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Bad Guy Derek Beando Dbeando scams

Oh wow so sorry to hear about this! I hope things get worked out!! Lydia and Red Sky were so excited to be getting Vegan Cupcake. This is just horrible!!
 
I have a tiny collection of geckos. My pride and joy (and the most expensive gecko I ever bought) is a VC kid. There is no way in you know where that a gecko, any gecko, that I paid that much for would be anywhere but in a tank by itself safe from bullying. I would would think that I would special order food.
I pray her and the others are ok. What a shame. It is all about the money for some people.
 
Oh holey moley. Ansli called and told me about this thread earlier today when I was on my way home from the Tampa Expo and I went o_0 Then came on just now and read even MORE that's come to light since Ansli and I talked... Unbelievable. Back when Derek had offered up VC for breeder loan I'd PM'd him on Pangea about it but never heard back... SOOOOOOO glad now that he never bothered to respond.

Angie, you have NO IDEA how sorry I am that I encouraged you to get Frenchie. :(

I sooooooo hope you guys end up with your geckos safe and sound, and that Derek gets held accountable for all of this.

Has anyone added up the sum total he's scammed out of us Crestie addicts thus far? I... don't want to. :(
 
I am so worried about these poor geckos :( And so sorry for all of the wonderful people that were scammed! As a newbie, I am really glad threads like this exist for me to learn from. Hope, prayers, luck and whatever else you guys need to pull through this!
 
Man... Just got through this thread... Holy moly! I am so glad now that I didn't have money at the time for VC... And SOOOO sorry for everyone that's involved with this mess. Good luck, hope, and prayers to all of you guys!
 
What is really sad is, that gecko is very well known. I had really wanted her as well, but didn't have the funds and something didn't feel quite right to me. He had offered her for a breeding loan a few weeks prior, (for a price) then suddenly posted her for sale. Too good to be true? Sadly, it seems so.
I really hope the geckos get into good proper caring homes, that they'll all be ok, they are my first worry. I also hope that in the end, Derek does the right thing. He can still make this right if he tries. Its a horrible sad situation all around and I'm sad to see so many people I know and consider friends getting the run-around trying to figure this all out.
 
Wow!! I just managed to get through this thread. This Derek guy sounds like a real piece of work. I am not a gecko person so can someone tell me more about VC?? I am sorry that so many people got scammed. I hope everything works out for the best and it all gets resolved. I really hope that Derek gets what is coming to him. This thread makes me sick. Just another ex. of people caring more about money then the condition of their animals or their reputation in this community. No amount of money could make me lie to people and treat my animals like garbage. I think in one of his texts to Kelly (?) I think it was, he said "come get this stupid gecko":shrug01::shrug01:

Anybody that talks about their animals like that doesn't deserve to have animals. :angry:
 
Morelia4life said:
I am not a gecko person so can someone tell me more about VC??
Click to expand...

Red and pink and cream Crested geckos are very popular right now, and Erica O'Connor of Crown Jewel Reptiles (who currently is out of the hobby, she liquidated her entire collection last year, which is why VC went up for sale) produced some stunning offspring for her. Erica's website is great in how well she documented her geckos' lineage with beautiful photos - this is the link to Vegan Cupcake: http://www.crownjewelreptiles.com/animals/view/33

The Crested Gecko community is pretty small, pretty tight, and this gecko was very well known and desired... as evidenced by how many people were willing to pay "high end" dollars for her. :/
 
lauraleellbp said:
Red and pink and cream Crested geckos are very popular right now, and Erica O'Connor of Crown Jewel Reptiles (who currently is out of the hobby, she liquidated her entire collection last year, which is why VC went up for sale) produced some stunning offspring for her. Erica's website is great in how well she documented her geckos' lineage with beautiful photos - this is the link to Vegan Cupcake: http://www.crownjewelreptiles.com/animals/view/33

The Crested Gecko community is pretty small, pretty tight, and this gecko was very well known and desired... as evidenced by how many people were willing to pay "high end" dollars for her. :/
Click to expand...

Thank you Laura for providing me with that link. She is a very beautiful gecko. So many nice geckos on that site. So let me get this straight. Derek must have purchased VC straight from Erica and now Derek is using VC to basically scam the Crestie community??
 
Morelia4life said:
Thank you Laura for providing me with that link. She is a very beautiful gecko. So many nice geckos on that site. So let me get this straight. Derek must have purchased VC straight from Erica and now Derek is using VC to basically scam the Crestie community??
Click to expand...

Not quite. VC isn't the only one he's scamming with. I never received my two yellow tigers and Andrew never got Candy either. VC is the heat of the debate because so many people bit on her AND gave payment. Andrew and I are the only known owners of the three geckos in question in our case, but we're still getting screwed on them. VC has like what, six different "owners" that we know of now?
 
This is such a mess. Hopefully, someone gets their gecko and the others get their money back. Derek needs to be arrested. This is complete BS. No body deserves this.
 
Inret said:
Not quite. VC isn't the only one he's scamming with. I never received my two yellow tigers and Andrew never got Candy either.
Click to expand...
I haven't received Frenchie either, which makes a total of four geckos in addition to VC. At least at the moment it looks like "our" four geckos have only been sold once, but who knows...
 
CGMa said:
I haven't received Frenchie either, which makes a total of four geckos in addition to VC. At least at the moment it looks like "our" four geckos have only been sold once, but who knows...
Click to expand...

Ah, I'm sorry. Four, then. I'm sure there's others that just haven't made it into the thread yet, too. He had a ton of cresties up for sale. :(
 
I bet Erica would be just sick if she knew what was happening to the geckos she sold to him... My prayers are with all of you that bought from him and I hope it gets fixed..
 
shelby09 said:
I bet Erica would be just sick if she knew what was happening to the geckos she sold to him... My prayers are with all of you that bought from him and I hope it gets fixed..
Click to expand...

Yeah I bet! It's scary, not knowing what will happen to the geckos we lovingly raise and then sell. It's hard to know if they will have end up in a good home or not, unless you know or think you know the person you're selling too. So sad. These are living things. I wonder if he had this planned the whole time.
 
has anyone told Erica that this is going on? im sure she might want to know whats going on with one of her prised geckos.
the officers talked about derek like he knew them, i wonder if he has any warrents or anything, its a small town so hes probably known well by them.
 
Honestly I think stressing Erica out right now would be a bad idea. After leaving the hobby for personal reasons, I think the last thing she'd need is to be told that one of the animals she loved dearly is being mistreated. Telling her isn't going to make the situation any better.

This whole situation has me just flabbergasted. I had my iffy feelings about Dbeando for a while now (his geckos all looked really skinny in the ads he was posting) But I never thought it would be this BAD.

Someone asked if he had planned this? Probably not at first. But once two people paid for one gecko, and that animal went from bringing in 550$ to 1,100$ and he failed to notify anyone I would say he ran with what was happening.

Sad that he actually seems to have made off with several thousand dollars and has been reading this, but not even bothered to post.

And I mean, really---The guy is laid off, or alternately constantly on call for work, has a GF decide to leave him AND steal all of his electronics, a dead grandma, car repairs, and THEN a massive car crash that totals the vehicle and lands him in the hospital in need of prayers? How much of that is even believable? Sounds like he trotted out every excuse in the book.
 
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