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Bad Guy Mark Venhorst nearly ruined my business

rasleigh76 said:
Oh, by the way, did I mention that I'm brand new at this and my wife and I started this business to offset the cost of taking care of her mother, who suffered a stroke eleven days after her father passed away and now requires 24 hour care. I guess I let my emotion get the best of me, but because I am the man that I am, I am going to write an email to Mark to apologize for posting this thread and I apologize if I have offended anyone here, that was not my intention, I realize now that I was in the wrong as well. I'm not saying Mark was right, but I will admit that I was wrong. Hope all of you have a great holiday!
Click to expand...

Do you truely know what you're getting yourself into then? breeding and selling reptiles isnt exactly the most profitable. most people only make enough money to support their hobby/addiction. Surely there are better alternate sources of income.
 
rasleigh76 said:
Oh, by the way, did I mention that I'm brand new at this and my wife and I started this business to offset the cost of taking care of her mother, who suffered a stroke eleven days after her father passed away and now requires 24 hour care. I guess I let my emotion get the best of me, but because I am the man that I am, I am going to write an email to Mark to apologize for posting this thread and I apologize if I have offended anyone here, that was not my intention, I realize now that I was in the wrong as well. I'm not saying Mark was right, but I will admit that I was wrong. Hope all of you have a great holiday!
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It takes a bigger man to admit an responsibility in the first place. Props to you.
 
rasleigh76 said:
Oh, by the way, did I mention that I'm brand new at this and my wife and I started this business to offset the cost of taking care of her mother, who suffered a stroke eleven days after her father passed away and now requires 24 hour care. I guess I let my emotion get the best of me, but because I am the man that I am, I am going to write an email to Mark to apologize for posting this thread and I apologize if I have offended anyone here, that was not my intention, I realize now that I was in the wrong as well. I'm not saying Mark was right, but I will admit that I was wrong. Hope all of you have a great holiday!
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We understand your frustration. I was not posting in judgment of you, just adding my voice in some advice that will hopefully be useful to you in the future. :) I would recommend taking Lucille up on her offer, as she is a very knowledgeable lady. Either way welcome to Fauna and the reptile community, sorry your first experience here has been a bit overwhelming, but if you stick around you will find it worthwhile.
 
This is just to help. Our livelihoods don't depend on it. It's something that I always wanted to do and now I can. Don't get me wrong, I've kept reptiles my whole life. Just never in these numbers. Lucille, I think you may understand this though most won't, I suffer from anxiety disorder and with all this going on, I'm constantly shaky. I also suffer from social phobia and I have seratonin syndrome,so I can't take SRI's. So it's all about coping for me. And sometimes it's too much and this is what happens. As far as my wife's mother, that's awesome of you to offer. We have Senior Home Health Care coming in to do her therapies and what not. I'm not sure if I got their name right but it's close to that. She turns 65 middle of next year as well so we will have help from Medicare. She has retirement coming in and we have a family restaurant that my wife's brother is running currently. But we had to move a week after we signed a lease so we have to pay rent there and here, and her mom's mortgage as well. Life is a constant grind here, and I am barely holding on, but I am holding on and will continue to do so until her mom gets better. We've been pretty thorough in our search for programs, but I'll never turn down another pair of eyes. I live in Florida, my mother-in-law is retired civil service and my father-in-law was retired Air Farce, I mean force. My email is rasleigh76 at the gmail. Also, my wife's name is Kristy Sleigh, anyone who wants to can find her on Facebook and wish her well, I know she appreciates it.
 
rasleigh76 said:
And I truly do appreciate the advice, but please be assured that I would never put any animal in danger.
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I wouldn't say it's putting the animal in danger so much as it's a lack of preparedness that would make your life and the animal's life easier and less stressful. Kind of like having certain medications on hand for first aid or a food storage in case of a natural disaster. Being prepared beforehand is best for everyone involved.

And I think that you shouldn't feel like you made a mistake in posting here. You jumped the gun a bit in making it a bad guy thread (maybe an info thread would have been better) but your concerns were real and this isn't the first time that people have complained about his customer service.
 
I have inquired about several dragon cages (10+) on numerous occasions and have never received a response or a return call. If a business doesn't want my patronage, I can take the hint & do my business elsewhere.
Boa Master aka Mark has horrible communication skills & a complete lack of customer service. Just my opinion & observation.
 
here is the emails nothing to hide here
it is hard to get back with everyone asap.
i try to do my best ,and give everyone the best turnaround times possible.
some things are in stock and get shipped quicker,
other things as this order are made up,
materials take about a week for me to get if not in stock.


I need to speak to someone about my order, order #1235. I'd just like to know what the status of my order is. This is information that should be attainable at all times. Would you treat a customer with a $10,000 order the same? We can't even reach you during normal business hours. I got a completely different impression after reading your site than what I've experienced so far. First of all, if it takes two weeks or more to ship an order it should say so on your site. At the very least you should contact the customer and give them some information about how long the order could take. When I order a standard model cage from someone with a 15,000 square foot facility with everything you need to get the job done right, I don't automatically expect my order to take two weeks. I expect the opposite. I should have been given all of this information as soon as I placed my order. Instead I can't even get a hold of anyone to get that information for myself. I have a breeding group of bearded dragons that are on their way here now because if I waited any longer they wouldn't have been able to ship them until next year and I have no place to put them. And what really sucks about this is that I planned on purchasing all of my cages and racks from you. I'd still like to but I don't really feel like you want our business. Please, we'd just like to know the status of our order, tonight if at all possible. Thank you
 
I will let you know in am

Can't access now

Sorry I had 2 shows back to back and no time in between

When i got back in had to spend 2 days gettin all animals straight

We re good to go now

I will check on your order in am

Sorry for your experience

It is not typical
 
Thank you for the email. I've already paid for this order but I think you should let me place another order for half price. That's really the only way I'll be satisfied. We told you last week that we were in a time crunch. We told you we had dragons waiting to be shipped and that we could lose them if we didn't get the cages here soon. We told you we were running out of time to have our orders shipped before it gets too cold. You told us you would ship it out first thing this week. You didn't mention any shows then. Since we placed this order I've seen no indication that you have even the slightest idea how to run a business. You took payment for my order and from the information you've provided me, you still have no idea what the status is. Let's forget for a minute how disgustingly wrong that is ethically, it's also illegal. It's called willful misrepresentation. You knowingly misrepresented yourself and you told me so in your email. You know, the part where you tell me "sorry, I couldn't complete your order for you when you needed it even though I said I would because I had better things to do" If you had a reptile show, you knew about it in advance, all you had to do was let us know so that we could have an opportunity to make other arrangements. I have to assume that your cages are nothing short of spectacular, otherwise there is no way you would still be in business. I think it goes without saying that I'm one extremely dissatisfied customer! You say on your website that you aren't aware of any complaints or unhappy customers but oddly enough there's actually a forum on Fauna classifieds called Bad Guy Mark Venhorst in which you respond to a complaint. And now I've just made you aware of another. So now if you leave that on your site that will also be willful misrepresentation. Can't post something knowingly on your business website that isn't true. If you think giving me half off another order is unreasonable, just let me know so I can decide how to proceed. If you want my honest opinion, I think it's more than reasonable. You'll probably still make a little money. I'm not really asking you to give anything up, I had to through no fault of my own. There's just no way around it, you're very much in the wrong here.
 
i will just give you a refund

since your that unsatisfied

i dont think i can make you happy at this point .



Thank you,
 
That is absolutely unbelievable. And unacceptable. If that is your decision then I have no choice but to file a lawsuit against you. I'm speechless and dumbfounded. Just finish my order and give me half off another. That is not too much to ask. If I report you to the better business bureau and the Virginia department of agriculture and consumer resources with all that's gone on here, I have no doubt that you will lose your business license. I WILL NOT JUST LET THIS GO. YOU HAVE COST ME MONEY AND NEGATIVELY AFFECTED MY REPUTATION. I CAN'T MAKE OTHER ARRANGEMENTS NOW, IT'S TOO LATE!!! I'M GOING TO LOSE EVERYTHING I'VE PUT INTO THIS SO FAR. SO NO, YOU WON'T BE REFUNDING ANYTHING. I REFUSE THE REFUND. YOU OWN A BUSINESS, JUST DO YOUR JOB. YOU'RE UNBELIEVABLE. TAKE CARE OF MY ORDER. I DON'T WANT A REFUND AND I WON'T ACCEPT ONE NOR DO I HAVE TO!
 
sir

i tried to get your order straight

and take care of it best i can.

.i dont need to be threatened

or told how much im going to sell things for.

your unhappy i get it . i tried to fix it.

seems like i cant, so i gave you a refund.



please go deal with someone else

i will not respond to any more emails



Thank you,



Mark & Michelle Venhorst
 
Actually, in this case I take that back. I probably would have refunded the customer too. Those emails sounded like a catastrophe waiting to happen. It has to be scary for a seller when the buyer loses it like that and it's pretty clear he was trying to force a discount. I can still see why the buyer would be upset, but he kind of brought that upon himself.
 
i dont agree about the long history of poor customer service either.
and everything i make is cnc cut to .005 tolerances.

a few poeple you cant make happy as this guy.
so they get on here and try to screw your reputation up.
thats ok. ive been here for years.
have i made mistakes yes ,we all have,but i fix them.

he started getting crazy in his emails
so i gave him a refund, i knew where this was going after his first email.
i dealt with a few guys like that in my time.
 
I feel sorry for Robert's multitude of problems (and as you see, even offered to help with the family health problems. In fact, I sent an email and got no response). But the truth is, everyone has problems.
There was absolutely no reason to talk to Mark like that, to threaten him with a lawsuit :rolleyes:, and the move to get a discount is very suspicious. If you are upset enough to sue someone, to me, logically it seems as if you would not order more products from them.
 
I have 1 8' regular and 4 x 4' regular cages currently from Mark. Both times I have ordered the responses were prompt and when I have picked up from the local show Mark and everyone with Boamaster was friendly and helpful.

Only issue I ever had was one of the latches being just a tick off so it was tight(easily remedied).

Customer service wise I have never had an issue and will be ordering more cages this spring.
 
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