• 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.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    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.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    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....

[email protected]/Clipse/Mikell Lurvey, Beware

H

hummi22689

Member
Joined
Feb 9, 2002
Messages
80
Reaction score
1
Points
8
Location
Dayton, OH
Just wanted to alert everyone to this kid. All of this happened before I found out he was a minor.

We had worked out a trade for his columbian tegu, and 2 mali uros, for my alligator. First respone was that one of the uros had died, so he would send the other uro, the tegu, some garter snakes, and some ringneck snakes. OK, that is fine because I really needed to move the gator and he said he had been looking for a gator 2 years. We both agreed to ship on the following Monday, and he said he would call me over the weekend to let me know what was going on. I never heard from him, so I did not ship. I get an e-mail the Tuesday after we were supposed to ship and it said he wasn't able to ship because he didn't do something his mom had asked and she shipped all his stuff away. But he still claims he wants the gator. He then tells me he will send me garters, ringnecks, fence lizards, racerunners, and whatever else he can catch. Ok, once again, it is fine. I can set up a nice little community display tank with everything he is sending. He e-mails me prior to scheduled shipping day and says he couldn't get the garters to eat, so he let them go. Then he sends me an IM telling me to go to a couple different sites and pick out what I would take in trade for the gator, and now a baby albino black rat. I tell him what I would take for the two, and he says he is placing the order and I will have them Tuesday and asks me to ship on Monday. I decided with my experience with him so far, I was not shipping until I get his end. Well, guess what, late Monday night, the day I was supposed to ship, he sends me another e-mail saying that his card didn't go through for the order and it would not be shipped. Fine, I am finished dealing with him. Then a couple days later, he e-mails me to ask if I had shipped when I was supposed to because he didn't get anything.

I just wanted to let everyone know my ordeal with him was like before anyone does actually send him anything.



Sydney Alcorn
 
Mikell Lurvey lives in MO. I don't know him well, but did meet him at a local show, and he has a personality that sticks in your mind.

Let me just say that in Missouri, it is illegal to buy, sell, or trade anything for native species. Residents are allowed to keep up to 5 specimens of any species they wish, but they cannot breed, sell, trade, barter, etc. For Mike to send you anything he "caught" in trade would be a huge mistake on his part. I'm not sure when you had these conversations with him, but I do know that recently he was made aware of those restrictions.

Mikell *is* a minor, I believe about 15 years old. From talking with him, it's apparent that he's done alot of reading about different types of reptiles, but I am uncertain what, if anything, he owns.

He has inquired about several animals that we have, and my response is simply that I'd need to speak with his parents before we could discuss it. I've never heard from the parents.

While I certainly don't want to see anyone scammed, I believe that this young man is simply overzealous and a poor communicator. I seriously doubt he intended to scam anyone.
 
Flag

Didn't you think that the fact he was willing to go catch stuff for the trade was a good reason to through a flag up and say forget it? Not so sure someone willing to take animals from the wild, ship them without de-parasitizing them, is really the right person for an alligator.
Just my opinion though.
Jeff
 
Back
Top