw him post a message in the want ads saying that they were gone.  A few days after that he sent me an E-mail asking if I wanted to buy his ball pythons, I was a bit confused by his message and wrote back saying that I had thought he had already sold them all.  He responded saying that he was expecting some more in soon.  Figuring that these new ones would more than likely be fresh imports rather then the LTC's that he stated in his ad, and even though I also live in Minnesota and could probably have saved some money on shipping charges, I decided not to persue the purchase.  After reading about your experience, I'm glad I didn't send money.  

On a side note, I'm beginning to feel a bit distressed about what I've been reading here lately.  The Boababe Jenny Robertson (if she actually exists) preports to be from Rochester MN which is less then 100 miles south of me.  Matt is from Winona which is about 50 miles East of Rochester.  The now rather infamous Mr. Underhill is from Austin, which is about 50 miles southwest of Rochester.  There seems to be some kind of a Bermuda triangle of bad herpin karma just to the south of me.  

I truly hope that none of this puts off anyone from buying from others here in Minnesota. We have quite a few highly respectable serious herpers in this state and I would hate to see anyone decide against a purchase simply because of the state that the seller is in.

Mark Schmidtke    <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>
 
Here's one of Matt's replies to the old BOI on 01/25/02 (the rest of the details at:
http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/boi/boi.cgi/Reptiles/0/43631)

"All that i am asking for is that i am given a chance I am making things that went wrong with my partner before right, it may take a bit of time but i will make things right and not looking for any trouble at all. I always have been disclosing all my info lately and always encourage people to talk to me about things and finalize things at least over the phone. Thanks for listening and trying to understand and i will show all of you that i was not the person that did it before. Thanks and God Bless".

Less than 4 months went by since that statement. Anyone can have a "bad hair day". Why not give him the benefit of the doubt?

Anthony I would suggest you give him a call again and give him one last chance to rectify the situation. If he doesn't, that's his choice...

Best regards,  <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>
 
he tried to buy three adult boas from a friend of mine and offered 100 shipped for all three. geez the shipping alone would have run at least 75 bucks..
i recommended to my friend to just ignore the email and be done with the fool.
that offer was worse than insulting.
 
Well there goes my "innocent until proven guilty" policy. I do believe people deserve a second chance he had it and he blew it.

Best regards  <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>
 
Ooops.. forgot to post my full name above. There are a few of us here at reptiles and things:

Tony Trent <--------that's me, I made the post!
Nikolle Fischer
Amanda Fischer

Going to add our names as our signature so we dont have this problem!
 
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (alvaro @ May 11 2002,09:17)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Anthony,

Take my advice from what it's worth. Just an opinion. From what I read from your web page you want to do things right. If you want to keep up that image I would hand pick not only your snakes but also where do you get them from. Buying CH, WC, "LTC" pythons is a risk for your other well established animals. Keeping animals with mouth rot (next step maybe RI), mites, etc. can be devastating for the rest of your more valuable animals. But moreso, people will inevitably associate your suppliers with your business (You said it was just a hobby, but if you are buying pythons in 100 lots and selling most of them to local pet shops you are doing business).
Just think about it.  <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

Best regards,</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
I know what you mean...I don't keep any ill snakes for that reason (the health of my other snakes).   The two that came from Matt Martin went to a guy who knew what he was getting and agreed to try and nurse them back to health.  He knows exactly how I got them, why I don't want them (because I don't want my other animals getting sick), and he got them for next to nothing.  I get my live feeders from him, so he knows me quite well and knows that I don't deal with that kind of animals.

The two LTCs that I have for sale, I've had personally for 6 months and the people I bought them from (both locally) had them at least 6 months prior to that (one 6 months, the other about 8 months).  They both ate like pigs from the first week I had them until January...they both resumed eating recently and are doing fine.  One of them weighed a whopping 250 grams and the other, just under 350 grams when I got them, so they couldn't have been very old...far from WC adults.

Bottom line....These snakes (unlike what I got from The Big Squeeze) are in perfect health and I'm not at all afraid that someone will be dissapointed.  Even if they were, I would more than make good on the deal.

As far as the babies go, I did that so I could get some females to raise up.  I only sold to two pet stores and the rest went to personal friends, so this is not a normal thing...just something I did for fun to get some nice females for later on down the road.
 
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (alvaro @ May 10 2002,20:25)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Anthony,

Yesterday I was looking at the kingsnake adds and was impressed with your web page, nice looking. Keep up the good work!

With regards to your problem with Matt I am surprised. If you check the old BOI you will find I had a problem with the Big Squeeze over a year ago. We put that problem behind us as it was not with Matt, but with a partner he had then. Matt offered to settle the difference with cash (which he did) even though it had been his partner's fault. The transaction went really smooth with Neil Gubitz acting as a trust. This is probably a misunderstanding and he will make up to you.

Regards,  <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Thanks! Look at that page now...I added some graphics to it and it looks much better.

Matt had more than enough chances to make it right...Even so, the fact still remains that he knowingly sent me sick animals and batently lied to me.   He's not only a crook, but a jerk.  If I hadn't been so aggressive, he's have never even attempted to make good.  In short, he was looking for a sucker and obviously found the wrong guy.

This experience with him is why I am so up front...I don't want, nor do I plan to ever need a second chance.  You know that cheesy saying..."You never get a second chance to make a first impression."  I believe that is true.

The difference between Matt and myself, is that I don't depend on this for a living, therefore, I will not sell an animal to make a quick buck.  The only reason I'm selling any animals right now is purely to make room for the 5 HUGE female BP's that I just bought.
 
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