Steve,
If you want me to post what I found I will, but if you want to drop it, that's OK with me, too. I am angered, some of the stuff Kelli said about some of my friends upset me. I let it get to my head. Kelli is part of HISS, and you did something to me that I don't like BEFORE y'all got married. I am corrected - I should probably have left it out of this thread.
Let's get it on the table open and clear (and I do appreciate the recent sensible response from you) right now, OK? I assumed at the time that you didn't call because of your divorce. I even accidently sent you an email that I should NOT have sent that was rude. I appologized, but I did it. I'll say I'm sorry about that one again - and I mean it. I actually UNDERSTOOD the lack of time due to the divorce, etc. I gave you credit. I was upset, but I didn't even tell many people about it because you weren't in the hobby, and what was the point? Market value or not, I have and had no use for hybrids, and I was an undergrad at the time, so $500 was a lot of money to throw away on something that wasn't what I was lead to believe. I wouldn't have paid $500 for the hets even though it was a fair price - it wasn't worth that amount to me AT that time.
When you came back, I emailed you, said I saw you were back in business, and tried to give you an opportunity to make it even. Again, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. If you would have replied and said "No." I would have been mad. What made me so fricken pissed till this day is that you ignored me. I emailed again with no response. I sent the complaint to get you to reply, and your reply was that I waited too long....as if you weren't out of business for 2(?) years. Granted, I said I wanted animals at her value in trade, but I was willing to work with you. Heck, any gesture on your part at all would have been enough to make me believe you had an honest mistake (divorces ARE hard times!) and were sorry about it. heck, Steve, an empathetic "I'm sorry" and nothing else would have still lost me as a customer, but I wouldn't still be talking about it today!
Answer me this: would that make YOU mad if I did that to you? Right or wrong is irrelevant - would that make you mad? If not, you are a very unique person.
THAT'S why I am holding a grudge. Talking about it now with you - in anger, even - is calming me down a little bit (6 years later). Funny, huh? ...and I didn't talk to you in person any of the times I have seen you because I felt that you had already given me your last word. For the obvious reasons, neither one of us can benefit from a potential shouting match at an ETHS conference or worse. I think we both have too much respect for the community to do that. I didn't go say anything to you for the SAME reason, I suspect, you didn't go say anything to me. Fair?
I've started finding a few of the files (and you've given me permission to post them), and I'll start a new thread if I post on this topic any further. I am sorry it is in this thread (my childish fault) because Kelli has only been nice to me personally! HOWEVER, do you want to leave it here and drop it? YOUR CHOICE. I don't care what other readers think. I'm asking you: one usually mature person to another usually mature person? As it stands, you believe you told me it was a hybrid over the phone, and I believe you didn't. No proof other than emails saved, etc.
You may be thinking of the phone call where I called you and asked if it was a hybrid. That was AFTER I purchased the snake - not before. You remembered it was a hybrid and asked me what I wanted to do. I said I didn't want anything else, so I'd think about it and call you back..but I did NOT want to keep a hybrid. THAT could HONESTLY be the hemming and hawing you were thinking about. I stand corrected for saying you were lying. You were mistaken after 5-6 years. Anyone could do THAT. Anyway, that "call back" when I decided what I wanted was when I could never get in touch with you. Heck, I assumed it was due to the divorce and not dishonesty. Really.
Steve, please read this again before you reply. I am trying to be civil (really), and if anything got you angered, please re-read it because it is not my intention. No, you are never going to be best man at my wedding, but I don't think either of us will lose sleep over it. I just realized that you must have confused the first and second call, and you were not intentionally accusing me of knowingly BUYING a hybrid. Maybe you did this after Kelli was your wife, and that is why you said "tough luck." It does make me remember things in a different light now that I see this is possible, but it still bothers me that I was ignored. If you would have talked to me THEN, we could have figured out if we just had wires crossed and come to a mutual agreement - even if it wasn't a satisfactory agreement!
My anger was more over being ignored until I filed the complaint, but I really DID tell Jeff to ignore it. He said I wasn't the only one to have to do that in a past to get SOME seller to answer their emails. NOTE: I'm not saying anyone had ever did that with YOU, I might have been the FIRST. In other words, I wasn't trying to file a complaint - I just wanted dialog to start between us.
I will not post another reply to either thread until you have a chance to answer this: do you want to drop this (I'm offering) where it stands. It seems to read as an honest mistake (due to a stressful time in your life, possibly) that I've still got a grudge over because the customer service wasn't what I expect from a business that made a mistake. I'm over-reacting, and you made a mistake. That's life.
No trick, not hidden motives, just an honest offering. Want me to drop it? I'll even send you some of the files so you know what was going on if you want. I'm leaving the door open for you. I've said my piece - I feel MUCH better about it now. I still wish you could have done this before I had to use Jeff to get a reply. If I could get ONE THING changed about this, THAT is what it would have been.
Not friends, Steve, but no longer enemies?
KJ
