• 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....

How to kill a sale!

The BoidSmith

Blocked because of INVALID email address!
INVALID email address
Joined
Feb 7, 2002
Messages
5,971
Reaction score
42
Points
48
Age
117
Location
Midwest
When it comes to posting an ad, impecable writing style or "0" grammatical errors doesn't necessary mean a sure sale. But there are obviously extremes. In this day and age how important would have been to spell-check this post before hitting the enter key.

thes snakes are 2002 babays they were produse form salmon hypo to salmon hypo thes makes them f2s I have 10 here are some of the nice ones. 500 each thes is a codamanet trat.the 3 I posted are all females.

Business, business, business...
 
I would be willing to bet that there are people out there who would not see anything wrong with that advertisement. They would be a product of our society at large, and the bend over backward policies we have in this country to appease the noisemakers at any cost - even that of their own respect. I find it a shame that our schools pass people for the sake of passing them, or in order to conform with policies based upon race relations and affirmative action type programs; that is, instead of actually educating them to a set standard. Then again, how could one expect the educators to actually educate - most of them do not know how to use English grammar correctly either. I am no English professor but, I am better at reading, writing and speaking skills than more than at least half of my college professors in the master's program I am attending.

Could you imagine an America in which the immigrants were, for the most part, here legally. If you can, then you should be able to picture those immigrants wanting to become Americans and to learn the language of the land - which by the way is English and not Spanish or Patois, or Chinese. My relatives all immigrated to this country many years ago. When my great-grandmother was in her mid-nineties, she related to me the difficulty she went through upon coming to this country. She was broke, with no skills and had to work as a servant. She struggled to learn English in order to survive, and once she had she applied for citizenship. She scrimped and saved, and eventually became quite wealthy; this despite the fact that she had come from a home where meat was eaten about only two or three times in a year, that is how poor her family had been in Europe. She cried when she told me her story, but she was beaming with pride at the same time. Nowadays it is America that is struggling to learn how to speak Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, French, Patois, Creole, Arabic and so forth. This is because people come here now not to become Americans but to rape our bounty. They come, they skim, they return to the country where they were born and; they have their social security checks or disability checks mailed to them there. Do you realize that someone can illegally enter our country, then can live on welfare, while at the same time having a job. They can make lots of money at that job, then report only a portion of it of it for tax purposes, thereby robbing the nation. Yet when they hit retirement age they can collect social security. Oh, did I forget to mention that they can illegally obtain a social security number, and then later have the social security system send them checks abroad! America is no longer the great melting pot it once was, now it is little more than a trash can as far as many of the ingredients are concerned. We need to regain control of the nation, run things in the American way and have people once again strive to become Americans instead of becoming users of America. After that is accomplished, maybe you will get better quality classified advertisements on these forums!

Gosh darn it, I almost don't believe I answered you post like that, but it is about time that people in the United States of America wake up and do the right things.
 
Glenn,

Not that I'm pro-illegal immigration or anything but all the points you made can be said of legal citizens born here in the US. Given the bounty of what was built by people like your great-grandmother, our own citizens' laziness is an even more disgusting act than the one you mentioned. IMHO.

But on a practical note, if you did purchase the above animals it's a roll of the dice if the package would get labeled properly and delivered (I can just hear "I knew it was in 1 of those states that started with an "I").
 
Glenn,

I agree with you to a point, but I think you place too much blame on the educators. Education starts in the home, and as a former teacher (very short lived at that profession) I saw far to many parents get upset when you even made the suggestion that their precious little Billy may need some extra help. When I sent out requests to meet with parents they went out to every student who had a D grade or lower, and even some C's in a few special cases (most teachers only sent them to the failing students) I made it a point to tell them in the notice that even though their child was not failing Thery were in danger of failing if they let things slip to far. I got a few responses saying things like "so he gets a D- as long as he passes thats all that matters" (that kid did fail by the way) or "I don't have the time to come see you keep me posted on his progress" three notes later to the parent who was still too busy (I found out later that both parents were unemployed and had been for 2 years) and the kid did pass with a D+ but he probably could have done much better with a little support from home.

On top of that my principal told me I was sending out too many notices, and not one parent of any of the children who were actually failing ever contacted me.

My point is that it is not always the educational sytem. Many times it is but not always, and if the teachers got a little more support from the parents things would be a whole lot better I can promise you that.

Steve Schindler
 
I have to say that it is primarily the parents that are responsible for teaching their children. If/When I have a child, it will go to school because it has to have that background in order to go anywhere in life, but until it goes to college, I doubt it will learn a single thing in school, nor be told anything that it did not already learn at home.
 
Time for al ittle compassion eh?

What I have noticed.

People make typos when posting ads, especially MULTIPLE ADS over and over, take it from me......I've done it repeatedly, esp when bleary eyed posting ads at 2a.m. in the morning.

Reptile People in general are a nitpicky bunch, ever ready to jump on or illuminate others mistakes and faults, while totally ignoreing their own.(Ever been to a herp show and seen how many people are just totally out of shape?) I agree that a carefully worded ad LOOKS professional and conveys a certain sense of legitimacy about it, but I have seen COLOR brochures, perfectly worded and immaculate coming from a guy that lied through his teeth about even producing most of the stuff on his list. But his presentation was smooth as butter.......And correctly worded!!

I've also seen people in the reptile hobby demean others because they didnt use LATIN NAMES to label the snakes they had for sale with. Now...just how many of the average snake buying publis even KNOW the Latin names of the snakes they have bought? Very few I'd venture to say....

In closeing Id say to just lighten up....misspelled words dont mean illiteracy necessarily, some of these folks may have dyslexia, or perhaps, like myself, they were rushed and trying to post ads when half asleep.


Sincerely,

Fred Albury
AZTEC REPTILES
 
PLEASE NOTE:TYPO DETECTED!!!

PLEASE NOTE:


On line #13, word one, I made a TYPO.
that word should have been PUBLIC. Please forgive my
obvious and flagrant violation of the spelling law.

Muahahahahahahaha


Sincerely,

Fred Albury
 
Fred Albury, chairman of the AGBA (Anti-Gloss Brochure Association)

they were rushed and trying to post ads when half asleep.

Playing devil's advocate here. A buyer sees your ad online. Doesn't know you from Adam. Only impression he has is the photograph of your animal and the text of your ad. If your ad screams "rushed, half asleep, not thoughtout" these are the terms that apply to his impression of you and any possible transaction he may have wanted to do with you. As that person is looking at your ad he is thinking "Wonder how he ships?", "Does he take care of his animals properly", "Will the transaction go smoothly". Whether you realize it or not your answering those questions with every word you type.

When dealing with online sales, impression is 90% of the sale. Anyone that fails to realize that is probably having a hard time selling things online and wondering why.

Taking the time and effort to proof your ads and posts is all part of doing business online. They don't have to be perfect but also should look like you at least had one eye on the chalkboard at school.
 
Professionalism etc..............

Ahhhh professionalism......

As I eluded to in my former post, people make mistakes. I understand the "professional" end of things, but frankly I have seen enough shiny pamphlets and seemingly nice breeders who lied through their teeth to not be duped by the perfection of carefully worded(Crafted?) ads nor shiny brochures or posters.

Not to say that someone cannot honestly and intelligently represent their snakes, but to think that a carefuly worded ad
in some way confers honesty, integrity, or snakes that were produced by that person. It doesnt. I read through ads that are misspelled just like I read through other ads. I can totally understand that as a consumer you look for clean and concise ads, but frankly , when I buy snakes,I usually buy them from a private party who either produces small amounts or bought these particular snakes for himself and is now selling them for a number of diffrent reasons. THIS individual may or may not have a perfectly worded ad, and thats OK. For me it isnt the best ad, but the persons devotion to their animal, which isnt necessarily correlated with increased computer skills or an ability to not make typos.

Thanks,

Fred Albury
AZTEC REPTILES
 
Fred,

The suggestions from everyone else do not strike me as much as a warning to stay away from people who can not put a decent ad together, but as a warning to such people that they would increase their odds of a sale greatly if they learned how to spell and write.

You are correct in your belief that there are plenty of crooks who can make a dandy looking ad, and that you shouldn't always base your descision on that. If you have been looking for a particular animal for a while and someone comes along with one you should look into it, no matter what the ad looks like. From a sellers standpoint however, if two animals that are essentially the same are each posted for sale, one ad is well written, without any spellling errors, etc, and the other looks the the one this thread was started over, I can gaurantee you the first one would get more responses (assuming buyers see both ads). Now, it just might be that the poster of the good ad is a con man and several people get ripped off and that the poster of the bad ad is honest and is wondering why no one is responding. In that case wouldn't it serve the honest person better to make sure his ad was a good one. Come to think of it maybe all the crooks know this so they make the good ads so maybe we SHOULD be looking for spelling errors and poor grammer :)

Steve Schindler
 
Based on the amount I write I make a lot of typos and spelling errors myself but...

There is a certain point when they are concentrated within a single paragraph where I do start to question the intelligence of the person writing... If there's an underlying problem, there are always spell checkers- not a perfect solution but a workable one to at least make an ad phonetically understandable. When people start misspelling the name of the animal they want to sell, or basic terms used to describe it multiple times in the same ad, I do have to wonder if they know what they're doing... How many times can you see something in print before you know how to spell it? How many times would they be likely to if they actually had this animal and it was what it was represented to be?

The ad listed for instance... that wasn't one or two errors where a finger slipped or a perpetual mis-use of a homonym, that was just a mutilated near indecipherable wad of "Internet English" where it doesn't matter how it's spelled or the order the words are placed in, as long as there are a lot of letters involved, it must be meaningful.

Personal dislike for just plain sloppy writing aside, there is a factor that comes into play strongly when looking at a possible deal with an individual who does not appear literate... The chances of a miscommunication rise quickly when they can't understand you and you can't understand them... Their misuse of words also affords them a possible legal defense if things do go sour... I can see it now, on People's Court...

"No ure onor i nevar sayd "captive bred" i sayd thu lizerd were "captib bread", witch clerely ain't da saem. hears thu e-male 2 prov it."
 
That a new language or what?

Seamus,

Is that even ENGLISH that you posted?

I'm not talking abot someone that cant even CONVEY clearly what they are trying to sell. I'd be leery of them too. And others have made observations that my animals did not sell, and correlated that with my ad typos, which is rubbish. Because , when I posted ads WITHOUT the typos, I got the same response.

I just typed this post out and realized there were 4 typos in it also. OMG...I went back and fixed it right away, so that I would be taken "SERIOUSLY". Reptile people, they can be such dicks sometimes.




Fred Albury

AZTEC REPTILES
 
As a buyer I do look at how the ad is presented. I also understand typos. When every other word is typed incorrectly it does make me wonder about how much this seller really knows.
What really gets me is the short cuts people have been using.
Example of this would be "u" instead of "you". If you are too lazy to type the whole word out are you too lazy to properly care for your pet?
This is for sellers only, not for everyday chit chat.
 
Is that even ENGLISH that you posted?

Nope.

I just typed this post out and realized there were 4 typos in it also. OMG

... But take that ad that was quoted on page one of this thread... there were forty words, eight were misspelled, ten if you count the lack of capitalization to begin a sentence. That's a 20-25% rate of mistakes, which is enough to get me wondering... I make a lot of typos myself, some of which I catch, some I don't, but there are times when it goes beyond an honest mistake or lack of typing ability (I use two fingers myself and the left index only operates the shift and space key.) and into a "What were they thinking posting that?!" situation.

There are times when phrases are similar enough so that, when misspelled, it can be tough to figure out which a person meant to use but the nuance can be important... There are times when people will constantly mistype the name of an animal or a morph that they supposedly own, which makes me question the care it's receiving if it even exists (There's a big difference between "amelanistic" and "melanistic" for instance, if I'm buying one, I don't want the other to show up).

There are legitimate examples of people who do not communicate quite as well due to learning disabilities, English not being a first language or problems typing, but out of all the people likely to post gibberish ads, I suspect that most of the individuals like those mentioned above are aware of the impression they might give and take additional time to ensure it's easy for their audience to understand.

It really does come down to impression and professionalism, sure the bad guys can knock up something that looks decent, but that's not an excuse for the good guys to start posting badly worded ads. I compare it to swearing during a job interview, it just doesn't look good and it doesn't give the other individual a favorable impression... Sure you might have tourettes syndrome, but that (like the dyslexia/second language) is the minority not the norm.
 
I can't spell

I can't spell, and I'm the queen of typo's. I type 40 words a minuite......unless you want it typed correctly.....then I type 5 words a minuite because I have to have the spell check and a dictionary. I have to stop and think when I type the word "Because" cuz I spent so long spelling it as "Becuase" that my fingers naturally just type that u before the a (When I'm feeling lazy I go with "Cuz." Just the other day I made a post supporting a seller on the BOI and I said I wanted to ass my opinion. I meant ADD, but it looked good when I first typed it! LOL!

Still there is a definate difference between the lazy typist who can't spell (me) and the add that started this post:

"thes snakes are 2002 babays they were produse form salmon hypo to salmon hypo thes makes them f2s I have 10 here are some of the nice ones. 500 each thes is a codamanet trat.the 3 I posted are all females."

There are SO many blatant, outragous absolutly misspelled words in there that my first thought was a nine year old wrote that. (And he wasn't a very bright nine year old or he would have tried to make his add look less like a child wrote it)

Just my opinion. Please don't tear up my grammer too bad, I know it sucks! Believe it or not my degree claims I am an office specialist! Good thing I don't work in an office!
 
My correlations were to ads that contained animals that people are actually interested in purchasing. If they think the price is to high they will not respond no matter how the ad looks.

I've read some of your ads Fred and quite frankly I probably never noticed a few typos. I never responded because I thought the animals were too expensive. No doubt you have nice looking animals, and to the right person they may be worth every penny you are asking, and I would probably be very happy if I purchased one. Its just that many people (myself included) feel that buying on the internet is a crap shoot so you go with what makes you feel right, and pretty pictures and fancy descriptions don't always make me feel right. After reading a couple of your ads I no longer even look at them.

Please don't get upset. I am not bashing you or complaining about your prices. You have doubtlessly put a lot of time and effort into your collection and the results show it. I am certain that every one of your snakes is worth what you are asking, but being worth what you are asking and asking what people are willing to pay are two different things. This, alone will decrease the number of responses you will get. It has nothing to do with your ad.

Also, a few typos, or slips of the fingers are usually forgiven. The brunt of what I see here is focusing on people who can not put a coherent sentence together, consistantly misspell common words and other gross neglects of the english language. I realize that for some, English is not their primary language but those posts usually are easy to spot, and forgive. Many languages have grammer usages that, although are different from English, are used consistently throughout the ad.

I stand by my assertion that, all other things being equal the best presented ad will get the most responses, that is provided people want to buy your stuff.

I must admit I did spend more time than usuall proofreading this post. I may still have missed a few things but I do think that the majority of people will find it acceptable.

Steve Schindler
 
It's grammar. :D

Sorry, I couldn't pass up the irony of that word being misspelled so often in this particular thread. (Several have done it.)

On topic: I agree with the assessment of that ad. Presentation counts. Type-o's are one thing. I think most people will make some leeway when it comes to the content of an advertisement, and most people realize that language skills don't necessarily equate to husbandry skills. However, extremely poor presentation, to the point of an apparent total disregard toward putting any real effort into an advertisement, is going to reflect badly on the seller.

If a seller can't be bothered to learn the proper spelling of terminology related to his business (common names of animals, genetic terms, descriptive terms commonly used, latin names if given), then that does call into question the person's husbandry skill and knowledge. Poor grammar and spelling is one thing, but some effort should be put toward learning those things specific to the trade.

If the seller's language skills are so poor that they can't communicate what they have for sale (and you don't need complete sentences to do this, can't people even make a simple LIST?), then how are buyers going to know what is being offered?

Reminds me of a joke from basic training: Yesterday I couldn't spell soldier, today I is one.

Bottom line, if you want to sell, and you can't do better than that attempt in the first message of the thread, it's not a bad idea to ask for some help.
 
DISHONESTY
DECEPTION
these kill sales


animals too


Grammer....I have been a victim of the spelling guru [yall know who]
communication....still I struggle with that

respected yup

nuff said;)
 
John,

I agree with you that honesty and integrity are completely unrelated to spelling. For all I know this person might be the most honest herper in the planet! There is no need to write "the" perfect ad, but at least one should put some care. You owe it to the readers/customers. The reader has to be able to understand the message you are trying to convey. "thes is a codamanet trat." if the reader is not versed in genetics, he might actually think there is something wrong with those snakes!

Best regards.
 
Back
Top