• In case most of you have not noticed, I made changes to the donation amounts as well as the durations for all of the paid membership levels. Things are winding down here, and this seems to be the most prudent way to deal with the "end of life" period of this site.

    Contributor level members - $10 per 30 days
    Sponsors - Eliminated
    Benefactor level members - $25 per 30 days
    Endowment level members - $50 per 30 days

    Account Upgrades Page
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Bad Guy BUYERS BEWARE! BEN SHOTTS of VIVID DRAGONS- dishonest man, possible scammer

Text from user
 

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Text from sgambino. These people are nuts we already went through the PayPal proces. Just one of those customers
 

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Here's what customers say


I am very pleased with my purchase of an Italian Leather Back, Red Flame Tiger, Bearded Dragon. He was even more beautiful once we could see him in person, talk about love at first site. Very high quality, just as it stated on the web page.
Ben was very willing to answer any questions I had, he did so honestly and responded quickly to them.
There was a delay in getting the purchased shipped, but this was not the sellers fault, and Ben was wonderful at keeping us informed of the issue, and updated on the shipping progress.
I plan to do business again with Vivid Dragons!
Crystal
Moville, IA
 
After harassing didn't bully me into giving her a full refund she wanted half then 25 dollars and once Denied that she went on to the txt and calls. She took it to PayPal PayPal ruled against her so now she is collecting pictures from here and my site as though it proves she got the wrong dragon.cshe received the exact dragon pictures and paid for end of story.
 
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but these threads can't be deleted. So why should we believe you are in the right and the op was wrong? The op has posted plenty of evidence other than a few text sent after the op received a DIFFERENT dragon than they ordered, where's your proof to support your innocence? You can't possibly expect us to just take your word that you did absolutely nothing wrong, if I told you I have 3 eyes would you just take my word and not ask me to prove it?
 
juliasara said:
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but these threads can't be deleted. So why should we believe you are in the right and the op was wrong? The op has posted plenty of evidence other than a few text sent after the op received a DIFFERENT dragon than they ordered, where's your proof to support your innocence? You can't possibly expect us to just take your word that you did absolutely nothing wrong, if I told you I have 3 eyes would you just take my word and not ask me to prove it?
Click to expand...
Actually the OP never did post a screen shot of how much she sent the seller. In the texts she stated $250, which the seller didn't deny, so I'll assume that's what she paid.

And yes, based on the markings it also looks to me like she received the critter advertised for $225, not the one for $250.
 
Ben shotts said:
Here's what customers say
Click to expand...

Providing alleged testimonials (they are not screen shots) of other transactions is not providing proof of what happened in this transaction.
This thread will not be removed. A Paypal decision is not proof, they often decide on the basis of a tracking number that something was received, they certainly have neither the time nor inclination to discern differences between two lizards.

Take a look at the pictures/evidence provided by the OP. If you are saying that's not how it went down, provide better proof of your own that supports your side of the story.
 
Here's the proof I paid the 250. Plus 5 extra to guarantee live Arrival. The "threatening" messages were my pissed off bf, who went online and got his number AFTER I told him how PayPal didn't rule in my favor, along with all the other details of my and Ben's conversations. He has a temper, yes, but I had nothing to do with those.
 

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Also, as I mentioned before, I opened the dispute with PayPal, and being the kind natured person I am, was still trying to negotiate any sort of resolution with Ben directly, when he escalated the case for PayPal review before I had a chance to send them any of my evidence. Therefore they ruled not in my favor.
 
Our messages via PayPal, I was the last to respond. It was my fault for giving him so many opportunities to redeem himself. Was realy trying to save us both the trouble. Then he escalated to PayPal so I really had no other options but to warn others.
 

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How the case was ruled. They really only had a "his word against mine" as far as evidence.
 

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Also, since I realize now that the texts I posted are a bit hard to read, here is a post of the dragon I thought I was buying listed as SOLD on August 5. (A detail I unfortunately didn't realize til much later)
 

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Yet posted for sale again two more times on August 10 and 17 (I first contacted him on the 17th). This is relevant bc this is the information that told me that he hadn't just made a mistake and accidentally sent the wrong one, but was deliberately being deceitful, at which point I decided to take further action with PayPal and with asking for more than just the price difference refunded, although I would've been okay with even that since that's what I originally asked for.
 

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The fact that he reposted the ads is another massive red flag that this was an intentional scam he was hoping you wouldn't notice, or would accept his BS replies that the lizard simply "changed with age". For $25? Jeez man, that's not even a nice dinner right there. Reputation is already fried
 
Thank you for posting your experience for the community Sarah! I am so sorry this scammer got you! It seems pretty obvious (from the little red chicklette under his avatar) that he already has some kind of community issues here, and they way he came on demanding the thread be taken down doesn't bode well for him either! The fact that he did a bait-and-switch for a measly $25 is really the height (or dept I should say) of shiftiness!
~BeauBoi
 
Wait, what did you mean an "extra $5 for live arrival guarantee"?? Are you saying he made you pay extra for him to guarantee live arrival??

Sent from my N9132 using Tapatalk
 
Yep that's exactly what I mean. He says it in the text messages I posted, though I realize they might be kind of hard to read:/

And thanks beauboi. Guess I just have to take this as a lesson learned and hope karma does her job.
 
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