In the spring of 2013 I began conversing with Jason to have a custom vivarium built. This would be 40x18x36 inches. It would have 2 vents on the top, and a shroud to cover one of the vents that could hold 80 mm fans. No glass holes were ordered. I paid in full $435 for this vivarium and arranged to either have it delivered to my house or pick it up at NARBC in the spring. Jason said it would be $125 for delivery and that he would be stopping by because he was going to deliver a large order to Joshsfrogs which is located near me. I thought great this will save me a lot of time to just pay someone else to build the vivarium itself. Not to spoil it but you will find I did not save any time at all.
During this whole process communication was very good right up until the point that Jason received my money which was paid by credit card.
From that point on I had to initiate any communication. So NARBC approaches and Jason does not say anything. I called him and he told me he would have the whole vivarium ready at NARBC.
So I went to NARBC and found Jason, he did not have his own booth he was leeching on Pangea's booth. He had a pile of vivariums there. He told me mine was ready except that the shroud had been broken because he had been hit by a big rig truck on the way to the show. But he promised me he would remake the shroud in the next week and mail it to my home. I said OK no big rush I still have to build the vivarium and the shroud is not needed till it gets closer to completion. I looked over the vivarium and it looked about right but he had modified the top outside of my instructions. So I asked I thought the top vents would only be 1.5 inches from the end, he said well the glass couldn’t be cut that thin, I thought well why didn’t you alert me to this? Oh well it’s not a huge deal I guess I will take it home overall it still looks nice.
I took the vivarium home with me. When I arrived home and unloaded it I discovered that the doors which were not supposed to be transported installed and were taped together were the wrong size. So I called Jason and he said he had heard from another customer the same thing and he would be swinging by my area on Wednesday to make a delivery after the show and would get me the doors then.
Wednesday I stayed home from work. Jason did not show. So I called him he said sorry things were delayed and it would be Thursday. Thursday he didn’t show up. I called him again and he said plans had changed and he was going back to his home. But he said I should take the doors into a local glass shop and have them cut to size and he would refund me the money. I couldn't do anything with the doors so I waited on this job. And after a week I contacted him again about the shroud. He said he forgot but it would be the in the mail the next week.
Now over the course of the next several months I contact Jason many times, email, or phone. He never replies to email and often does not pick of the phone. Sometimes he does pick up the phone and it’s always the same garbage. Some excuse, he's in the hospital, someone's in the hospital something happened. But he is going to get that. He claims the shroud is just sitting there waiting to be shipped in a box right near the door. By now I have uncovered threads like this one. And I want him to arrange for a glass shop to cut the glass with his own money because I suspect if I pay on my own he won't send me the money. Eventually I order my own replacement doors after the doors I had were broken when I tried to cut one myself. Ironically he emails me just after I broke the door to tell me which glass shop will cut them for me. But he still hasn’t delivered my top shroud. One time I even emailed him from another email a couple hours after I sent an email from my main email asking about the shroud. In the second email I pretended to be interested in ordering a vivarium. Ironically he never emails me back about the shroud, but in a day or 2 he emails the second email answering all the questions about the custom tank. Also all this is happening months after he claims he is going all wholesale and won’t be doing custom builds because it’s too hard and people are too picky.
Eventually I can no longer do a charge back on my credit card. And after hearing a lot of stories it has become obvious that this is Jason Perillo's game, once he gets your money his next goal is to hold you off and delay you till you can no longer do a chargeback. And he also will often avoid saying much if anything over email because he doesn’t want a written account of his actions post payment.
For a long time I did not post, early on because I thought I had a better chance of receiving my shroud if I didn’t post. Later on because I am just really busy. Jason Perillo has lost pretty much all support by now in the dart frog community and I had hoped he had moved on to some other career. But I was recently startled when walking around NARBC Tinley Park on 10/11/2014 and I saw him there at a table with his vivariums. First I want to say I hope that NARBC will not allow this guy back, second I decided I finally needed to post this because I would not wish dealing with someone as bad as Jason Perillo on even my worst enemy.
It has now been over a year and a half and I still have no shroud. Jason has not delivered what I paid for and he is a thief, even though he claimed it was sitting right next to the door all packaged up, you would think if that was true he would want that out of his space. Also I would like to say that I find it appalling that many places such as Dendroboard.com have covered up for this guy and still others such as dartden.com, and poisondartforums.com have taken money or vivariums to allow him to advertise even when they know he does this garbage and has a rocky reputation as those admins were much more versed in the community. I was a new person just getting back into the hobby when I initiated this purchase and I did so largely because I mistakenly thought that the advertisements on such websites were a vote of confidence from community run admins whom would want the best for the community, and I ironically I searched for the company and saw mostly good comments, later I would learn that was because I needed to search his name, not company and 2 the main bad thread had been deleted from dendroboard where I searched. This was especially bad since these same websites had banned other sponsors for issues that went against their morals. Ultimately Jason Perillo only has motivation to finish or deliver a job if you have some sort of leverage over him, unfortunately I am just a nobody and once he had my money I had no leverage anymore. What is even more disturbing is I actually feel lucky compared to some of the horrendous stories I hear.
Speaking to a late comment about him, Jason doesn’t just make people wait a long time. Many times such as with my top dimensions he outright alters the design without telling a person, this constitutes delivering the wrong product (note I gave him a google sketchup with exact dimensions), other times he doesn’t deliver parts at all such as my shroud, and even other times he just doesn’t do parts of the job at all, I know multiple people who said they ordered drilled holes and the vivariums arrived with no holes drilled.
Boy Jason, if you're reading this, I bet you wish you sent me that refund when I gave you a 48 hour last chance before I posted my negative feedback! For the record, I'm not out to harm Jason maliciously. I have a text in the last 24 hours pretty much baiting me to post my experience, and a fascinating story about how he's used to it since he's been through it so many times. That's what slammed the door shut on that guy, i felt it almost necessary to post after that.
I asked him because it was the first (and last) Protean tank I owned. I was also treating him as a client, and since it does become an ethical question, I leave that up to the client. It's not my place to judge that I feel. I didn't know if this was an unusual anomaly or normal, and like I said, for better or worse, it's pretty much standard practice these days. Would I photoshop a tank I built? No, I have more attention to detail when creating, especially for a shoot. I also feel that Jason didn't do anything wrong in that regard though, it's not why I brought it up. I mentioned it to show that Jason knew about these flaws in the details, and knew that they shouldn't be there. Also to discount above poster, who seems to think aesthetics trumps scamming, when I feel the aesthetics aren't quite what he pumped them up to be. It was extra fun to prove that with the photos Jason commissioned and subsequently ripped me off on.
