Lucas Denning
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- Feb 12, 2002
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Here's my story about what Taron Langhover did to me and others.
First a little background. Taron lives about 15 min. from me and I went to junior high/high school w/him. His parents own a pet store and I worked for them for awhile. We were off/on friends because of similar interests in baseball/animals. He eventually talked me into working w/him on selling frogs over the internet and at shows. We did very well for a few months and had a lot of happy customers. Then, Taron's brother got a bunch of frogs and took them to a couple shows and kept them in deli cups for about 5 days straight. I didn't know this, and I bought a few frogs from him. I kept these in my basement w/my other frogs, but on the other end of the room as sort of a quarantine. At the time, I had no reason to think they might be sick. Then, Troy had some of his frogs get sick and die. It turned out that the frogs that I had had the same thing, and they also got sick and died. At first, we had no idea of what the problem was. Troy sent some to a vet and the vet concluded that they developed a bacterial infection most likely from being kept in unsanitary conditions(deli cups for 5 days). This infection turned out to be very contagious and it soon started infecting other frogs that I had in my basement. Some of these were jointly owned by me and Taron and we were trying to sell them. At this point, I decided that we should hang on to these animals because I did not want to ship sick and very contagious frogs to other people. Taron wanted to just "unload" these frogs even though he knew full well that these were sick and would die. They were in my basement, and I wasn't letting them out and I wasn't going to have my name attatched to any sick frogs. I tried to treat these frogs and kept them in extremely clean conditions and treated them w/baytril. All this did was extend their lives for awhile. EVERY FROG that I owned ended up going down. This was thousands of dollars worth of froglets and breeders. While this was happening, Taron decided that it would be a good idea to steal the website and the email account that we had. He changed the passwords. I got them both back by answering the "secret questions" that allow you to change the passwords back w/out knowing the new password. It didn't really matter that I got them back because at that point I decided to quit for awhile and I wasn't going to get any new frogs until I bleached everything and made 100% sure that the disease was gone. I didn't own another frog for around 6 months. Taron continued to sell frogs online and over this time is where he developed his bad reputation w/a lot of other people. I no longer had any contact with him and we both went about our normal business. He sold uroplatus and sick frogs online and got in troulbe w/a lot of people for it. This doesn't have much to do with the real story here except that this is what I knew of him before all this and the reason that he didn't really like me.
Now the most recent events.
I had decided to get back into it and I was slowly building my collection back up and was in the market for adult frogs and breeding pairs. These is a website called "frognet.org/ads" that has free advertising for dart frogs people. At the time this website was called "hylaweb.com/ads." On this site there were a couple of ads w/large amounts of frogs for sale, and I purchased a couple large groups. One was for $2000 and was a collection that someone named "Jerome Matza" was selling. I paid $1600 for it. I contacted Taron for the first time since the other deal went down and offered to sell him some of this group. He said that he would buy some. I also purchased another ad from someone named "Jason White." This was for $600. I paid both via paypal w/credit except for $100 that I paid through my checking account.
To make a long story short... these ended up being scams. Someone had used fake names and set up fake paypal accounts and had taken money from a few people and never shipped anything. For a few reasons I had a hunch that Taron was behind this, but I had doubts because I didn't think Taron would attempt something this big. Some of my reasons for suspicion were every time Taron was online I would receive emails from these people and the frog "azureus" was misspelled in every ad the same way, and exactly how Taron used to misspell it when I worked with him. Taron also told me on an online conversation that he had sold the "Jerome Matza" guy some het red eyes and that they were really just normals. He refered to this guys as a "sucker" I believe. I told Taron that was wrong and that he shouldn't be doing that. The whole reason he told me that was to give me some false hope that these people were real. He copy and pasted some fake emails to me and got a fake address. There were a few other reasons that I suspected him, but I had nothing that proved that he was behind this scam. I eventually got some real proof. When I was looking back through the old emails I found out that I received an email from Taron's email at [email protected] and from the Jason White email on the same night(nov. 24). I compared the ISP's and they were IDENTICAL. Since no one else in the world can have the same ISP at the same time, this proves that they came from the same computer. I know for a fact that one of the emails was from Taron, so that shows that they both came from TARON LANGOVER. I thought this was very interesting and I downloaded a simple tracing program that traces emails back to their servers and usually back to the city. It turned out that Taron's, "Jason White's," and "Jerome Matza's" all traced back to Wichita and back to a web service called "Carrol's Web." This was a local service provider and it only covers Wichita and the surrounding area. There was also one more ad that I didn't buy from, but some other people got scammed from. I also traced this one back and it went to the same place. I contacted all of the people involved and got all of my evidence together. I talked to Taron's mom, who is actually a really nice and really honest lady. I went to her house and talked to both her and his dad and showed them all of the evidence. They both agreed that Taron must have been behind it and they confronted him about it, and despite the evidence, he denies all of it. Most of the people scammed got their money back and I got all of mine back except for 100 by cancelling the credit. When you cancell credit through paypal it actually just takes the money from paypal, not from the person that you paid. It does this because when you pay through paypal, you actually pay paypal and then they pay the other person. So, I believe that paypal was probably out the money. Most of the money was already out of the paypal accounts, so that means that Taron had to get the money out. The only way to do this is to transfer funds to a bank account or to get a direct check to your house. I'm guessing that since paypal had this info that they went directly to Taron and made him give the money back. But, Taron did get away with around $600 that I know of from other people that did not cancel their payments. Now I need to know what to do to make him pay for this. It's not so much the money thing, but more that I want him to be forced to take responsibility for his actions. I don't want him to continue to get away w/scamming people out of money. Any comments or advice are appreciated. Ask any questions as well, because this is a long story and I'm telling it off the top of my head. I'm sure I left some stuff out. The point is that Taron is a major A-Hole and I want him out of this business for good.
Thanks for reading.....
Lucas Denning
First a little background. Taron lives about 15 min. from me and I went to junior high/high school w/him. His parents own a pet store and I worked for them for awhile. We were off/on friends because of similar interests in baseball/animals. He eventually talked me into working w/him on selling frogs over the internet and at shows. We did very well for a few months and had a lot of happy customers. Then, Taron's brother got a bunch of frogs and took them to a couple shows and kept them in deli cups for about 5 days straight. I didn't know this, and I bought a few frogs from him. I kept these in my basement w/my other frogs, but on the other end of the room as sort of a quarantine. At the time, I had no reason to think they might be sick. Then, Troy had some of his frogs get sick and die. It turned out that the frogs that I had had the same thing, and they also got sick and died. At first, we had no idea of what the problem was. Troy sent some to a vet and the vet concluded that they developed a bacterial infection most likely from being kept in unsanitary conditions(deli cups for 5 days). This infection turned out to be very contagious and it soon started infecting other frogs that I had in my basement. Some of these were jointly owned by me and Taron and we were trying to sell them. At this point, I decided that we should hang on to these animals because I did not want to ship sick and very contagious frogs to other people. Taron wanted to just "unload" these frogs even though he knew full well that these were sick and would die. They were in my basement, and I wasn't letting them out and I wasn't going to have my name attatched to any sick frogs. I tried to treat these frogs and kept them in extremely clean conditions and treated them w/baytril. All this did was extend their lives for awhile. EVERY FROG that I owned ended up going down. This was thousands of dollars worth of froglets and breeders. While this was happening, Taron decided that it would be a good idea to steal the website and the email account that we had. He changed the passwords. I got them both back by answering the "secret questions" that allow you to change the passwords back w/out knowing the new password. It didn't really matter that I got them back because at that point I decided to quit for awhile and I wasn't going to get any new frogs until I bleached everything and made 100% sure that the disease was gone. I didn't own another frog for around 6 months. Taron continued to sell frogs online and over this time is where he developed his bad reputation w/a lot of other people. I no longer had any contact with him and we both went about our normal business. He sold uroplatus and sick frogs online and got in troulbe w/a lot of people for it. This doesn't have much to do with the real story here except that this is what I knew of him before all this and the reason that he didn't really like me.
Now the most recent events.
I had decided to get back into it and I was slowly building my collection back up and was in the market for adult frogs and breeding pairs. These is a website called "frognet.org/ads" that has free advertising for dart frogs people. At the time this website was called "hylaweb.com/ads." On this site there were a couple of ads w/large amounts of frogs for sale, and I purchased a couple large groups. One was for $2000 and was a collection that someone named "Jerome Matza" was selling. I paid $1600 for it. I contacted Taron for the first time since the other deal went down and offered to sell him some of this group. He said that he would buy some. I also purchased another ad from someone named "Jason White." This was for $600. I paid both via paypal w/credit except for $100 that I paid through my checking account.
To make a long story short... these ended up being scams. Someone had used fake names and set up fake paypal accounts and had taken money from a few people and never shipped anything. For a few reasons I had a hunch that Taron was behind this, but I had doubts because I didn't think Taron would attempt something this big. Some of my reasons for suspicion were every time Taron was online I would receive emails from these people and the frog "azureus" was misspelled in every ad the same way, and exactly how Taron used to misspell it when I worked with him. Taron also told me on an online conversation that he had sold the "Jerome Matza" guy some het red eyes and that they were really just normals. He refered to this guys as a "sucker" I believe. I told Taron that was wrong and that he shouldn't be doing that. The whole reason he told me that was to give me some false hope that these people were real. He copy and pasted some fake emails to me and got a fake address. There were a few other reasons that I suspected him, but I had nothing that proved that he was behind this scam. I eventually got some real proof. When I was looking back through the old emails I found out that I received an email from Taron's email at [email protected] and from the Jason White email on the same night(nov. 24). I compared the ISP's and they were IDENTICAL. Since no one else in the world can have the same ISP at the same time, this proves that they came from the same computer. I know for a fact that one of the emails was from Taron, so that shows that they both came from TARON LANGOVER. I thought this was very interesting and I downloaded a simple tracing program that traces emails back to their servers and usually back to the city. It turned out that Taron's, "Jason White's," and "Jerome Matza's" all traced back to Wichita and back to a web service called "Carrol's Web." This was a local service provider and it only covers Wichita and the surrounding area. There was also one more ad that I didn't buy from, but some other people got scammed from. I also traced this one back and it went to the same place. I contacted all of the people involved and got all of my evidence together. I talked to Taron's mom, who is actually a really nice and really honest lady. I went to her house and talked to both her and his dad and showed them all of the evidence. They both agreed that Taron must have been behind it and they confronted him about it, and despite the evidence, he denies all of it. Most of the people scammed got their money back and I got all of mine back except for 100 by cancelling the credit. When you cancell credit through paypal it actually just takes the money from paypal, not from the person that you paid. It does this because when you pay through paypal, you actually pay paypal and then they pay the other person. So, I believe that paypal was probably out the money. Most of the money was already out of the paypal accounts, so that means that Taron had to get the money out. The only way to do this is to transfer funds to a bank account or to get a direct check to your house. I'm guessing that since paypal had this info that they went directly to Taron and made him give the money back. But, Taron did get away with around $600 that I know of from other people that did not cancel their payments. Now I need to know what to do to make him pay for this. It's not so much the money thing, but more that I want him to be forced to take responsibility for his actions. I don't want him to continue to get away w/scamming people out of money. Any comments or advice are appreciated. Ask any questions as well, because this is a long story and I'm telling it off the top of my head. I'm sure I left some stuff out. The point is that Taron is a major A-Hole and I want him out of this business for good.
Thanks for reading.....
Lucas Denning
'> Taron needs to be put out of business permanently! <img src="http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='
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