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Inquiry New Owner/Manager of Rat Trap Reptiles 2.0 - Robert Penny

PhD Exotics

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This is an inquiry about the new owner/manager of Rat Trap Reptiles 2.0, Robert Penny. Here is the post from the Rat Trap Reptiles Facebook page:

"Today is a day for a little history lesson and background on Rat Trap Reptiles, and a little on the future of this fine establishment. In 2010 three friends got together and after some chatter about snakes and reptiles and decided to try and make an effort at raising and breeding ball pythons. These Friends, Dan Gibides, Richard Roman, and Robert Penny put together a little cash and made a couple purchases. Dan and Rich were the face and public side of Rat Trap. It has always been the plan to keep things this way. The idea was perfect, on paper this was flawless and was working like a charm, however life gets in the way and those things take precedence. The idea was to build Rat Trap Reptiles into a Brand with no one person attached, but we found out fast that it wasn't going to be that easy. Dan kept having personal issues and Rich found himself working out of the country more than in the country to build any personal contact with customers. Dan had built such a great reputation and made so many contacts in the business it was only logical to keep things going while he dealt with his personal problems. This is when a management shift for Rat Trap took place. Trying not to put to many wrinkles in the program we made a choice to move things forward and let the business reputation carry its self. Rob took over all of the customer care and the sales side of things, and this was working out well for many of the new customers, but Dan had built a few close relationships over his time at the forefront. Needless to say there was a little bit of aversion and people have been lead to believe that Dan was and always has been in the mainstream. This is not entirely true anymore, over a year ago Rob took things over and continued on doing business as usual as Rat Trap and we never disclosed anything further to our customers as we did not see any reason, it’s not like you hear about a change in management at any other place of business so why ruffle feathers if you don’t have to. There have been a few people that figured out along the way that something had changed, and as people questioned things they got the answers they asked for in truth. Rat Trap Reptiles has been a forefront in many first time breeding’s and combos and will continue to. Customer service has always been priority one and will continue to be. As of December 31, 2014 Rat Trap Reptiles INC. has been dissolved as a corporation and a bigger and better version is in the works and will launch very soon. The current manager and owner of this new company will be Robert Penny and you will be very happy to know that everything will continue on in the exact same manner as always, Rob has been the customer service and sales person for 2014 and not a single hiccup. There are a great many things to come in this new phase including some different snakes and reptiles instead of just ball pythons. I am happy to inform you that Rat Trap Reptiles will now be known as RTR 2.0.You will see a few changes over the next few weeks like logo, Facebook name and website upgrades, and contact info. I hope this finds any and all in great spirits and I truly hope we can continue on to build this industry into what it needs to be and should be. Please feel free to email any and all concerns you may have to [email protected] and they will be addressed accordingly.
Sincerely Yours,
Owner of RTR 2.0
Robert C Penny"

Any feedback or info would be appreciated.
 
Hopefully history does not repeat. I have been dealing with and friends with Dan/Rob for four years and involved in many breeding loans, partnerships, and deals with him. The past six months has been rocky to say the least, however, I am optimistically hoping he makes things right.

 
People have forgotten about that case when he came back as Rat Trap Reptiles. I am glad that someone finally brought it up!

Brock
 
Been dealing with Rob for several years. Also dealt with Dan when he was working with the rats. I have never had anything but positive dealings with Rob. I know a little about his past and he has never tried to hide anything from me....but it's exactly that...the past. Rob is a great guy and will bend over backwards to help you out. I have seen his animals and facility numerous times and it is always clean with very high quality animals. I will never hesitate doing business with Rob and suggest others do the same.
 
If Rob Penny is going to be the new face of this company he may want to take care of old debts he owes like the feeders he got from B&B wholesale back in 2005 and never paid for. If he would like to take care of that and no longer has the contact info for them message or email me and I will give it to you.
 
Glen Plonco from California also is owed I believe $30,000. I don't think he ever got paid back.

Has anyone ever meet Dan Gibides? Does he exist?

Brock
 
Been dealing with Rob for several years. Also dealt with Dan when he was working with the rats. I have never had anything but positive dealings with Rob. I know a little about his past and he has never tried to hide anything from me....but it's exactly that...the past. Rob is a great guy and will bend over backwards to help you out. I have seen his animals and facility numerous times and it is always clean with very high quality animals. I will never hesitate doing business with Rob and suggest others do the same.

Tell him to" bend over backwards " and respond to this thread! Would like to now why he made people " bend over backwards" and take it up the arse.;)
 
Been dealing with Rob for several years. Also dealt with Dan when he was working with the rats. I have never had anything but positive dealings with Rob. I know a little about his past and he has never tried to hide anything from me....but it's exactly that...the past. Rob is a great guy and will bend over backwards to help you out. I have seen his animals and facility numerous times and it is always clean with very high quality animals. I will never hesitate doing business with Rob and suggest others do the same.

It's not the past if he hasn't been taken care of it. He had plenty of positive transaction here on this board in the past as well. That's one of the reasons people dealt with him because he was nice and helpful and had a decent reputation. Then he took thousands of dollars from people and their animals.

As far as I know, it hasn't been posted that they have been made whole. If you were one of those that had their animals taken, killed or funds taken, I would find it hard to believe you would state it was just the past.

If all you have to do is disappear off the radar for a few years after screwing people over and come back and state it's all in the past is pretty messed up and so is anyone who would support such a person without making right what the person did.

There is a long list of people that had good transactions before those that didn't in the past too. It doesn't matter. That doesn't negate what happened.

People talked about how clean is facilities were, great customer service and quality of animals in the past as well.

I'm sorry, I can't support anyone that has ripped off other members of this site and people in our hobby by simply stating it's in the past without correcting those situations.
 
Guess we know why Dan isn't in the business anymore.

Incarceration Status: ACTIVE Total Incarceration Term: 4 YEARS 6 MONTHS
Conviction Date: 01/05/2015 Projected Release Date: 04/30/2018
Primary Crime: HABITUAL FELON (PRINCIPAL)
 
I will never hesitate doing business with Rob and suggest others do the same.

Awesome guy!

He agreed to do a breeding loan with David Reid. After David sent the animals Rob sold half of David's animals without telling him or sending him the funds. Sent the other half back on deaths door. Outstanding!

If you know all this already and also what he did to Chris, Glen and others, I don't understand how you could recommend him to others.
 

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Do you want to guess where Rob Penny of Rat Trap Reptiles met Dan? There is a whole lot more going to come out very soon about Rob and his business associates. Hold on to your pants!

Brock
 
OK...c'mon drama queen, how long do we have to hold onto our pants for? The build up has been put in place, wow us with your revelations.
 
Unfortunately, as I am sure a lot of you reading this already know, there is a lot more to the Dan/Rob story that he didn’t want people to know. His explanations and reasonings as described in his Facebook posting are a far distance from reality.

I have been doing business with Dan/Rob for a little over four years. In this time we did several deals, breeder loans, partnerships, and developed what I thought was a great friendship. As an example of my loyalty and friendship to him, when his underaged, eight month pregnant daughter got caught getting high with her boyfriend in Dan/Rob’s home, I offered to fly him to my home in CA to take a vacation on my boat for a few days. When he and Richard Roman (R2 Exotics) were arrested, I offered to lend him money for attorney fees.

It was a great business relationship and friendship until about six months ago when he informed me that his real name was Robert Penny, that Dan was in jail, that I have been only talking to Robert for the past four years, and that nothing would change between us. It is extremely difficult to summarize the past four years of business relationships and wrong doings of Robert Penny, so I have listed few that are relevant to this thread:

- Robert mentioned that he had a past he was not proud of, however, never went into detail of it with me.
- Robert started RTR with Dan as a front man, so he could come back into the reptile business with a new start.
- Robert had Richard Roman start R2 exotics as an escape plan in the event anything happened to RTR.
- Robert cares little about US sales, BOI, and opinions about him because 90% of his business is overseas.
- Robert sells his animals overseas to Viking Balls (Thomas Kirkeskov Froik).
- Robert uses Kevin from NERD to promote his projects; in return Robert sells Kevin's animals overseas.
- Robert had me ship several of my personal animals, co-owned animals, animals on breeding loans, and some hold backs to him for future breeding projects.
- Robert traded my spider Microscale male to Amir for an anaconda phase ball python. The spider micro scale was produced by me, was my animal, and was only sent to Robert so he could display ONLY at the Daytona show.
- Robert has kept several of my animals and refuses to send them back, return calls, emails, and texts.

I have done everything possible to avoid this post and even reached out to him last week in hopes he would do the right thing. Unfortunately, all my attempts have fallen on deaf ears. The purpose of me exposing Dan/Rob, R2 Exotics, and all involved is not for personal gain. This is in hopes the cycle is stopped and we get this type of person out of the industry. Dan/Rob has taken from so many, and has turned a hobby I once loved into stress and anguish. I just hope what he did to me he does not do to others.
 
Those are some pretty huge allegations. Do you have any emails, or texts, or anything to back any of that up?

As someone here in NC, I'm quite interested in this whole thing.
 
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