Ed Clark- Sketchy Ad

[Bill & Amy]

Interesting read about Ed, mites and quarantine.


Thread

 

[varnyard]

Bobby, you got ripped off.
I was only charged $15 to buy this CH import female.

Your kidding Right? It is not as Ed states:

Ed Clark: Bobby, these come into the country as SPECIALS at great expense and are sold at very reasonable prices for what they cost.

And here I thought I got a great deal when I paid $25.00.
Steve, you had to go and bust my bubble!!

 

[bcherps]

This thread has many different ideals going on, 1) Fuzzy ads may or may not mislead newbies., 2) pricing, 3) interpersonal communication.

Basically the pricing has nothing to do with it. I can price anything what I want. I could sell an adult albino bumble pied for 2 cents if I wanted-even though it should be in the mid 5 figures, and in turn I could ask one million dollars for my 12 year old unknown milk snake. Any forced conformity of pricing is price fixing-(unless you are on kingsnake). I have female "granites" in my racks that I picked from Ben Seigal in 03 and paid 8 bucks for that I will not sell for $2500 becuase they are super wierd, have 3-4-5 other characteristics, and fit nicely into several projects. If someone offered me 20k for one, that one would certianly be out the door, but that doesn't make me a bad guy, that is just what the buyer was willing to pay.

However, I do have a problem with fuzzy ads, and tend to believe that if people go from nice to attack in 3 seconds that they are usually hiding something.

I do believe that lots of newbies, non reptile specific stores, and seasonal buyers have no idea about the ch ball market. I have been picking for almost 10 years, and picking large numbers in florida for 6, and I still have customers pop up from here, kingsnake, or from my cards on corkboards, that think we randomly get pieds, and albinos in crates. They also think everything weird is reproducable, and that everything new that is proven starts at a 100k. The "quick" money generated by this market has brought lots of people out from the woodwork that don't know about the business.

Possible this and that's belong with people that understand breeding setups, genetics, modifier traits, and have the ability to inbreed and outbreed on a large scale to solidify a mutation. One newbie buying a granite male and 4 normal females is not going to get very far, not see a profit, and get frustrated and get out of the business. Look at how many other breeder groups look down on the ball market becuase they think it is a load of crap. Well, high end monitors exist-look at caramel albino and albino waters and niles. High end boas exist-look at paradigms, and the luecistic. Even corns-which most of them are less than 20 wholesale still generate a multimillion dollar business. No one is harping about these industries because years of the hard work that was put in by serious breeders, and records were kept, and multiple lines established well before the animals got to the public, or homebreeder level.

In balls too many people are using flashy marketing schemes, rushing animals to markets without fully understanding the genotype, guesstimating on traits, writing books with improper genetics, making assumptions about genotypes due to phenotype.

One last statement-if captie hatched yellow belly males are $150, and captive hatched granite females are around $10, then Where O Where are all the EBONIES?

Thanks
ben cole

 

[jglass38]

This thread has many different ideals going on, 1) Fuzzy ads may or may not mislead newbies., 2) pricing, 3) interpersonal communication.

Basically the pricing has nothing to do with it. I can price anything what I want. I could sell an adult albino bumble pied for 2 cents if I wanted-even though it should be in the mid 5 figures, and in turn I could ask one million dollars for my 12 year old unknown milk snake. Any forced conformity of pricing is price fixing-(unless you are on kingsnake). I have female "granites" in my racks that I picked from Ben Seigal in 03 and paid 8 bucks for that I will not sell for $2500 becuase they are super wierd, have 3-4-5 other characteristics, and fit nicely into several projects. If someone offered me 20k for one, that one would certianly be out the door, but that doesn't make me a bad guy, that is just what the buyer was willing to pay.

However, I do have a problem with fuzzy ads, and tend to believe that if people go from nice to attack in 3 seconds that they are usually hiding something.

I do believe that lots of newbies, non reptile specific stores, and seasonal buyers have no idea about the ch ball market. I have been picking for almost 10 years, and picking large numbers in florida for 6, and I still have customers pop up from here, kingsnake, or from my cards on corkboards, that think we randomly get pieds, and albinos in crates. They also think everything weird is reproducable, and that everything new that is proven starts at a 100k. The "quick" money generated by this market has brought lots of people out from the woodwork that don't know about the business.

Possible this and that's belong with people that understand breeding setups, genetics, modifier traits, and have the ability to inbreed and outbreed on a large scale to solidify a mutation. One newbie buying a granite male and 4 normal females is not going to get very far, not see a profit, and get frustrated and get out of the business. Look at how many other breeder groups look down on the ball market becuase they think it is a load of crap. Well, high end monitors exist-look at caramel albino and albino waters and niles. High end boas exist-look at paradigms, and the luecistic. Even corns-which most of them are less than 20 wholesale still generate a multimillion dollar business. No one is harping about these industries because years of the hard work that was put in by serious breeders, and records were kept, and multiple lines established well before the animals got to the public, or homebreeder level.

In balls too many people are using flashy marketing schemes, rushing animals to markets without fully understanding the genotype, guesstimating on traits, writing books with improper genetics, making assumptions about genotypes due to phenotype.

One last statement-if captie hatched yellow belly males are $150, and captive hatched granite females are around $10, then Where O Where are all the EBONIES?

Thanks
ben cole

Great post Ben! As far as the last sentence, I think I can answer it faster than you can find one! But that is a topic for a whole 'nother day!

 

[SPJ]

Is that the "minor morph" they are calling the "oddball"?

Yes. AKA Lucky.

She is turning out to be my most expensive $15 purchase ever so she better end up being a "major morph".

 

[Ed Clark]

I just dont see how this ad in question could be misinterpred as misrepresentation in any way, I stated over and over that the ball pythons in question were recently imported captive hatched imports.

What would be needed to make it clear?...A 2 page disclaimer drawn up by a lawyer?

I dont know, I have always dealt truthfully and honestly with anyone buying a snake?

Most of this thread is personal attacks and has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Ed Clark is GUILTY of not playing well with the other boys, thats it.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Can't all you MODS issue warning points to other MODS that abuse the warning point system?

 

[AncientDNA]

Can't all you MODS issue warning points to other MODS that abuse the warning point system?

I believe that's true.
Do you mean you want all 40(or so) of us to ding him for the same offense? That 'might' be going a bit overboard though.
If you look at Ed's warning points, you'll see he's been dinged alot today already.

 

[critical bill]

the topic at hand.

Ed Clark is GUILTY of not playing well with the other boys, thats it.

Is that what this is, a game you play? I've got some news for you Ed, you've only been playing yourself.

 

[Scott Ashton]

Ed Clark is GUILTY of not playing well with the other boys, thats it.

I don't find not properly quarantining animals funny.

I don't find shipping an animal with mites to be funny.

I don't find posting on others threads to sell your animals funny.

I don't find placing deceptive ads to be funny.

I don't find spreading untruths about other people to be funny.


And the thing that my off sense of humor should find funny - your meltdown in progress - I actually find quite sad.

Take a break Ed.

 

[kmurphy]

There are a lot a members that have a personal grudge against Ed. Ed was certainly wrong with regards to giving Bobby a warning and he paid for it. As for the original subject of this thread, Ed was questioned about his ad and made changes. Seems to me that's been done before without much fanfare.

IMO this shouldn't have been a BIO thread about Ed specifically it should have been on the General Business Board about this topic. This practice isn't limited to Ed. Half the people that get CH balls scan them for "morphs". It's like winning the lottery to some. There probably is an opportunity here to educate the inexperienced "newbies" that everyone seems so "concerned" about.

 

[Bill & Amy]

How about threats Ed, is that good business behaviour? Remember when I quoted a previously asked question in your for sale thread on bp.net? I quoted Daniel's question of "who produced these animals?" because it wasn't answered in the thread. You went off on a tangent and told me you would take care of me "face to face". It was a question that I wanted answered that I thought you overlooked. When a mod asked you if that was a threat, you quickly deleted the ad.

Remember the Silver bullet thread, you said you had a silver bullet and everyone told you it was a silver streak. But you came back with I have both and just posted the wrong picture. Everyone still asks to see the picture of the silver bullet you have, but you never produced a single picture. You would rather ignore them.

No answers?

 

[RyanT]

My God. Friggin' Romper Room around here. What is it cause the weather's getting warm again? People getting restless? Go outside and play.

 

[Miss Tuniwha]

It's been raining for 3 days here.

 

[RyanT]

It's been raining for 3 days here.

Ah, that sucks. It's like 85 here in Delaware. Feels like it at least. Yep, should be 140 degrees very shortly. Time for the murder rate to start rising, cause people are just too damn hot.

 

[Miss Tuniwha]

HA HA HA, makes sense. it has been about 55 - 65 here in MN for the past few days. But it is typical, will be about 100 for a day, then snow the next .. HA HA.

Gotta love it. Hard to keep the reptile room a steady temp though. That is the downside.

 

[Mooing Tricycle]

Is that the "minor morph" they are calling the "oddball"?

nope, thats Lucky! <3 And shes worth EVERY penny!

Ed, im sorry, but C'mon, did you really have to let it get this bad!?.... its so much easier to tell the truth, than try to lie and cover your tracks with more lies....

 

[monkeywrench133]

There are a lot a members that have a personal grudge against Ed. Ed was certainly wrong with regards to giving Bobby a warning and he paid for it. As for the original subject of this thread, Ed was questioned about his ad and made changes. Seems to me that's been done before without much fanfare.

IMO this shouldn't have been a BIO thread about Ed specifically it should have been on the General Business Board about this topic. This practice isn't limited to Ed. Half the people that get CH balls scan them for "morphs". It's like winning the lottery to some. There probably is an opportunity here to educate the inexperienced "newbies" that everyone seems so "concerned" about.

Good Post Kevin, but I'd like to point out that the original ad was locked by DThomas, and then Ed unlocked and edited it. This was Dennis's comment about that in another thread:

""Quote:
Originally Posted by varnyard

He also locked his so called morph thread again."

DThomas' Reply:

"Thank you for pointing out that thread was re-opened.

I am going to say this once Ed. DO NOT EVER re-open a thread a Super Mod has closed. It matters not if it's one of your classifieds. We close threads for a reason and Rich is the only one that over turns our decisions.""

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showpost.php?p=515645&postcount=253

So it would appear that his actions in re-opening the thread were a violation of the rules in and of itself.
__________________

 

[Scott Ashton]

There are a lot a members that have a personal grudge against Ed.

Who exactly has a personal grudge against him?

This is more than just about his ad or how he conducts himself as a moderator here.

There have been a number of things that have occurred regarding how Ed conducts business chronicled here that when taken in their entirety certainly raise some concerns about Ed's business practices.

Did his personal attacks on other members or his vindictive moderating style bring this to a head? Maybe - I don't know.

I do believe that this has been stewing for a while and it was only a matter of time before this whole thing came to a rolling boil.

 

[RyanT]

Hard to keep the reptile room a steady temp though. That is the downside.

Yeah, I've had to turn the thermostats back a few degrees on the racks. The incubator is staying right on though. No matter what, this is a fun time of year. Got my first clutch hatching in 2 days. I feel like a little kid myself this week.