Inquiry-Glenn Novotny of Seaside Reptiles

[Mark Allen]

Looking to buy from Glenn. Any comments on him or his animals?

Thank you

Mark Allen

 

[HRoss]

glenn novotny is the biggest piece of crap i have ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

2-3 years back i purchased 3 very expensive bearded dragons from this guy in the 1500 dollar price range. i had them delta dashed even though we are only about 8 hours apart. the animals came in disgusting. one female was dead in the box with a nasty black liquid all over it. the other 2 had some form of mout rot, or more like a crusty scab like infection on their lips.

i tried getting this guy on the phone. he ignored me, his employees blew me off. i caught him on the phone one day and he told me to send photos of all of the dead animals, which i did. then he had his employees blow me off from there on.

now this prick walks up to my tables at the tampa show a few years back not knowing my face and starts looking at my dragons. i was not paying to much attention at this point until i saw his vendor badge. i am not going to say i said nothing about it or even politely. his repsonse was basically "sh!t happens". i remember telling John from suncoast (the tables next to me) about the situation and he was appauled, and could not believe i was able to keep the conversation from getting heated.

Long story short, he takes the cake as the biggest pile of crap in the reptile trade in my opinion.
Howard Ross

 

[Mickey_TLK]

Talk about hitting the nail on the head.......LOL

I have had the misfourtune of dealing with Glenn a few times in the past. Sadly I was inexperienced enough to fall for his crap a few times.

Lets see out of approx 30 animals purchased from Glenn, half were mis sexed, the other half were half dead upon arrival.

I have no dealt with him in over 6 years but I highly doubt much has changed. Im sure whatever he is offering you can locate at or near the same price, and save in the long run.

 

[HRoss]

I rarely if ever have anything this negative to say about someone on a public forum. But once i got in touch with this ass he actually made me take photos of the animals before digital cameras had made it into my use. I had to have them developed the day i took them and he made me overnight the photos to him. now that was not cheap. And then he avoids me and completely screws me.

I can't laugh at this one. I try to refrain from letting people see me get unglued, but this guy is a cancer. There are a lot of things that i see that are not good practices, but what a peice of <font color=red>[**censored**]</font>. At least with the points i get for this people will know exactly for who and why i got them when they look them up.

Howard Ross

 

[simplysnakes]

Glen.....

Paul and I have dealt with Glen on several occassions. We purchased snakes/lizards and frogs from him. Glen really impressed me with his knowledge and capabilites with his frogs. When I read the above about Glen I cant believe that this is the same Glen. We even got a trio of emeralds that had been freshly imported and they did wonderful.

There are two sides to every story. I like to hear them both and draw my own opinion based on that. HRoss I mean no disrepect, but I would like to hear what Glen has to say himself about this issue on the dragons.

But I like Glen, his knowlege with the frogs is the best I have seen and Paul and I would definetly do business with Glen.

Sincerely,
Beth & Paul Moody
SimplySnakes
www.simplysnakes.com

 

[Mickey_TLK]

While I agree there are two sides to every story, I can assure you that when it comes to this one I dont see any way he can be on the right.

About 7-8 years ago I purchased a lot of panthers from Glenn. I cant remeber the exact number or count, but it was supposed to be 2.3 or something similar. Well low and behold I get a package with 3.2 at best (like I said its been a very long time) and both the females were on deaths door upon arrival (shipped heavily gravid, ended up binding). When I called him on the mis sexing he assured me that he packed the animals, and there were 3 females. The "third female" he labled was actually a 24" plus male, unmistakeable. Easily one of the largest panthers Ive ever seen, eyes half sunk in.

This was all long before I knew of the web, and all animals were purchased sight unseen as healthy animals. Had I known more I would have faught with him on the issue, but he was Seaside Reptiles, hes in Reptiles magazine, I figured he knew more. I was a rookie.

I also purchased some of his sunburst and turquoise vieleds prior to the panther order. Half the babies I recieved had some sort of genetic thing going on. They would eat and grow but would continually grab their own limbs. I have never seen anything like it since. They would do it to the point of dropping to the ground and rolling in circles, and were finally put down.

As for frogs, well I have no experience with his frogs.

 

[simplysnakes]

Mickey

Wow, I am totally shocked. Did you contact Glen and tell him of the others and what was his response? Glen always came across to me as a very honest person and he seems the type that if something were to go wrong he would make it right. I am going to see if I can contact Glen and have him come to this thread.

Sincerely,
Beth & Paul Moody
Simply Snakes
www.simplysnakes.com

 

[Mickey_TLK]

He was made well aware I was unhappy with the order and made no offer to fix the situation.

As I said I didnt push the issue much more then a few phone calls to him, that Im sure at this time are completely meaningless.

See the problem to me that always has stuck out with him, is I was pretty new to the trade when I dealt with Glenn. And in my honest opinion he took advantage of that. In my opinion he seems to be the type that is different things to different buyers. If your known or respected by him he will take good care of you. But if your low man on the pole, well I say watch out.

Lets admit it he would be the first person to use this tactic in this trade, and will not be the last. But thats left a sour taste in my mouth for many years, and Im sure many others. Its honestly sad when a dealer/breeder takes advantage of newbies. Sure newbies have their own set of problems to consider, but they are also the future of this hobby. Think about the people buying a first time pet that get screwed by the "guy in the magazine, hes gotta be good" and assume they did something wrong. Or worse yet that all reptiles are extremely fragile, and should be kept as pets.

Id love to hear what Glenn has to say, I highly doubt he even remebers the transactions in all honesty. Id bet if anything he will say he does, but in reality it was just another "sucker" in his mind. But in mine it was a lesson that was well learned.

 

[HRoss]

Paul,

I don't take you sticking up for your friend as disrespect. I do not go out of my way to say bad things about people. This guy burned me and burned me bad. This was well prior to me being computer savy. The animals were pretty, and they were also pretty dead within 48 hours(other than the one doa).

Frogs he might be great at, but plain and simple he took my money and gave me garbage. I wish this thread was closer to the time of the event, because i can assure you i document everthing well that i do online. I could barely work a computer back then let alone know what the boi was.

I know things go wrong. But, at least when something goes wrong on my end i take care of the situation. Telling me at my booth about how his poor self was robbed by his employees and that he deals in imports that carry disease and that i was lucky that i did not get the same disease that he got from pete wies. What the hell does that have to do with my money. Pure scumbag, you will never convince me otherwise. Having to go through my records for 2000-2001 will not be easy, but trust me i still have all of the receipts.
Howard Ross

 

[HRoss]

i need to correct a few things. the time involved has left me with an error on a few things, but does not change my opinion on the nature of glenn.

the time period was december of 2000, the animals in ? were 400 each not totalling 1500 but 1200. all 3 animals did not die within his one week time period (in my haste i mentioned 48 hours; my bad 4 years is a long time for specifics). once i told him of the doa i also told him the animals were heavily infested with round worms(by overnight mail with photos of the doa) and the mouth scabbing (not eating). he would not take the animals back (nor give me the opportunity to meet the conditions of his terms by avoiding me), so technically they did die outside of his terms even though he was notified of the sickness within his one week time period. from my notes of the time he offered me a normal phase red dragon to compensate for the doa (the time i got through on the phone), which was refused prior to him shipping it and immediately retuned from the local ups hub.
everything was in phone conversation and mainly with his employees, as he would not call me back or answer the phone personally. so 2 animals died later (within 4 weeks) of conditions that he was made aware of and he shipped me a normal to replace a 400 $ animal that was not accepted. who would want more sickness and to top it all off an animal worth 1/4 of the doa and 1/12 of the total of the 3 dead animals. messages were continually left until feb of 2001 with no response (both with an employee name frank w. and machine.)

the tampa show where we exchanged words on the situation was nearly a year later. and beth i noticed paul's name in the signature line and addressed the previous post to him. some minor errors on my part (fact wise from nearly four years ago), but that does not change the fact that i received 3 animals one doa and the others fecal tested by my vet with a massive load of parisites and the mouth scabbing which was not cured by antibiotics. i will mention the male did not degrade as fast as the females (he made it about a month) and the lip scabbing was only noticable on the females. these are from my notes of the time, sorry no emails from back then.
howard ross