Here’s the real issue at hand. Tyler moved this issue to the BOI because there’s more to it than just the photos. The photos are the last of our worries at this time. Please read everything below to hear the whole issue. Sorry for any confusion before.
Early last year when Val and I were really falling into this hobby a light bulb clicked. I thought I’d combine my job with my growing hobby and see if I can help some people out with reptile websites. I thought it would be great to combine something I do day in and out with something I love. Dan was amongst the first people I approached to see if I could offer my services in exchange for some animals.
I’ll willingly admit I thought Dan was a great guy. I learned a handful of things from him. Looks can be deceiving though. He comes off as nice guy on the forums, but I’ve seen a completely different side to him. A side that’s unable to uphold an agreement, a side that is slanderous and quick tempered, as well as a side that is threatening. In general my true issue here is with his business ethics and character.
Where to start…I think the best thing I can do is give you a summary of my experience. Like I said I wasn’t prepared for this to turn into what it did. This was all going to be kept behind the scenes until my frustration with him caved with his recent photos. Yes there is more to it than his photos, but that’s the least of the issues. Anyways, I’m going to do my best to explain everything in my own words. I do have everything well documented for proof and I’ll show everything I have as soon as I can.
As many of you know, I’ve been helping Dan with his website since the beginning of last year. Everything was pretty smooth initially. We agreed on my services plus a domain and web space for one year in exchange for three of his jungle giants he would be producing. Everything was pretty straight forward over the next few months. I understood that I needed to wait for my payment and I had no problem continuing to help him during this time. I designed two complete web sites for him and made numerous updates and changes for him.
Dan’s mom emailed me in April inquiring about web design. She wanted to know if I could help her out and create a site for her job/career. I told her I would be happy to help. I said your son is being very generous with his payment agreements and because he’s being so nice I’ll help you out for free. My only ask was that she pays me the money I needed to purchase that domain and web space and started to help her out.
Around this time, I had conversation with Dan regarding his jungle giant breeding. He threw a real guilt trip on me, and made me feel awful about his money situation. He told me that any money he makes he gives to his father. What to do say to something like that? I told him I’d settle for two jungle giants and he can use the money from the 3rd to give to his dad, but if there can be a third so be it. We love the morph to death, and this is what we were planning on.
Some more time goes by and I continue to help the both of them, for nothing in return. On august 2nd Dan showed me photos of a jungle giant he just hatched for us. I was really excited and he told me her clutch mate should hatch soon too. On August 7th I received a really disturbing email from Dan. The clutch mate to the jungle giant had hatched but it was severely deformed. This was the major turning point for me with my experience with Dan. He had the nerve to offer me the deformed animal that obviously needed to be put down. I know he was showing the animal for proof, but actually having the nerve to offer the animal to me was really upsetting. I felt terrible for the little one, and still get sick to the stomach every time I see the photos. From that point on I knew there was something off about Dan. Not to be judgmental or rude, but what kind of person does that? I’m looking for animals that I can breed in the future, and this doesn’t help me at all…it makes sick, one for the animal and two that he offered it. I do have photos of this animal if it's necessary to post them.
I did the best I could the shrug that off and wait for some others to hatch. Well, there weren’t any more jungle giants to hatch from the pair that we were planning. He did offer me any albino giants or het animals from any of his other pairings. I said okay, because at this point I’m anxious to just finally have anything because so many months had gone by where I’ve done so much work for nothing. So again, I play the waiting game continuing to help both him and his mother.
Early September Val and I made plans to go to the White Plains show in NY to meet up with Dan to finally receive partial payment for all of my work. There I was given the jungle giant that sparked this whole photo mess and also, Dan’s mother gave me the money for her domain and web space.
Well, more time goes by, meanwhile Dan is hatching some other animals that I wouldn’t mind having. He told me before that I was welcome to some of his other offspring, but it seemed like he had no intent on wanting to give me any of them. I tried asking him subtly many times about some of his other “holdbacks” and had no luck. I didn’t want to be rude. It seems as though he wanted to hold everything back and I was just left dry. At this point I’m really getting frustrated, but I stay calm and continue to help them hoping he’ll uphold his end of the deal at some point.
Some more time goes by, and I’m spending a lot of time helping Dan’s mother. My initial impressions with her ideas made it seem as though she needed a smaller site. A kind of “who I am”, “what I do”, “where to buy”, and “how to contact me” type site. That was certainly not her intentions I found out later. I designed for her a more fun mini site. Well, that wasn’t big enough for everything that she wanted to do, so I offered to revamp the site and make a bigger more practical version. I think this was my biggest mistake. I was happy to help, but at this point I was really starting to feel like I was being taken advantage of. Since she initially approached me in April until the day before Thanksgiving I received just under 150 emails from her. Not all of these emails were 100% things to do for the website, but they were all regarding the site.
I don’t just have a few clients; I have a good handful of people that I help out. During this time I’ve helped many other reptile folk and on top of that I have a large worldwide corporate client boss that feeds me 30-50 hours of work a week. My job is really random, sometimes I’m absolutely swamped and sometimes I have the extra time to help people out like Dan’s mom. Around Thanksgiving though, I was insanely backed up on work. Dan’s mom was really anxious and nagging me to do things for her site and I just didn’t have the time. I know it sounds bad, but paying clients take precedent over freebies, I need pay my bills and hell maybe even have a social life.
Anyways, she kept nagging me to make some changes around Thanksgiving and I just didn’t have the time. I kept telling her I’ll help as soon as I could, but sometimes I’d fall behind again. Finally I told her I was going to get to her updates a day or two before Thanksgiving. I didn’t get to the changes two nights before, and was working on them the day after when I received another nagging email. I was working on her changes and she was getting really frustrated. I was busting my butt off all month for all my clients, I had family over getting read for the holiday the next day, and she’s just getting right under my skin. I was working on the changes at the time she sent me a frustrated email, and I finally just snapped. I couldn’t take it anymore! I did so much work for her and her son for one jungle giant in return.
I sent her an email telling her I’m throwing in the towel, since I was completely fed up with the whole situation. I said in the email that I told her I’d make her the site, and I did, so she can keep the site. She’ll either have to start paying me monthly/hourly to keep the site maintained or she’s going to have to find help elsewhere. I said your site got to be too large, and it’s getting to be a lot to maintain for nothing. Instead I think she only read half of my email and just exploded on me. Here it is, the day before Thanksgiving and I’m stressed as it is, and I have Dan’s mom flipping out on me. She was instant messaging me like crazy. She was so upset and was being so mean swearing at me and calling me a lowlife and a child. I couldn’t believe the filth coming out of her mouth, and it was next to impossible to talk to her. Finally she finished and left.
Later that night I receive some messages from Dan threatening me telling me I ruined his moms career and he better not see me a White Plains show again. He was doing some slandering out of frustration and I heard through the grapevine that he had emailed a few breeders, who are also my clients in an attempt to make me look bad. Dan made his mother and my issue his own. I did not ruin anything for anyone. I told Dan’s mom she can start paying me for more help and if not she still gets to keep her site and find help elsewhere. As for Dan, he made it his issue too and sent me an email. He told me either I keep the gecko and continue to maintain his site, or I give him the animal back because I’m screwing everyone over. I told him fine, I will gladly send the animal back to you.
So now, I just wasted easily 1000 hours of my life and I’m going to give his animal back and end up with nothing in the end just to end this mess. I found out who Dan really is outside of the forums, and wow I can’t say I was happy about it.
Over the next few weeks Dan and I were working on arrangements for the outcome of all of this. I told him if I send this gecko back, it’s over and your site goes down. He was real arrogant with me the whole time, and just wanted me to get the animal back to him ASAP. I made some other arrangements with Dan’s mom and put the website in her name so she would have full control. Things smoothed out some with her, after I tried explaining everything over again to her. I think she finally understood that she may have been a bit over the top, and was pretty nice to me the last little bit of the way. As for Dan, he just really wanted his animal back. I told him I’m not paying for the shipment to send her back, that’s his deal. He gave me some guff about it, and I told him that I bought his domain and web space for him if he had forgotten. I said you can give me the $50 for that and I’ll just take a loss to end this all. He didn’t want to send the money, and was insisting that I use smaller boxes and even send her USPS because I know he didn’t want to pay me. I finally snapped again and look, I’m not sending an animal USPS, just send me at least $40 and ill take more of a loss, just so she can be sent with a better carrier (UPS). He finally agreed to it and sent me a money order that I received about a week later. Now that I had the money he was in a big rush to send her back. It’s December, he lives in NY and I live in PA, the temperatures are in the 10-40s. I told him I didn’t feel comfortable sending animals out in this really cold weather. We kept trying to find days that would work and it seemed like it was never going to warm up. This whole time he continued to be arrogant with me. Finally, I snapped again and told him it’s not worth rushing this process. I told him I’m not going anywhere with the animal, so lets just wait until the temps are at least 30+ though I’d prefer 40+. He finally agreed with me and after a month of crap, things were quite calm with him.
I was finally able to send his animal back out recently on December 28th. This pretty much brings up to our current issue above, but it’s really lower on the list with what I was hoping I’d never have to bring up. Basically though, we’ve had the animal for a few months and she never once looked like Dan’s current photos of her. It upset us when he was showboating her around on the forums, basically saying look what I have back. I had to say something, I was furious and who wouldn’t be in my shoes. So I brought up the issue on one of his posts, and most people caught on thinking there was more to this.
Well there was more and this was everything else in a nutshell. This is everything in my words just because I wanted to say something quick for everyone to read before I gather all of my documents. The real truth is there! I have every email and instant message conversation backed up and logged with Dan and his mother for proof.
This is my next step, trying to put my summary to the actual facts I have documented. This is where I’m going to need a little time. Like I said, I have roughly a years worth of conversations to sort through and organize. I want to make sure I have everything prefect. I just put this rather large summary together to tend to everyone’s confusion. It’s not just his photos, it’s his business ethics and character we have the real issue with. I had hoped it never would have come to this, but I’ve found a side of Dan that many people would not have expected. My documents will speak for themselves.
I will admit right now, I am somewhat at fault. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s the value of a contract. I can’t be so trusting of anyone ever again, instead I need to make people sign a paper. It’s frustrating because it’s not who I am. I have a lot of trust in people and have helped many of you out there contract free. I guess nice guys finish last, and I’ll take a partial blame because a verbal/typed agreement is not enough sometimes.
I’ll do my best to gather all of my information over the next few days. Please bear with me.
