Fred Kick Misrepresented Animals, A thief to watch out for

[HRoss]

First off let me say i do not like to start threads about anyone. But this guy and his company Reptile Addicts.com are straight up conartist.

In early summer i decided to purcahase 2 (1000 gram female pastels) with very nice color markings. Now first let me tell you i took them on a payment plan and had some significant changes in income when i switched jobs. regardless i still sent money in intervals to pay towards my balance owed. When my finances became tense due to the fact that my new job was not paying as well, i called fred to see if i could pay for just one of the animals with funds he had already received. i am not naive, know one wants to wait for payment forever.
I also made the mistake of mentioning that i had several clutches of mojaves on the ground. This is when he really put it to me. He took 4 mojave females and a 100 dollars to cover balance of 900 (which i tried everyway to avoid, but caved rather than the chance of a negative boi thread. Now, if that is not a huge enough loss. Get this the animals he sent me were not the animals i purchased. not only do they not match the photos of the animals i put a deposit on, they are 700 grams and almost 800 grams (the 800 gram animal is so ungly i have named her the sea hag) respectively. and this is after months have gone by in their. So basically he sold the snakes i had a deposit on only to replace them with underweight gargbage. Snakes that have not eaten for months while in my care.
i went to file a kingnsnake fraud report, but that i not nearly as easy as it sounds. i called fred and his shop many times. i threatened to report him to the fraud abuse center at kinsnake after many unanwered call. No replies' just a true pos
I would never consider sending this guy money if i were you. he is a junk dealer and should be called out like all other junk dealers
howard ross

 

[snake5007]

Did you save any emails from this transaction?

 

[HRoss]

phone transactions for the most part

 

[snake5007]

do you have pictures of the animals you paid for, and the ones that you recieved? It's a shame most of it was by phone, because you could of posted the emails here.

 

[HRoss]

it is almost a moot point. i have 2 thumbnail photos i captured from the advertisements. even though they are small it is obviously clear that the pastel in the photo with th yelow banding around the head does not match a single pastel in my collection
i am computer handicapped when it come to posting photos

 

[hhmoore]

Howard - I understand your anger & frustration - and they appear to be well founded (based on your story) - but I do want to address one statement.

This is when he really put it to me. He took 4 mojave females and a 100 dollars to cover balance of 900

Given the current market price, $200 for a mojave is about right for wholesale. Now, I'm not going to get into the whole thing about people giving wholesale credit on others' animals while assigning retail value on their own in a trade (which is basically what this ended up as...but it didn't start out as a trade); but the only way he put it to you, so to speak, was sending you the wrong animals. On that, you are right on target...unfortunately, from what I have heard of the Kick Brothers/Reptile Addicts, you probably won't see much (if anything) in the way of compensation. I wish you the best in that struggle, though...and with the snakes you received.

 

[snake5007]

it is almost a moot point. i have 2 thumbnail photos i captured from the advertisements. even though they are small it is obviously clear that the pastel in the photo with th yelow banding around the head does not match a single pastel in my collection
i am computer handicapped when it come to posting photos

Posting pics is easy. You ust click on the post reply button, then you click on go advanced. Once the screen with the silies comes up you just scroll down to the additional options section and click on manage attachments. You can upload pics or use a URL to get them up.

 

[HRoss]

i am very much aware of wholesale pricing practices. his were 100$ each under current wholesale price with veiled threats of making me look bad in public for not sending him the mojaves. this is after he wanted to call it quits on the second female pstel. but learning of the mojaves; it turned into horrible deal for me not to send him the babies.

i do have the thumbnails for comparison of the animals i received. i also have one email stating the weights of the pastels at 1000 grams in july. this is during an email i sent to him incase he wanted an adult mojave male as partail payment.
if anyone wants me to email the original thumbnails as well asthe email with weight stated to post. well, just let me know

 

[HRoss]

i just ran your card for $500 and it was approved.
thanks howard.
i tried calling you and it wouldn't go through.


howard ross <[email protected]> wrote:
take 500 dollars out on my debit card forthe pastels. i will call you if i do not see it come out of my bank
howard
----- Original Message -----
From: Fred kick
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 1:22 PM
Subject: Re: Message about: SHATTER BALL PYTHON


send us pics


[email protected] wrote:
*************
NOTE: This message was sent to you via the Kingsnake.com Classifieds. If you feel this message is fraudulent or abusive please forward it to [email protected].
NOTE: DO NOT flag this message as SPAM/JUNK as your ability to receive legitimate messages from Kingsnake.com Classifieds may be compromised
*************

hey fred,
i have the 600 dollar deposit on the two 1000 gram female pastels. just curious if you guys are interested in a proven breeder male mojave (2004, 1000 grams) that has produced around 20 mojaves over the last two years. just thought i would run it by you before i post him.
and if you guys could kind of give me a written contract for my records
thanks
howard

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[HRoss]

hhmore

i will agree to what you said. my finances are know ones problems but my own. i did the trade deal under direct threat of hurting my name in the ball industry. yes, i could have told him to blow himself

ad you are correct sending me the animals i did not pay/ trade for is in my opinion stealing.

 

[Ed Clark]

Howard, you offered the Mojaves in trade, right?

You sent the Mojaves to Fred Kick to pay off the female Pastels, right?

So the only problem is them sending the wrong female pastels, is that correct.

 

[Serafim]

Oh thats funny Ed Clark asking a question and expecting an answer.

Howard can you post pictures of the snakes you were sent?

 

[HRoss]

i will photo them in the afternoon. the little one is not ugly or outstanding, just another year away from breeding (if either of them ever eat again). simply put they were sold as 1000 gram animals. and, even more simple is the fact that they are very far from the 1000 gram mark they were supposedly at in june of 07, not to mention they are not the same snakes by a long shot

 

[Nagini]

Does it look like they are late 06 babies, or that they could have been 1,000 g ,but when you put them on a payment plan they just stopped feeding them or something?

 

[Ed Clark]

Oh thats funny Ed Clark asking a question and expecting an answer.

Sorry Howard, I could have helped you on this. John is one of the toadies, soon his buddies here will take this simple problem so far off topic you wont even remember why you came here. mark my words...there will be lies, talking about light sabers and what not. a real circus. Good Luck Howard!

 

[HRoss]

i have worked with a lot of ball python morphs. the young female i would say is an 06 by guess. her bodyweight is consistent for her length. if she had ever been a kilo she would be very very skinny.

the sea hag, she looks like a very old pastel. fred's receipt says "she wayed 1150 grams prior to her eliminating her stomach contents" (1150-800 is one big turd). she looks like a female that dropped a clutch this year, and has not even begun to recoup from it
i am going to dose her with flagyl and see if i can get a feeding response, but i would not hold my breath. i have tried mice, rats, and soft furs

 

[HRoss]

as far as trades i did offer him my adult male as part of payment. because i knew i was replacing him with a newer version of the mojave ,that is mindblowing, towards winter

about a month past the terms of the original time. fred had mentioned taking just the one female pastel that i had more than payed for(which i wish by far i had done). it has been so long that i do not remember how the baby mojavies came up. it is fair to say it could have been either of us. but, once they did it was send me babies, cash no longer mattered i had them sold here locally and could have had the money the next day i mean we were already talking about a proven breeder mojave that had only hatched out his first few clutches of the season. so it is fairly easy to assume there are babies
so, yes the size and misrepresentation is my biggest concern. yes, i made a trade that i regret because i got know where near what i had tried to buy/ trade for.

the snakes are a whole nother season away from being able to breed if i am lucky. even if they had come in at a kilo i still needed to ad considerable size to them. and since they do not eat who knows. if they do not respond to flagyl after spring. then it is safe to say they are destined to become freezer pops. i for one would not sell them to anyone else, or risk taking them out of quarantine

all in all i got shorted 500 grams of pastel female weight, and a year of production.

now something i do not think i have been clear on is that in may when i gave him my deposit they were already a kilo each, so by august/ sept they had already lost huge amounts of weight. i guess this is not absurd figuring they are not the same animals anyway.

it is 6 am and i am sure my sentences are not structured correctly. so, i apologize to all the writing majors

 

[Lucille]

from what I have heard of the Kick Brothers/Reptile Addicts, you probably won't see much (if anything) in the way of compensation.

Harald,
Can you be more specific about what you heard and who you heard it from?

I have to admit this whole thread seems to have parts missing. First, there are payments being made to buy snakes. The buyer switches jobs and his income drops and he goes to the seller to see what arrangements can be made. The seller offers to just let him have one of the snakes since the payments already made amount to more than the cost for that snake. The buyer does not take that offer. The buyer claims that the seller then threatened him with a boi thread and that he then came up with some trade snakes to avert that possibility. All is well until the buyer gets his snakes and he says they are not the snakes he bargained for.
I'm a little hazy on the threat part, exactly what was threatened? The buyer says he was threatened with a bad boi thread but for what? He was making a good faith effort to make arrangements, and the seller made a good faith offer to let the buyer walk away with one snake. That actually sounds like a good arrangement. Howard, you said he made a direct threat to hurt you in the ball industry, can you be more specific?
It would be very upsetting to receive different snakes than what one thought one was going to get. I hope someone has notified the seller so he has the opportunity to answer for himself in this thread.

 

[HRoss]

darn lucille

i just jotted down a novel to answer some of your? and to clarify a few points i feel that you have misunederstood.
when i went to spell check it. i lost the server connection

now at this point i have to go into town. i hope to better be able to clarify things for you later. and i am telling you it was a novel. what a shame
howard

 

[hhmoore]

cash no longer mattered i had them sold here locally and could have had the money the next day

Then the obvious question is: Why didn't you do that? You were, by your own admission here, already past the terms of the original agreement.


Lucille - there aren't a lot of specifics to provide - check the BOI, and (I think) Herps in the News, those should cover the basics. As for "what I heard", that is largely nonspecific....a few random unflattering comments in chat a while back (I don't recall by whom), and several occasions of me playing the little bird nearby their table at shows - watching & listening to interactions with unhappy customers that bought from them a month or two prior, and even hearing other showgoers warning people away from their table. I didn't mean to imply that I had some "dirt".