• 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....

KINGSNAKE.COM BUSSINESS ETHICS

I totally agree with Ben and John. As I clicked the link to go to the second page of this thread I and was waiting for it to load I was thinking "there’s two sides to every story and id sure like to see those emails" and there they were. buyers and some sellers don’t realize what’s it like to deal with heavy traffic and email volumes. I don’t know how Jeff handles kingsnake on a daily basis, plain and simple its the biggest and BEST site out there. I would tend to be a little irritated to if someone received free privileges for a couple months and then got nasty with me because they didn’t receive an email. he has thousands of accounts, he has to monitor forums, classifieds, banners yaddy yaddy ya and on goes the list of what he has to maintain for kingsnake alone, much less the rest of the petthobbyist sites. People seem to forget the pethobbyist thing is huge, kingsnake might be the biggest of them all but its not by far the only site he runs, then on top of that he upgrades kingsnake. He did that for us! He could have left it the way its was, kept charging money and treading along the same road, but instead for US he ads all kinds of new features and changes the whole system around to make it more user friendly. Then you want to get pissed off at the guy at the worst time of the whole process??

For the guy who started this thread one of the new features is an account page that has all your information concerning every account held with kingsnake when it began and when it ends.

When my account expired this year I didn’t have the money to re-up the whole $54 dollars it was, the broke life sucks. Once I had the money I paypal them, for some reason they didn’t receive verification of this from paypal so after a couple days I called them on the phone to find out what happened. They explained they hadn’t received the receipt from paypal so I forwarded my copy to them and within 15 minutes I as back up and running! I was polite and courteous to them and they were the same to me, this was two days after the Daytona show when they were trying to get caught up and also working on the upgrades. I know they were busy as hell, however someone there stopped what ever they had going on to take care of my situation and in 15 minutes it was solved now in my opinion that’s customer service at its best! All kingsnake gets from me is $54 a year nothing more, so in no way did I get preferred treatment because I’m spending thousands with them a year, for me its always been like that. Pay them next to nothing and get treated with the same respect I treat them.  I have had a number of threads deleted in the forums and classifieds for violating TOS, I’ve read the TOS but I am only human I forget and have a habit of over looking stuff. When my threads were removed I didn’t flip out and start yelling at the kingsnake staff I just said hey what’s up? You know what I got back? A polite response explaining what I had violated with a copy of the TOS paragraph I violated. I didn’t question them for it or tell them their TOS wasn’t fair, just said hey thanks for the response and moved on, live and learn. Kingsnake is a private site it is a Privilege to post on it, not a right!

All I can say is Jeff, the site totally kicks a$$! I have been nothing but happy with it and also with your staff. I have spoken with them several times over the past several weeks concerning my account and the new password thing and what not. They have been nothing but polite courteous and helpful. Keep up the good work!
 
I have never once complained about the price. Kingsnake offers an excellent price, I would never complain about that. I never tried to get free service. Jeff screwed up and gave that to us. Why would I get excited by getting 2 months of free service. What does that equall out to $8? Jeff just to let you know I opened my own business at 19 years old and have worked 70-80 hours a week for the last 5 years. I think that is quite a long time, but you don't see me getting upset at my customers when they complain. Complaints are a part of every business. Nobody likes them, but we have to deal with them, that is what makes your business better. CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. I have had alot of luck with kingsnake, and I really enjoy it. But after being treated the way I was over a complaint, I would never go back. That is fine if I am not welcome back to kingsnake. I would say good riddance.  "I did not mean to offend you." is an apology. Would it have been better if I said sorry Jeff anything you say Jeff. Or would you have felt better if I called you sir like the last guy. We are not in the military, so I don't have to call you sir. I am not your girlfriend so I don't have to grovell. I told you I was not trying to offend you and you insist I go away. We all work hard Jeff, just remember that next time someone complains. Thanks.

Tony Alles
 
Tony, the problem with your statement- "I did not mean to offend you.", is that it is not necessarily always given or taken as an apology. The intent doesn't lend itself well to conveying such things- what might be obvious to one person isn't to another.

That being said,I want to touch on one other thing you said. I'm steering away from the topic at hand for a moment, so bear with me.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">We are not in the military, so I don't have to call you sir.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Being a military member, I have somewhat of a problem with that statement. Calling someone "sir" has absolutely nothing to do with military service. It is a common courtesy, which is a concept lost on the average person nowadays.


Evan, I'm curious as to what the grounds of your legal action would be? From what I have gathered, the course of events that resulted in your ban started with you violating a provision of the TOS that you were well aware of, and had reported others for violating.

As to a refund, Jeff went above & beyond by offering any type of refund, since he had no contractual obligation to do so. On the contrary, the TOS states that if you're banned for TOS violations, the payments you made are forfeited.
 
Just My 2 Cents...

I have had no problem with KS since starting to do business with them.  I also find the fee for advertising in the classifieds on KS to be very reasonable considering the amount of traffic that sights gets from all forms of herpers.  I personally tried to be cheap and advertised solely on free sites and had little luck selling my animals.  As soon as I opened a classified account with KS...BOOM! The animals sold and all since then have sold fairly quick considering the time I was spending posting on other sites.  Thumbs up to KS!

As for the way this new change took place on KS.  I think it went fairly smooth.  I too waited until the last minute to send in my new account info to Jeff as a matter of fact it was August 31st.  I guess since my account had not previously expired I received a prompt response from Jeff indicating that I was all ready to post on the classifieds.  From the information earlier in this post I would venture to guess that Jeff was handling the accounts according to priority the way any business would.  Take care of all of your current paying customers and worry about the rest later.  I am sure taking care of a site the size of KS is a huge responsibility considering most us host a website of 5 pages or so.  I know I would not want Jeff's job, I have enough trouble trying to get my own small website together.

Like I said this is just my 2 cents.  Thank you all for entertaining my thooughts.

Mike Pinkston
HISS THIS HERPS
 
I never said anything about the price. Read the posts and you will see that I have said it was a more than fair price. This topic has nothing to do with money, but the service I recieved from kingsnake. Kingsnake.com automatically tells you when your account is close to expireing. They screwed up and never notified me. This gave me 2 months of service for free without my knowledge of it expiring. Then instead of telling me it expired, Jeff ignored my email letting me fiqure it out myself. I am upset with his lack of customer service. When I told him this, he threw me off. Where in any of this does it say I am complaining about the price. Thanks.

Tony Alles
 
For your information Ken, you are mistaken. I am not talking about the classified account. I paid for a year of contractual web site hosting and domain registration. The fact that I am not being given the service stated in the contract, for the period of time stated means that Jeff is 100% obligated to refund my money from his own actions. My legal action is concerned with matters involving his blocking of my use of MY domain name to keep my web site running. Every minute that it is down and I lose hits, I lose potential income. That is more than sufficient grounds. You know me better than what you said. I am not that petty to sue over classified adds. This is a much larger isssue. Evan Stahl
 
"They screwed up and never notified me." do you think he sits down and types ever notice out as the accounts exspire??? its an automated responce, were talking about computers in the cyber world, sh!t happens, you know how many times emails people send me bounce? fairly often why I couldnt tell ya my box isnt full and I have been sent copies of bounced emails and they had the correct address, sh!t happens computer glitches etc it wasnt Jeffs nor none of his staffs fault you didnt get your email concerning your account expiring, were in the cyber world thats the way it goes

Evan as far as your suit, it does say in there TOS that if you violate TOS they have the right to cancel ALL acounts held with kingsnake, hell it says they cancel them for no reason at all if they wish, I love all you guys who violate TOS then piss and moan about how wrong they are once you get tossed off for your actions, DONT BREAK THE RULES AND YOU WONT HAVE A PROBLEM,
 
This may just be me reading more into it than was actually there but...

The tone of those e-mails seems very much like someone who wanted to sort of... Cow the provider of a service into performing... Some action anyway.

The tone changes noticeabaly when Jeff responded that he could simply do without his buisness then. Seemed pretty straightforward to me.

There is a natural human understanding that if someone says something in a manner they believe is true, really give the impression of having conviction in their statements, then others will believe it unquestioningly. This is pretty much true and people do it without even realizing it...

Jeff wasn't willing to... seek some form of compensation for the account closure or offer anything in the way of "righting the wrong" because he didn't feel a wrong had been comitted... Frankly I'm not so sure it was either, it seems that a few free months were obtained and someone forget when it was time to renew an account... It shouldn't be Jeff or Kingsnake's responsibility to inform people when their account is going to expire... courteous and helpful but there's no inherent responsibility unless the terms of the account stipulate that a notice will be given...

Perhaps he over-reacted by cancelling all accounts.
Perhaps not.

Despite the hope that people will be uniform in their dealings with every customer... Having worked in a few assorted fields I can certainly say and many would agree, there are customers who are just more trouble than they're worth. Jeff seemed to feel (can't speak for him but this is the impression I get) that it simply wasn't worth the aggrivation to keep Tony as a customer.
 
Evan, you are right- I do know you better, and that you aren't that petty. That's why my initial reaction was one of surprise. Thank you, however, for clarifying the issue for me. Indeed, my perception was mistaken.
 
I just saw this...
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I know another website that used to be semi popular, arboreal site-the dude went mental--censoring everything-threatening to sue everybody-now it gets like 3 posts a week. It is fading away. </td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
LOL, to funny Ben.
hammercow.gif
 
This really isn't the place for this but I just can't stop flogging dead horses'. I just want you guys to be clear on one thing. I dod not do anything. I posted something Jeff did not like. He sent me a very nasty email. I apologized but told him that I thought there was no reason for him to rude and threatening with me. He then deleted my accounts. That is just childish. That is not how anyone with any professionalism handles business transactions. I love his site. I have had fantastic sales there over the past several years and am very upset that I have been removed. That said, it is a different matter entirely for him to go beyond that and promise me a refund then give me half. It is also way out of bounds for him to hold my domain name up longer than promised to keep me from running my website that I paid for and own. It is also a different situation entirely when this is all motivated by some personal bias and not a policy. So Jason, when you state things the way you have, it is very misleading. Pete Kahl, the Barkers and many other tops breeders have blasted each other on the forums much worse than I have ever done to anyone. Will Jeff have the guts to throw them off? NEVER! All I was wanting from Jeff was fair treatment. He has dealers selling on his site who have tons of complaints against them. I have piles of positive emails from Kingsnake customers. Evan Stahl
 
Evan, it seems that no one is actually getting the point. They think we are out to get something. When Jeff is the one with bad business practices. Ok it is not Jeff responsibility to notify me of expiration. But when I send him the info needed to keep my classified account going doesn't it deserve a response. My first email to him was ignored. Wether or not I deserve a notification or there was a computer problem, Kingsnake.com is still at fault. I never asked Jeff for any compensation for the mistake. I only voiced my opinion and my complaint. If it was a glitch all he had to say is "there must have been a mistake with the emails kingsnake.com should have notified you, just send the payment. There is no reason to get upset it was only a mistake." And would have apologized for getting upset and everything would have went away. But instead I get "Go Away." I see that some of you posting must kiss up to Jeff, but I will not. When someone screws up in the business world, it is ok to complain. My attitude changed in the second email because I was not trying to offend him. I changed that attitude to show him that. I was upset for the mistake and told him. I get complaints all the time, but I have never thrown someone out for it. I did not get out of hand, I did not get obscene, and I did not try to offend him.  It amazes me that some of you still think this is about the price. When you complain or recieve a complaint from someone, just think about this situation and see how you react. Hopefully not one of you in this business would throw away a customer over a complaint. Anyone with the response "keep your money" and "go away" is obviously not proffesional. Jeff only feels that way because it is only $54. If there was more money involved he might have reacted differently. Kingsnake.com is the best site around for reptiles without a doubt, but Jeff Barringer is one of the least proffesional people I have ever dealt with. Good luck with the business.
 
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> My first email to him was ignored. Wether or not I deserve a notification or there was a computer problem, Kingsnake.com is still at fault.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Could you elaborate on this statement?

If I read it the way it is written, it sounds like your saying that if an email does NOT reach it destination (computer problem) than the intended receiver is still to blame for not getting it. And should have known about it as well.

If that is the case, how is the receiver to know if they didnt get it?
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I see that some of you posting must kiss up to Jeff</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>Umm, since I did post a good expereince with Jeff, please be kind enough to tell me who you are talking about in this line?

Thanks for clearing these points up.
 
I said some of you not all of you. Tim you have not said anything that would seem like kissing up. There are people responding to this thread that are completely off the original topic. I am told that I should be happy about the recieving the free months. I never posted anything about money. Supporting kingsnake.com is not kissing up, it is stating your opinion. Saying you are right Jeff they should be happy about getting free time. They have no right to complain. That is kissing up. Responding to a post and commenting about things that I never said to make Jeff happy is kissing up. Before this incident I would have supported Jeff and Kingsnake. Tim, would you ever tell a customer to go away because he was unhappy with your service? Communication is what makes our business go round. If someone is unhappy they should be able to say so. Otherwise how would anything ever get fixed. I read posts on here everyday about complaints, and most the time they get worked out. Jeff was not willing to work with my complaint. Many people complain because they want their money back or a reptile replaced, or are unhappy with feeding. I only voiced a complaint. I never asked for anything in return, not even an apology. I didn't think I needed one. I only wanted to tell them that I didn't appreciate the service I recieved through the changes. I never got abusive or obscene. I feel like I am repeating myself and still nobody gets the point. And sorry, but back to your question, the notification might have been a computer error, but what about the ignored email. This one I know he recieved because it is what showed him that our account had expired. Instead of emailing me and saying that it expired, he ignored it. I found out that it expired when my classified acount did not work and I emailed him again. Mistakes can be made, but so can complaints. Instead of taking the critiscm, he tells me to go away. That is not good business. One question. Should customers have the right to complain?
 
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Saying you are right Jeff they should be happy about getting free time. They have no right to complain. That is kissing up.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'> boy I knew that one was coming, the majority of you guys that complain about kingsnake are becoming so predictable

contridict yourself a little </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Before this incident I would have supported Jeff and Kingsnake. </td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'> so its ok for you to kiss up but not anyone else?

considering all the changes that were going on when you emailed Jeff did you ever think maybe if he got it he didnt have the time? think of that one, one thing I have learned in my time on the net, sometimes I am a little slow responding to people because of all the responsibilties I have, if I get someone that emails me and I dont have time to respond then a day or two later emails me again and is rude, you know what I do............delete.........I have found that 9.5 cases out of 10, those people are more of a pain to deal with then it worth, if you ever start doing alot of buisness over the net youll see things from a differant point of veiw


and last but not least,
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">My first email to him was ignored. Wether or not I deserve a notification or there was a computer problem, Kingsnake.com is still at fault.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'> after doing this for as many years as Jeff has I am sure he sensed that attitude in your emails, because that statement right there says no matter what anyone says or does all I am going to do is point the finger at them, so its a waste of my time typing this because your mind is already set, you say you wanted to complain to help open there eyes to problems with there system but how can you really help when your eyes are shut?
 
There is a difference between kissing up and supporting.  If you ask me, in this thread, it is a blurry line.

As far as every co-dependent-on-Jeff person here that says something along the lines of, "Jeff is soooo busy he might have not had time or missed your email."   I would like to point out that Jeff has a staff.  He may have major responsibilities, but he doesn't do everything.  There is such a thing as delegating responsibility.  If Jeff doesn't have the time to keep up good customer relations, then he needs to either hire more people to free up some time, or he needs to stop dealing directly with customers, and have someone a bit more personable handle it.  To address the undelivered email possibility, every time I sent an email that was not delivered, I received a notice that it was undeliverable.  

Personally, I have never had a problemwith KS, but I am trying to remain open minded here and see both sides.
 
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">There is such a thing as delegating responsibility</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>well that is neither here nor there, plan and simple take a look on page 2 at the emails the Jeff posted, Tony may have emailed twice before he got a responce, I wish Jeff would have posted those first two emails so we knew the time lentgh between them because the way Tony handles himself I wouldnt be surprised to find out they were 35 minutes apart, even so, thats still neither here nor there when Jeff responded it was polite and curteous explaining what had happened, Tonys responce the Jeff's curtousy was
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">You ignoring us has shown your inability to properly run your own business. </td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>would you reopen someones account on your site after they made remarks to you like that? I wouldnt, that remark above is nothing but an insult
why deal with the headache, lifes to short,
 
I don't necessarily disagree, but Tony's behavior is not the point here.  Jeff responded in an unprofessional manner not befitting a person who runs the largest herp website.  I do think Tony overeacted, but that is not an excuse for Jeff.  Tony could have written back that is Jeff is a (fill in the blank) and that he should (fill in the blank), and that goes for his (fill in the blank) too.  Even in this case, if Jeff was anything less then entirely professional I would lose respect for him.  

I may not like someone if they wrote me an email lke that, but considering that Tony also wrote back saying that he didn't mean to offend or anger Jeff, -I- would let him continue usage.  If, on the other hand, Tony wrote me back in a manner similar to what I wrote above, then I would ban him.  In any event, I would under no circumstances write Tony back simply stating, "Keep you money," without so much as his name at the bottom, let alone an actual explanation, such as, "I am offended by your last email and have decided not to further conduct any business with you."  (deep breath after huge run-on)

I'm not saying that Tony is beyond reproach, but in this circumstance, Tony is the customer and KS (vis-a-vis Jeff) is the provider.  Regardless of how Tony conducts himself, I would expect only the highest professionalism from Jeff.  No, that doesn't mean that you should take crappy treatment from customers, but there is a difference between telling them in a professional way that you don't want their business and being a jerk.
 
rich do you run a huge site that gets the traffic that kingsnake does? along with the goods and bads, have to maintain it, hire people, make sure those people are doing what is right so you dont wind up getting sued because they doing something wrong due to lack of experiance, deal with email volumes on the level kingsnake does keep track of accounts, software bla bla bla bla bla bal bal abl abl abl bla bal bla, the list of responsibilities that goes along with a web ring as large as petthobbysit goes on for miles, are you totally sure you would feel the same with that long of a list? then you have people like Tony who want to get nasty with you, the simple fact is that no one posting within this thread including myself can understand what its like running a site like that, so you can sit here and say you would do this or that all you want but you dont know how you would handle stuff like that 10 yrs down the road running a site that large, my site isnt near as large and doesnt get near the traffic kingsnake does but, you ad in all of lifes normal stuff, kids g/f's animals, school work and waht ever else, I dont have the time nor am I going to give the time to people who act like Tony, its not worth it, you can say its poor costumer service all you like, the simple fact is I have a life, so does Jeff, you say he should deligate responsobility or hire more people, well why should he hire someone else to deal with people who are going to be a pain in the rear? if you treat them with respect they do the same in return,
 
FYI - and not taking sides - I received an e-mail from Kingsnake yesterday that notified me of my Classified Account expiring in 30 days.....it looks automated to me and appears to be working now if it didn't before.

Tom Chambers
TC Reptile
 
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