Bad Guy Florida Herps (www.floridaherps.com)

[the_edsta]

Did you go to the BBB? I was going to but I think losing a case ups their BBB rating letter (tho they do bash the BBB in another thread pretty hard about how they refuse to pay for the BBB credentials but still have an A rating (due to 5, yes five not one kid) tryin to file a complaint and losin due to not meeting the proper criteria, losing or not i'd think twice about a company with so many BBB complaint attempts...

I don't think there is a lose/win kind of thing with the BBB. They just try to facilitate a solution, if none is met, nothing happens. No, they are not a BBB approved business, but if you file a complaint, it stays on their record for three years.

 

[bobtard]

I don't think there is a lose/win kind of thing with the BBB. They just try to facilitate a solution, if none is met, nothing happens. No, they are not a BBB approved business, but if you file a complaint, it stays on their record for three years.

I filed a complaint with an F rated business, and they only thing it's done is make finding a resolution slower, if anything.

 

[Christina Vincent]

I hate that it happened at all to anyone, but I'm also glad to hear others had the same customer service issues (meaning I'm not alone- not that they had issues too!) I am also glad to know sites like this keep their comments up for public viewing. And just maybe while FH is reading these threads they'll realize the customer service manager needs some more training at the least.

 

[Christina Vincent]

Suncoast, your not affiliated with Florida Herps? They have another site called Suncoast... Possibly a wholesaler I think? I'd have to look it up, slipped my mind til I saw your similar name

 

[the_edsta]

Suncoast, your not affiliated with Florida Herps? They have another site called Suncoast... Possibly a wholesaler I think? I'd have to look it up, slipped my mind til I saw your similar name

(Read back... he addressed that.)

 

[Christina Vincent]

Sorry Suncoast I was just curious due to suddenly reconizing the name.

 

[ed hummel]

i sent a provocative email to these guys to see what kind of response i would get. i got 2 back, the first asking who i was and who dale was then the 2d saying that they had to come to the BOI to figure out what i was talking about.

the 2d one is really long but they are claiming that ed has fabricated (added things to..) these emails they exchanged, namely the thing about having people come to repo the animals. i can post it if anyone thinks i should but lonna did say that they may come here (and i emailed her back suggesting they do) and post themselves which hopefully they will do... she also went into detail about the incident w/ christina.

all i can say is after reading her email i really really REALLY hope they do come to the BOI so we can hear both sides of the story.

 

[Christina Vincent]

According to them every one of the dissatisfied customers is just punk kid and there has never been a legit complaint in 16+ years. I have a legit complaint that the customer service I received was the worst I've come across. My emails aren't fabricated and I'm sure the others aren't either. They can argue all they want- about missed policies or that they aren't requried to do a dang thing for anybody- the issue for some of us the customer service received while doing a transaction. We are not punk kids but hard working adults in a hobby we love and realize the importance of imforming other potential hobbyiests to be cautious when shipping online ever with anybody without a lot of research and even more cautios during transactions with floridaherps.com because of the potential same harassing, rude, taunting behavior you may receive from their customer service department (or scarier, just Lonna runnin her own show- on occassion company owners are not aware of what their employees are doing) should you have an issue with your order. Every email (nice & nasty that I got had the same language, tone, fonts, colors of fonts depending on mood, referenced the same 3 lawsuits in three of the emails (diff senders),used the same slurs - "punk" "kid" among a cpl others I can't post because of the language and I don't wanna get spanked! -Hehe <3 u April - it would be nice to see the owner (every owner with a complaint on the BOI!) address things publicly, permanately.

 

[Christina Vincent]

Lovin the Avatar Ed lol - and a "proactive" email...could you post the thread of that?

 

[ed hummel]

i didnt include her first email back to me which as i stated above just basically asked who i was and who dale was...

here you go...


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Ah, sorry. Had to go read the BOI Thread. You must be Ed Hummel.



First of all those so-called emails are completely fabricated. We never said anything even remotely close to that.



It’s this simple:



1. Customer ordered online. He chose to pickup his order rather than have us ship, which is very common for us we have been selling to local customers for 16+ years.

2. Customer emails us saying he is going to be in town on Sat and would like to stop by at 2:30.

3. 4:00 on Sat – No customer… We call him. He said he will be there in a few mins. He was several hours late. (we are not a pet shop that has sales staff waiting for customers)

4. Customer shows up, Nick (my sales manager) greets him at the gate and shows him his order. Everything was great and the customer got in his car.

5. Customer is in car for 1min and gets back out, Nick goes back to speak with customer. Customer says, “Hey, you shorted me a Newt”

6. Nick looks, and there is 1 missing Newt and 1 extra Frog (this could just be a simple mistake on our part, or this is the famous, take out a newt and say I got screwed bit)

Reason I say this is we have had kids try to pull this on us before. Our entire 22 acre ranch is under HD video surveillance and we could almost make out what this customer

was doing, but not enough to say he removed something. More than likely we screwed this order up.

7. Nick offered to refund the entire order right then and there, customer says – its no biggie, I will be back for more animals in a few weeks.

8. Nick credited his PayPal account for the Newt, and the FL Sales Tax.

9. Nick gave him store credit for the $9.95 Newt

10. Nick let him keep the extra frog.

11. Customer was happy, shook Nick’s hand with a smile (that is on tape) and he drove to the end of our 1/8 mile driveway and sat… for at least 15 mins.

12. While he was still in the driveway we got an email, he was PISSED! He demanded we refund him $30 for Fuel and ship him a free Newt right away or he would

post shit about us everywhere.

13. Lonna – me, responded that we will not be doing either of those things and I was sorry. My email was 3 lines long. Not some childish, I will sick my brother on you. My brother’s

name is David and he lives in Fresno. We do however make deliveries up there and offered to come pickup his order if he wanted a full refund. How he took that as a threat is beyond me.



I love the fake emails though, that was a nice touch on Mr. McCourt’s part. However if you really want to waste more of your time: www.Sunbiz.org or www.BBB.org just look up our company.



Florida Herpetology, Inc.

3809 Lorraine Road

Lakewood Ranch, FL 34211



Now, I assume you know what Google Earth is? Please zoom into our ranch. We have a 5 bedroom house with a huge salt water pool and screened patio up front under huge oak trees. You can see the turtle pond on the south side surrounded by trees. That blue thing is a small

pool we use for hatchling turtles. There are also several large buildings, our reptile rooms are in two buildings, office in the smaller one. There is also a 4 car garage, chicken coop, barn, and green house. You can also see our trucks, tractors, boats, etc. We are not in a single wide trailer

like this liar is saying. My husband and I are quite well off and our facility is beautiful. Mr. McCourt never even made past the gate, we bring orders out to our customers. They are no longer allowed inside the buildings for a few reasons, mainly insurance as we house venomous snakes.



So… If Ed is lying about us being some trailer trash company can you really believe all the other non-sense he is saying? Really? Do you really think we would say things like I will have some dudes come kick your ass? Honestly his thread doesn’t even merit a reply from us. He did file a

BBB Claim and THAT is something we have already dealt with. My husband might take the time to reply to the BOI thread, we do love the BOI and use it to research buyers all the time. Please check out our BBB page. We have an “A-“ grade. We, like all companies start with a “C”. With every

claim we are RAISED a grade, why is that I wonder? I wonder what the BBB will rule this time? They will get access to our emails directly from our server so they are unedited, and copies of the video footage with this customer. We would rather eat $40 (this customer’s total order amount) than

ever have a BBB claim or worse a BOI thread. We are a pretty good sized long term corporation that can afford such things. Had this guy drove back to our gate, or said in the first place he was that upset and wanted to speak with me or Nick’s boss all he had to do was ask. There were 7 others here

when he showed up. So we are a little confused why he was so happy with Nick and yet so pissed 1 min later at the end of the driveway. Strange, but had he not threatened to post bad reviews about us I would have done whatever it took to make him happy. When I told him if he was really a local

customer we would hand deliver him a free newt the next day, that only pissed him off more. When he asked me what our policy is had this been shipped, I told him we would be shipping him a free newt tomorrow. That only pissed him off more. He asked, I was honest.



Oh, and just cuz I know you wanna know… Ms. Vincent… WOW…. She ordered a baby frog on Dec 23rd. She HAD to have it delivered to NY (or maybe it was NJ) on Xmas Eve. We did that, it arrived alive. She emailed us saying we were the best company on Earth and even posted on our FB page.

On Xmas she emailed us the frog died. We have no guarantees on frogs and we were closed on Xmas. We still replied within 15mins. We asked for photo. She replied, “that is disgusting, how dare you ask for such a thing” . Keep in mind not everyone knows this is standard procedure with DOA’s or

warranty issues. Even though we have no warranty for frogs, we still wanted to see the dead frog so we could replace it. We pay like a buck for those things and we have a great deal with FedEx. It was worth keeping a happy customer to send her a free

frogs. But before I could even reply (she replied to Alex that told her told wait until the 26th for a reply from Lonna). Ms. Vincent didn’t wait. She emailed us some pretty outrageous statements. On the 26th after reading 6 emails in a row, I replied with “sorry, we have no guarantees on frogs”. She freaked out & posted crap on FB with a few of her friends and then some on various review sites. Go read them if you want, does she sound sane to you? She went so far as to call us up and tell us she called the FBI to report us for credit card fraud? I mean what the hell is this woman talking about?

First she claimed we posted her credit card number on forums. We asked for links. None were given. Once she found out that this company never saw or ever had access to her card number (we never see it with e-commerce orders) she changed her story to we “hacked” her computer and posted her number. Again we just wanted to see the websites she was talking about, she never posted. if you go read her complaint board posts, please notice how many times she was asked for a tracking number to prove she was a real customer and not Sam Sundberg of Backwater Reptiles. She never gave it, why? She is a real customer of this company and does have her tracking number. The reason is she lied to everyone. She said she was in Baton Rouge and her weather was warm. But she had the frog shipped up north where is was 39 or so. Had it been REALLY cold we would have refused to ship. While she was playing on our FaceBook page she met someone that told her they had a DOA frog, but Florida Herps gave them a free one and shipped for free. OMG that sent Ms. Vincent through the roof. Now she was calling us pissed off that I gave free frogs to other customers. When I replied that I did in fact do that for everyone BUT her and another guy that both replied to us with foul language and threats… she lost it. She said in over a dozen emails she called the police, the FBI, etc. but could never produce a case number. Ed, I assume you are an intelligent normal man. Please keep an open mind here.



Anyways Ed, Florida Herps was started in 1996 by my husband’s father, Dr. William Thompson, D.V.M. and Herp Guru. We have 8 family members working here spanning 3 generations. In addition to selling frogs and newts to kids that like to play games on the internet; we run a reptile testing lab offering low cost fecal testing, we have a 100% free reptile rescue, reptile babysitting (Alex was babysitting reptiles here on Xmas is why we were able to reply to her so fast) services, reptile gator/snake trapping, wholesale reptile sales, import/export reptile services and we even sell fish. How we do all this from a small single wide trailer is still confusing to me. LOL I wish you all the best Sir, thank you for bringing the BOI thread to our attention, why do you think Mr. McCourt never bothered to tell us himself? Hmm… FloridaHerps.com gets us about 20-60 orders a day. With all those orders, why is it there aren’t hundreds of pissed customers all over the net? Because we are professional and will do whatever it takes to make customers (that don’t threaten, lie, or post crap online) happy.



Thank you,

Lonna Thompson – Customer Service Manager

Florida Herpetology, Inc.

3809 Lorraine Road

Lakewood Ranch, FL 34211

(800) 975-5880 – Toll Free - 10am to 6pm EST – Mon-Sat

(866) 261-3820 – 24/7 Toll Free Fax Ordering

(800) 844-5203 – ReptiLabs / Wholesale Accounts / Reptile Rescue

[email protected]

www.FloridaHerps.com

www.SuncoastReptiles.com

www.ReptiLabs.com

www.SuncoastReptileRescue.org

www.FloridaAquaria.com

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From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 7:53 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: BOI thread



i take it your brother dale is to much of a ***** to go by himself huh...





My brother Dale lives about 45mins from your address. You want him to stop by with a few buddies to repo the animals? Just play on kid…
No I am again asking you to stop harassing us with your emails. Go away and play your PayPal game.

 

[Christina Vincent]

Thanks Ed. Still cracks me up you went proactive.

The frog was not sent to NY or NJ. She has the facts and should use them properly if she's going to use them.
I posted the emails I sent and received from Lonna, FH, thread stalkers like [email protected]. My brother did have to handle a dead frog and take pictures on christmas and that is gross but had to be done according to the customer service department and we obliged without hesitation (have all those emails too) with the pics and a thank you for a response (there was NO indication what so ever that they were ever sending a free replacement) my original email about the dead frog asked "where to go from here?" and I was told to take pics on the shipping label so we did without argument), THEN I sent an email asking if they got the pics because I had no contact afterwards (holidays) after holiday break Lonna informed me that frogs were not covered and sent me a link to their policy (on their site not Facebook). I was then upset that a dead animal had to be handled for basically no reason.
I received emails from [email protected] with my personal information in them that only Florida Herps had and faked orders, fake reviews - all in the same fonts, colors, language and again reference to the same 3 lawsuits I could not find record of. (I did not research farther into the lawsuit threats there very well could be many who knows) all had the same feel to them...so I found the owners cell phone # on a thread (didn't realize it was her Husband - explains a lot now) and called him and told him I was informed that Lonna gave out confidential information and being an owner maybe he isn't aware that his employees could be doing this, and he flipped and told me it wasn't possible, I told him I have the emails and HE said if I have a problem call a lawyer or the FBI! HE said that, I told him my transaction information is confidential and has been violated and if it came to that I would but my intent was only to inform an owners of his employees actions, he said I was "full of ****" and hung up. Then I get an email from the "Lisa Bowers" making threats to my personal info, a few minutes after THAT I got an email from the owner that hung up on me in an oh so nice format that asked for my FBI report numbers, my lawyers numbers all so he could fully cooperate...um with what? So I called my bank to block any possible charges from them (most likely a bluff/game on Lonnas part but better safe than sorry), then sent all the emails from FH and "Lisa Bowers" aka [email protected] aka "justaPerson" all to IC3 due to the fact that after I stated it was illegal to give out confidential info or even USE it in a game - I got another email from [email protected] saying she was a hacker and "oh what will she do with all my personal information now.....". If they are the same person and it was Lonna herself playing the email game then I should have nothing to worry about, if not at least the proper people can handle it should the need arise. I am sane. Very much so.

This is unreal : She should post those emails she says I and the other Gent threatened her on - NEVER did we oh my.

"She is a real customer of this company and does have her tracking number. The reason is she lied to everyone. She said she was in Baton Rouge and her weather was warm. But she had the frog shipped up north where is was 39 or so. Had it been REALLY cold we would have refused to ship. While she was playing on our FaceBook page she met someone that told her they had a DOA frog, but Florida Herps gave them a free one and shipped for free. OMG that sent Ms. Vincent through the roof. Now she was calling us pissed off that I gave free frogs to other customers. When I replied that I did in fact do that for everyone BUT her and another guy that both replied to us with foul language and threats… she lost it. She said in over a dozen emails she called the police, the FBI, etc. but could never produce a case number. Ed, I assume you are an intelligent normal man. Please keep an open mind here."

They do not refuse to ship in temps they void the warranty instead (from her own link she gave me). They KNEW where they were shipping without a doubt, I never lied and told people the frog went to Baton Rouge. "Lisa Bowers" asked me for MY zip code, only to provide ME with MY tracking number she stated Lonna gave to her (violation) and if Lonna did not give it to her or she is not Lonna herself then FH or BigCommerce got hacked and both should be aware to avoid dealing with this person (if it's not Lonna or another relative). A tracking number has a lot of info attached so I didn't post it. I got emails with the personal info back with fake order/review and nasty attitude. I nor the other gent ever replied nasty emails or threats to call the police...those emails she says she has from me don't exist.
Now tho, that I know they are married it completely makes sense why she still has a job in customer service. Keep an open mind Ed, just don't order from this Mom n Pop business without caution. Knock me all you want. My issues with Florida Herps, Inc. bad customer service plain and simple and the more they attack customers (good or bad) the worse it looks. I am a normal, sane woman with a poor opinion of FH and it get poorer the more I hear from others about getting the same unprofessional customer relations. Ug.

 

[ed hummel]

lol
not 'proactive', provacitive... just figured you had mispelled it the first time around

 

[Christina Vincent]

hahahaha lil screen on my phone...back to the comp now lol

 

[Christina Vincent]

:laugh: @ Ed that's even better

 

[Christina Vincent]

Holy cow...stumbled upon this site: http://www.reptilewebsitereviews.com/ and upon reading it saw that Florida Herps is glowing with "never a bad review" and that the bad reviews listed here on Fauna are false and proven to be Sam @ Backwater.... Really? Did they make this site themselves or what am I missing here? It goes on after to review a few other sites but the focus can be seen...

 

[the_edsta]

i didnt include her first email back to me which as i stated above just basically asked who i was and who dale was...

here you go...


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Ah, sorry. Had to go read the BOI Thread. You must be Ed Hummel.



First of all those so-called emails are completely fabricated. We never said anything even remotely close to that.



It’s this simple:



1. Customer ordered online. He chose to pickup his order rather than have us ship, which is very common for us we have been selling to local customers for 16+ years.

2. Customer emails us saying he is going to be in town on Sat and would like to stop by at 2:30.

3. 4:00 on Sat – No customer… We call him. He said he will be there in a few mins. He was several hours late. (we are not a pet shop that has sales staff waiting for customers)

4. Customer shows up, Nick (my sales manager) greets him at the gate and shows him his order. Everything was great and the customer got in his car.

5. Customer is in car for 1min and gets back out, Nick goes back to speak with customer. Customer says, “Hey, you shorted me a Newt”

6. Nick looks, and there is 1 missing Newt and 1 extra Frog (this could just be a simple mistake on our part, or this is the famous, take out a newt and say I got screwed bit)

Reason I say this is we have had kids try to pull this on us before. Our entire 22 acre ranch is under HD video surveillance and we could almost make out what this customer

was doing, but not enough to say he removed something. More than likely we screwed this order up.

7. Nick offered to refund the entire order right then and there, customer says – its no biggie, I will be back for more animals in a few weeks.

8. Nick credited his PayPal account for the Newt, and the FL Sales Tax.

9. Nick gave him store credit for the $9.95 Newt

10. Nick let him keep the extra frog.

11. Customer was happy, shook Nick’s hand with a smile (that is on tape) and he drove to the end of our 1/8 mile driveway and sat… for at least 15 mins.

12. While he was still in the driveway we got an email, he was PISSED! He demanded we refund him $30 for Fuel and ship him a free Newt right away or he would

post shit about us everywhere.

13. Lonna – me, responded that we will not be doing either of those things and I was sorry. My email was 3 lines long. Not some childish, I will sick my brother on you. My brother’s

name is David and he lives in Fresno. We do however make deliveries up there and offered to come pickup his order if he wanted a full refund. How he took that as a threat is beyond me.



I love the fake emails though, that was a nice touch on Mr. McCourt’s part. However if you really want to waste more of your time: www.Sunbiz.org or www.BBB.org just look up our company.



Florida Herpetology, Inc.

3809 Lorraine Road

Lakewood Ranch, FL 34211



Now, I assume you know what Google Earth is? Please zoom into our ranch. We have a 5 bedroom house with a huge salt water pool and screened patio up front under huge oak trees. You can see the turtle pond on the south side surrounded by trees. That blue thing is a small

pool we use for hatchling turtles. There are also several large buildings, our reptile rooms are in two buildings, office in the smaller one. There is also a 4 car garage, chicken coop, barn, and green house. You can also see our trucks, tractors, boats, etc. We are not in a single wide trailer

like this liar is saying. My husband and I are quite well off and our facility is beautiful. Mr. McCourt never even made past the gate, we bring orders out to our customers. They are no longer allowed inside the buildings for a few reasons, mainly insurance as we house venomous snakes.



So… If Ed is lying about us being some trailer trash company can you really believe all the other non-sense he is saying? Really? Do you really think we would say things like I will have some dudes come kick your ass? Honestly his thread doesn’t even merit a reply from us. He did file a

BBB Claim and THAT is something we have already dealt with. My husband might take the time to reply to the BOI thread, we do love the BOI and use it to research buyers all the time. Please check out our BBB page. We have an “A-“ grade. We, like all companies start with a “C”. With every

claim we are RAISED a grade, why is that I wonder? I wonder what the BBB will rule this time? They will get access to our emails directly from our server so they are unedited, and copies of the video footage with this customer. We would rather eat $40 (this customer’s total order amount) than

ever have a BBB claim or worse a BOI thread. We are a pretty good sized long term corporation that can afford such things. Had this guy drove back to our gate, or said in the first place he was that upset and wanted to speak with me or Nick’s boss all he had to do was ask. There were 7 others here

when he showed up. So we are a little confused why he was so happy with Nick and yet so pissed 1 min later at the end of the driveway. Strange, but had he not threatened to post bad reviews about us I would have done whatever it took to make him happy. When I told him if he was really a local

customer we would hand deliver him a free newt the next day, that only pissed him off more. When he asked me what our policy is had this been shipped, I told him we would be shipping him a free newt tomorrow. That only pissed him off more. He asked, I was honest.



Oh, and just cuz I know you wanna know… Ms. Vincent… WOW…. She ordered a baby frog on Dec 23rd. She HAD to have it delivered to NY (or maybe it was NJ) on Xmas Eve. We did that, it arrived alive. She emailed us saying we were the best company on Earth and even posted on our FB page.

On Xmas she emailed us the frog died. We have no guarantees on frogs and we were closed on Xmas. We still replied within 15mins. We asked for photo. She replied, “that is disgusting, how dare you ask for such a thing” . Keep in mind not everyone knows this is standard procedure with DOA’s or

warranty issues. Even though we have no warranty for frogs, we still wanted to see the dead frog so we could replace it. We pay like a buck for those things and we have a great deal with FedEx. It was worth keeping a happy customer to send her a free

frogs. But before I could even reply (she replied to Alex that told her told wait until the 26th for a reply from Lonna). Ms. Vincent didn’t wait. She emailed us some pretty outrageous statements. On the 26th after reading 6 emails in a row, I replied with “sorry, we have no guarantees on frogs”. She freaked out & posted crap on FB with a few of her friends and then some on various review sites. Go read them if you want, does she sound sane to you? She went so far as to call us up and tell us she called the FBI to report us for credit card fraud? I mean what the hell is this woman talking about?

First she claimed we posted her credit card number on forums. We asked for links. None were given. Once she found out that this company never saw or ever had access to her card number (we never see it with e-commerce orders) she changed her story to we “hacked” her computer and posted her number. Again we just wanted to see the websites she was talking about, she never posted. if you go read her complaint board posts, please notice how many times she was asked for a tracking number to prove she was a real customer and not Sam Sundberg of Backwater Reptiles. She never gave it, why? She is a real customer of this company and does have her tracking number. The reason is she lied to everyone. She said she was in Baton Rouge and her weather was warm. But she had the frog shipped up north where is was 39 or so. Had it been REALLY cold we would have refused to ship. While she was playing on our FaceBook page she met someone that told her they had a DOA frog, but Florida Herps gave them a free one and shipped for free. OMG that sent Ms. Vincent through the roof. Now she was calling us pissed off that I gave free frogs to other customers. When I replied that I did in fact do that for everyone BUT her and another guy that both replied to us with foul language and threats… she lost it. She said in over a dozen emails she called the police, the FBI, etc. but could never produce a case number. Ed, I assume you are an intelligent normal man. Please keep an open mind here.



Anyways Ed, Florida Herps was started in 1996 by my husband’s father, Dr. William Thompson, D.V.M. and Herp Guru. We have 8 family members working here spanning 3 generations. In addition to selling frogs and newts to kids that like to play games on the internet; we run a reptile testing lab offering low cost fecal testing, we have a 100% free reptile rescue, reptile babysitting (Alex was babysitting reptiles here on Xmas is why we were able to reply to her so fast) services, reptile gator/snake trapping, wholesale reptile sales, import/export reptile services and we even sell fish. How we do all this from a small single wide trailer is still confusing to me. LOL I wish you all the best Sir, thank you for bringing the BOI thread to our attention, why do you think Mr. McCourt never bothered to tell us himself? Hmm… FloridaHerps.com gets us about 20-60 orders a day. With all those orders, why is it there aren’t hundreds of pissed customers all over the net? Because we are professional and will do whatever it takes to make customers (that don’t threaten, lie, or post crap online) happy.



Thank you,

Lonna Thompson – Customer Service Manager

Florida Herpetology, Inc.

3809 Lorraine Road

Lakewood Ranch, FL 34211

(800) 975-5880 – Toll Free - 10am to 6pm EST – Mon-Sat

(866) 261-3820 – 24/7 Toll Free Fax Ordering

(800) 844-5203 – ReptiLabs / Wholesale Accounts / Reptile Rescue

[email protected]

www.FloridaHerps.com

www.SuncoastReptiles.com

www.ReptiLabs.com

www.SuncoastReptileRescue.org

www.FloridaAquaria.com

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From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 7:53 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: BOI thread



i take it your brother dale is to much of a ***** to go by himself huh...





My brother Dale lives about 45mins from your address. You want him to stop by with a few buddies to repo the animals? Just play on kid…
No I am again asking you to stop harassing us with your emails. Go away and play your PayPal game.

Was this long winded post implying that my original emails were fabrications? I really can't believe this. I hadn't checked this since the incident because I really had to just move on. Anyone interested in seeing this original chain of emails can have it forwarded to them. All the threats are there... it is kind of frightening to imagine that someone would say all of that say that it was fabricated.

One year later, I can honestly say the WORST buying experience of my life was with Florida Herps. It was really bizarre. Some strange, backwoods swampland trailer (perhaps there are more buildings, but that is the one they had me go to) monitored with all sorts of cameras... and I was repeatedly confronted with threats and conspiracy theories (like I'm some kind of herp houdini!). It almost seems like it was too strange to have actually happened. I really hope that the repeated silliness from this company will force them out of business, but alas, having a warehouse full of animals and a website keeps some people in business for too long.

I also want to say that the owner wagered me something absurd that the BBB would decide in his favor (I haven't deleted any emails, as I have said, so I can go back and check!). That did not happen. The BB said that, firstly, they are not even a BBB member, and secondly, that the case was left "unresolved with the customer not satisfied." That is the official resolution for the case. Now I simply know to go to forums and order from trustworthy individuals, so this won't be a problem again. I suggest that you do the same!

 

[the_edsta]

And I do want to reiterate, that I would NEVER change one thing from an email message received. Perhaps the fact that the person (lonna, a real 'piece of work' as has been stated previously) only stated it in a private email makes more sense than if she would have had the nerve posted it here herself. I may even be willing to let someone log into my email account just to be able to prove this (as all original emails are still in the inbox, untouched!). The 'I'll have my brother dale come by your house with some buddies' is too amazing for me to have made up! I can believe she would deny it... but as that is one of the GREATEST MOMENTS IN CUSTOMER SERVICE HISTORY, I have to be emphatic about that message being exact and verbatim.

Finally, one point she continually made that I never understood was this: Why was I smiling at the guy who handed me the incorrect order, but then mad on the phone minutes later???

Easy: When something goes wrong for me at ANY store, I don't take it out on the cashier. I call up customer service (or the 'boss' if I can get a hold of him/her) and register a formal complaint. No need to shoot the messenger. But I probably would have had a better time dealing with the employee as I simply would have gotten nowhere (they didn't have any newts on property... it was drop shipped), but at least I wouldn't have been tortured by some sadistic 'customer service' woman for the following two weeks.

 

[Christina Vincent]

They are acting absurd. The service was the worst I have ever dealt with. Found what I was shopping for elsewhere, alive, healthy and for a better price. I now know to check the BOI 1st, extensively and if need be even post an inquiry to ask others trusted here. I will tell anyone inquiring to avoid the hassle and go with a reputable breeder/seller with a Good Guy history or recommendation from a good guy at minimum. To attack customers like she does is so wrong. Potential customers do not need added worry should there be an issue.

 

[predators]

This is a tough one.. Customer service and the accusations back n forth aside. Fla Herps does drop shipping.. I do not think they ship anything from there facility but, they have another company do it. In anycase, Is is reasonable to expect them to ship a $5 newt to you and eat $40.00 to ship it. I do not think so.. The problem is we are talking about live animals. They have to be overnighted. Yes If Walmart sends you the wrong microwave, you are issued a call tag. You send back the mircrowave at there cost. (Probably around $5) and then when they receive it back they then spend another $5 and send you the correct one. In this case, should you be required to send back the extra Tree frog for $40 there cost and then they ship you a salamander for another $40.00. It just isnt practical. Maybe technically you are correct but, some common sense has to be used when dealing with live animals. you received 75% of the animals you drove down to get. So in essence maybe refunding you 25% of your gas and the cost of the salamander would be reasonable. I am not taking sides, but when shipping live animals especially low cost live animals and its a one time purchase if something goes wrong both sides need to have some common sense and work through it. Also, Since they are not stocking the animals there, they can not just go back to the cage and pick out another salamander. Maybe the other salamander died since it was in a container for 2 days waiting for you to come get it. They took it out and now they dont have another to replace it with. If you ordered 15 different animals and one wasnt there then no biggie but, you ordered 4 animals and one is not there and now its an issue.. Reptiles, can die, escape et.. They can not just be manufactured like a pair of tennis shoes which you put on a shelf and have thousands of. There is a huge availability issue and there is a limited supply. They are seasonal et.. I think really DOA issues, et will haunt this industry on both sides forever. There is no good answer eithere way and the rules or replacement which are used on tangible goods sold at walmart or other stores can not be applied to live animals.. With all that said. Fla herps put an extra frog in the container to make up for the salamander. They prob said to them selves "crap this guy is driving all the way down there for $20 worth of animals and now one of those animals died or is missing" Throw him an extra $1.00 frog to make him happy. Hopefully he is cool with that..Apparently you werent..

 

[the_edsta]

This is a tough one.. Customer service and the accusations back n forth aside. Fla Herps does drop shipping.. I do not think they ship anything from there facility but, they have another company do it. In anycase, Is is reasonable to expect them to ship a $5 newt to you and eat $40.00 to ship it. I do not think so.. The problem is we are talking about live animals. They have to be overnighted. Yes If Walmart sends you the wrong microwave, you are issued a call tag. You send back the mircrowave at there cost. (Probably around $5) and then when they receive it back they then spend another $5 and send you the correct one. In this case, should you be required to send back the extra Tree frog for $40 there cost and then they ship you a salamander for another $40.00. It just isnt practical. Maybe technically you are correct but, some common sense has to be used when dealing with live animals. you received 75% of the animals you drove down to get. So in essence maybe refunding you 25% of your gas and the cost of the salamander would be reasonable. I am not taking sides, but when shipping live animals especially low cost live animals and its a one time purchase if something goes wrong both sides need to have some common sense and work through it. Also, Since they are not stocking the animals there, they can not just go back to the cage and pick out another salamander. Maybe the other salamander died since it was in a container for 2 days waiting for you to come get it. They took it out and now they dont have another to replace it with. If you ordered 15 different animals and one wasnt there then no biggie but, you ordered 4 animals and one is not there and now its an issue.. Reptiles, can die, escape et.. They can not just be manufactured like a pair of tennis shoes which you put on a shelf and have thousands of. There is a huge availability issue and there is a limited supply. They are seasonal et.. I think really DOA issues, et will haunt this industry on both sides forever. There is no good answer eithere way and the rules or replacement which are used on tangible goods sold at walmart or other stores can not be applied to live animals.. With all that said. Fla herps put an extra frog in the container to make up for the salamander. They prob said to them selves "crap this guy is driving all the way down there for $20 worth of animals and now one of those animals died or is missing" Throw him an extra $1.00 frog to make him happy. Hopefully he is cool with that..Apparently you werent..

Just noticed this response... its really not about the animal, the complaint and all (even though there is a distinct difference between a green tree frog and a newt: I have dozens of these green tree frogs in my back yard and the newts are in FL, so I have no other way of procuring one locally). The issue is that the lady there actually said she was going to send "her brother and his buddies" to my house to take back the animals. Quibbling over animals is one thing -- a threat is another (and a great reason NEVER to do business with this company). The just-as-crazy part of outright denying the actual text of emails sent to me just gives the whole thing an eerie evil feeling (composed, calculated lying vs. in-the-moment yelling, etc.).

That's just my take on it. I am more than capable of being objective on the matter given the distance I have between the event and now, and the newt is nothing -- the way I was treated will never be forgotten, though.