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My side of the Serpentboy78 situation

HillaryHarms

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It seems that many people are interested in the post by Serpentboy78, so I thought I would at least post my side of the story. I bought 4 speckled kings (2 albino and 2 lavendar) from Mike. The package sent via UPS arrived at my boyfriend's (Rob) place of business, so that someone would be there when it came. I got a call around 1:30 from Rob stating that the box came and only 3 of the 4 snakes were in the box. I asked him how that could of happend and he said that the lid to the deli cup containing what would have been the female lavendar was off the cup and the shipping box had been dented. I told Rob to email Mike immediately and I would also email him as soon as I had a chance. Mike and I later talked through instant messages. He seemed very upset and concerned. I reassured him that I did believe he packed the snake, but since the snake did not make it to the shipping address something had to be done about the situation. He acused me of losing the snake, of Rob stepping on the box, of having the snake and trying to rip him off. He asked for Rob to send him a picture of the box, which he immediately did. I tryied to reassure Mike that there is no way I was lying. He continued to be very upset so in my effort to resolve the situation quickly I stated that since I did not have the snake and since I did believe that he shipped the snake I would be willing to share the loss by having him refund half of the cost of the snake. I offered this because I believe Mike is a honest guy. He wanted to get other people's opinions on the matter, which I now find he did on this list. We instant messaged again later that day and he told me that I was running a scam (for $40 - come on!) and that he owed me nothing. I have now been offended and my standpoint on the situation is that I ordered 4 snakes of which only 3 arrived. It is the shippers responsibility to make sure that the animals arrive to the shipping location. I want my $80 for the cost of the snake. I will say that I believe Mike Clark is an honest man and that the 3 snakes that did arrive ate the next day and seem to be healthy. I have read a handful of the responses to Mike's post and would like to comment on a few of them. Rob should have asked the UPS guy about the condition of the box and did not - He was worried that they may ask about what was inside the box. Now we have contacted UPS in regard to the condition of the box and the "damaged"/lost merchandise/snake. They will respond to my situation with in the next week. To those that suggested the snake was in the snake building - Rob is, at this time, a small local snake breeder. I am confident that there is no way that snake could have gotten away from him. He has had many years of experience with snakes and is extremely well respected by anyone who knows him. And if the snake had gotten away from him, he is enough of a man to tell me and would have bought me another one to replace it. As to the tape on the box. I knew that the snake did not arrive and I believed that Mike had sent it, so at this point I was trying to think of anything that could have happend to that box. One thought was that a UPS employee had tampered with the box. I asked Mike if he had used one piece of tape on the top of the box (not on the whole box) to see if the lid of the box was in the same condition that he had sent it in. Now all I can get him to say is that he used more than one piece of tape when shipping the box. I know that - anyone who looks at the box can tell he used more than one piece of tape. Also, I noticed that someone commented that I should post a message so that the members of the list could have a chance to question me, as they usually figure out the liars quickly. Now that I have found where Mike posted his concern I would be more than willing to answer anyone's questions. Just remember that I am currently the one who is getting ripped off.
 
Why did you start a completely new thread?? The idea is for you to respond to the existing thread regarding this situation. Are the idividuals reading this supposed to bounce back and forth between the exsisting thread regarding this whole transaction and this new thread you just started?
 
one question well a few

  1. If the box had no holes in it and was just " damaged" how could the snake have gotten out
  2. If you fully beleive that the snake was sent as stated then where did it go ?
  3. If you contacted UPS on this matter and they now know what is in the or was in the box you will now be on a flagged list of packages that will be opened for inspection and will now run the risk of having no future animals making it to your location by UPS
  4. Now not knowing what size of this snake was and the interior packaging "news paper etc for cushioning" could it be feasable that the snake WAS in the box but may have crawled into the packaging to hide and upon removal of this for inspection and having set it aside that the snake made a break for it w/o it being noticed until the reciever noticed that thesnake was missing from the deli cup ?
    [/list=1]

    thats all i have thanks
 
I'm not going to respond to the later posts, as Mike and I have come to an agreement and have decided that this topic is no longer active. I would like to say that when I previously stated that Mike acused me of losing the snake, and of Rob stepping on the box that is not what Mike ment - our problem was that we were IMing and ran in to problems with interpeting what each other was saying. After talking on the phone all has been resolved. Mike will be sending me a replacement snake and I would once again like to say that the snakes I did recieve were in very good condition. -Hillary
 
Shoot, Mike, you are a man and a gentleman. Your reputation is intact and all of us have learned a lesson by what transpired. I hope your customer has enough honor to confess a mistake if one day in a few weeks, the little feller crawls onto her sofa.
 
I still think

I still think there is a good chance that UPS may have screwed up bigtime.......In any event I am glad to see that serpentboy's rep will be enhanced instead of tarnished by this episode and that you also will have all the snakes promised. The BOI worked in this instance....both parties had positive testimony from those who knew them directly and the unfortunate episode will be rectified...It may cost serpentboy some money short-term, but long-term its good for his business...Its easy on all sides to get paranoid that someone is scamming someone since there is no face to face contact.......It is unfortunate though that there are enough scam artists in the herp arena to give us all the jitters and to jump to the wrong conclusions sometimes on all sides! Nonetheless, I never met anyone who TRULY loves snakes that I couldnt get along with... In any event I sent serpentboy a bank check today for some feeder lizards and I fully trust it will be a positive transaction!
Norm Friedman
 
For all anyone could know.....

This whole thing could have been a really strange fluke of all things. Both parties could be telling the truth. Since the box was damaged, and taped back up, perhaps by the UPS workers, the snake could have gotten out then and is now the newest UPS staff member inside that station.

This may have been what happened. Both parties do seem to be legit.

Take care!

Billy Fraser
 
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