Inquiry Precision Reptile Labs

[MikeCurtin]

I received my healthy Sambava female from Nick Tuesday, and I couldn't be happier with the animal or his service.....look for recent responses and weigh them equally.

....... more recent picture of his business and practices can be painted.

So, I will weigh Chad's post and your post equally.

On or about the 19th, Chad had a conversation with Nick after Nick had posted a malicious video about Chad's wife. According to Chad, Nick stated that he is in it for the money and that those that spend so much time and effort on their animals are fools.

You posted on the 20th that you had received your Sambava female from Nick (someone who is allegedly just in it for $$), and that there is no way of knowing if he she is what he claims. You also stated that there was increased risk considering price, and that if you wanted a guarantee on the locale, you would have paid $350 with someone else.

Congrats on your new non-descript female Panther, but when I decide who to purchase from, I err on the side of caution. While I believe in a person's ability to change, I do not believe that a person can be both a low-life and a gentleman simultaneously. Either you or Chad encountered a less than genuine Nick, and since you were the one he was trying to complete a sale with, I doubt you met the real Nick.

 

[ClayShack]

As to the purity of the morph, I can't be definitive any more than you can.

Actually, if I were to buy from Precision, you are right, I "can't be blah... blah ... blah ..." It is also not the point. Each of us actually can find ways to make a more definitive purchase.

I don't think people here take issue with your purchase. Its coming here to chastise those who had issues with Nick that is troubling. If everything negative about the seller were in the past, and you wanted to urge that others give him the benefit of the doubt now, there's at least some Good Samaritan logic there. A lot of the negative is current though, and you berate others for pointing that out.

Good luck with your chameleon. Will hope that all works out, and that Nick gets out of the video business.

 

[Roni013]

The mere fact that Nick has so much negativaty attached to his name would make me not want to buy from him. Add to that that he pubilcy made fun of a beautiful girl (Chad's wife) and some of the horrible and unprofessional things he has done and said I would say please spend your money elsewhere. Thier are lots of great breeders who care about thier animals and try and run a respectable buisness. I'd rather pay any extra amount of money to know my pet came from a good place and person. Lets not support the people who are neither!

 

[SPJ]

If I wanted a picture of the sire, and the genetic back round of my panther, I would have payed 350.00 to someone else.

Face it. You went cheap and didn't care who gave you the lower price.

 

[citruslover]

brutal

I'm not really sure how I became the topic, or my decision process, but it becomes difficult to see through the hate when you lash out at someone with something positive to say. I wasn't judging the merit of anyone's grievances, or questioning posters ethics.

I don't have a lot of extra money to buy my wife a panther. It is in better care now, regardless where it came from. This is one of the few times I have posted on these boards to give a report on business practices as I have seen them. I believe the purpose of this forum is for reference to professional interaction with buyers and sellers, not to commit or incite personal attacks.

God bless and good luck,

Jeff Crider

 

[Vegas Chad]

Take a look at this video posted in a public place on the same account that is used to promote his business. I mean really... What kind of person would throw out the ‘N’ word like that at all let alone on your business account... Listen at the end. WoW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tRuEzVgYKQ

 

[MikeCurtin]

I'm not really sure how I became the topic, or my decision process, but it becomes difficult to see through the hate when you lash out at someone with something positive to say. I wasn't judging the merit of anyone's grievances, or questioning posters ethics.

I don't have a lot of extra money to buy my wife a panther. It is in better care now, regardless where it came from. This is one of the few times I have posted on these boards to give a report on business practices as I have seen them. I believe the purpose of this forum is for reference to professional interaction with buyers and sellers, not to commit or incite personal attacks.

God bless and good luck,

Jeff Crider

I'll try to address these issues in order. You somewhat became the topic after you criticized those who spoke negatively for not weighing Nick's transactions evenly. I, in response, weighed your experience with that of VegasChad's because of the fact that they took place simultaneously. I wasn't hateful, nor did I lash out. And yes...you did judge the merits of previous posters' greivances.

In addition, it was merely pointed out to you that given the very recent ethics displayed by Nick, that any doubts you may have as to the locale of any Panther can be magnified. If possible, could you please point out where you felt personally attacked? It seems to me that people (myself included) simply pointed out that you chose to deal with someone of questionable ethics, both past and present (he lied on this very thread by using an alias!), to save a few bucks. When you come out to defend someone who has a history such as Nick's, you've got to expect some backlash.

Although I tried (and think I succeeded) to be friendly yet honest in my posting, if I've said anything to offend you, I apologize. It was not my intent to attack you. Having said that, take what I said as simply food for thought in the future. I do hope your wife enjoys her new panther (mine's getting some new tarantulas for Christmas). We're lucky to have the wives we do!

 

[ForkedTung]

Precision Reptile Labs
Banned

Well that's a good thing considering Nick has more experience and education than 85% of this entire forum.

If your calling this JOKE WEBSITE Nicks Reputation, your an idiot. Nick is EXTREMELY well known and respected in our industry by the KEY players. And his legal issues have been over. Fauna is a Joke, its a crappy generic wannabe King Snake that dosent make any money(Like you mike), and is very poorly moderated.
I am finished with this BS.

we all know that in our industry there are some WAKO customers. They don't know crap about business or animals for that matter. Facts are, this BOI will not effect our business at all

As for the guy who said not to showcase my animals, he can kiss my you know what.

Nobody ever buys from Fauna anyway, its just a child's play site for Losers to vent there frustrations and pick fights from behind a keyboard.

citruslover:

and a more recent picture of his business and practices can be painted.

Jeff Crider

I think a more recent picture of his business and practices can be painted. quite well by how he has performed here on this forum, his verbal diarrhea, insults, petty and childish attacks, not to mention the disgusting attacks against another members wife are a pretty good indicator of the type of personality we're dealing with here.
And as to his animals:

You should ask Local Reptile dealers such as Underground Reptiles, Strictly Reptiles

Nice business reference, Strictly Reptiles? How many "breeders/importers" have books written about them? excerpt from The Lizard King by Bryan Christy:

Freelance writer Christy's debut is an enthusiastic but scattered chronicle of the rise and fall of a lizard kingpin and the federal agent who pursued him. Mike Van Nostrand inherited Strictly Reptiles, an import-export business in Florida, from his father, Ray, turning it into a multimillion-dollar smuggling operation. Van Nostrand imported reptiles of all shapes and sizes, usually concealed in the suitcases or clothing of his mules, and sold them to collectors and pet stores. He exploited loopholes in the international treaty on endangered-species trade and paid off corrupt officials. In the early 1990s, Fish and Wildlife Services agent Chip Bepler set his sights on Van Nostrand. After Bepler's years of surveillance and hard work, Van Nostrand was sentenced to eight months in prison, his export license revoked, and Strictly Reptiles was forced to pay $250,000 in fines to a wildlife fund.

It's these types of people that drag herpetoculture down!

 

[jayfischerherps]

DBA question

I have a question.
I tried to look up Precision Reptile Lab in the DBA and found nothing. But I did find it in the LLC listing with owner name of Jerry Abel.
The general flavor on this BOI is that Jerry is really Nick. It does seem like there is a Jerry. I was just curious if the name was truly registered, since there are so many that can't be looked up on Kingsnake. I am meaning the ones that use only a first name to post classifieds with no way of checking the business quality. I also don't see that Dark Forrest ever registered.
Here's the link that was registered on 9/15/08
.http://www.sunbiz.org/scripts/corde..._name=PRECISIONREPTILELABS&names_filing_type=

Jay and Amanda Fischer

 

[KNOBTAIL]

If in fact

athere is a Jerry Abel, then you can be assured that is where Nick is probably being financed (the money source) as well as having permits issued under the Abel banner.. I dont think Nick would qualify for anything with his past experiences and trouble with the law, as an outstanding member of the herp community... Its amazing that these people seem to migrate here in So. Fla.

 

[chequepoint]

According to the articles of organization, Jerry Abel filed their paperwork in front of a Notary.
That doesn't mean that the "jerry abel" on here wasn't really nick using his name, etc.

 

[KNOBTAIL]

I checked around

apparently there is a Jerry Abel. I know some people who know him and he is fronting financial support as well as permit support. Beyond that I have no other information.. It may be possible that Nick may post as Jerry , on this site, but they are two distinct persons.. How much Jerry may know about Nicks adventures is another story..

 

[jayfischerherps]

Well back when Jerry Abel (may have been Nick) first started talking, he spoke of Nicks energetic personality and what a great salesman Nick was. I guess we will see how that work out.
Jerry Tresser was talking about how con men seem to gravitate to Florida. Everyone calls this type of business a wholesaler or importer. They are Jobbers, middle men they are at all the shows, some of them breed a few things, it helps their acceptance. They may get in on a big order or two but they don't import. They rarely sell in quantities that could be called wholesale. Jobbers sell mainly at shows and online.

 

[KNOBTAIL]

Just a clarification on the above post

I never used the word con But this state certainly attracts its share of undesirables. I personally no longer make a distinction as to what catagory people should be placed in. Importer, wholesaler, jobber, vendor, its not a closed hierarchy but more like the wild west.

 

[HoldThePickle]

Never buy from these guys.

Oh man, I registered on here JUST to share my experience with Nick. Last year he had some ads on Kingsnake selling some pac man frogs. This is when Precision Reptile Labs was Dark Forest Reptiles. Anyway, all of the pictures had baby pac-men (?) frogs eating all sorts of animals. These animals included baby corn snakes, red efts (which are poisonous!), and even a picture of someone with their finger in one of the babys mouth. Another was a picture of a healthy baby frog eating a smaller pacman that clearly died from red leg. And to top it all off, all over the post was things like "We're the pacman kings!". After reading about Nick on the Dark Forest website in the "about us" section (which was clearly written by Nick himself), I got really confused because all it talked about was how Nick was this mecca of reptile care and knowledge. Using the "contact us" button on their site, I wrote nick. Below is the conversation. I am "Northeastbugman" and Nick is [email protected] (their company's email):

NorthEastBugman: "I'm confused... your website's "about us" section talks about this Nick guy and how he is a god of captive reptile care, and your ad on kingsnake has pictures of pacman frogs eating baby corn snakes and other baby pacman frogs??? I must have over-looked those feeders in the caresheets. I wanted to let you know that it is very unprofessional and your present yourself as a 10 year old kid that makes insects and other animals fight each other for his own entertainment."

A few minutes later, I recieved an email back from the COMPANY's email.. here it is below (censored of course):

[email protected]: "go f**k yourself"

This same short fused reply is the same type of response you see at the begining of this thread from Precision Reptile Labs form some Mr. Abel guy. Whom might indeed exist, but the poster on here is clearly Nick. People were reporting the bad experiences with Nick on the forum site FatFrog. All of a sudden this user name popped up called "Jon and Amy" and started defending Nick and talking about how great he was. Here the administrator looks up the registered email address and it, sure enough, was [email protected]! Nick freaking created a fake account then went on to talk himself up!
Lastly, I'm sure it's been discussed, but if anyone has not heard or seen the story about one of his employees being arrested for animal cruelty after punching rabbits and throwing a sickly bearded dragon around.. here is the link:
http://www.cbs12.com/news/animal_4708544___article.html/store_arrested.html
And as a final thought, even if one or two people here claim they recieved a great healthy animal from him, that's not the point. Not for me anyway. The point is, you should NOT support someone like this as a PERSON. The reply I got from him and the way he has treated others (and their wives) is disgusting.

 

[KNOBTAIL]

When you receive an email

from a person like Nick that originated from an inquiry on Kingsnake, I would send it off to Jeff Barringer and let him know about how you or possibly others get treated when responding from an ad. I am sure he would not be happy about it..

The answer is to cut his effort to communicate his herps for sale. That would help significantly in curtailing his business.. Wherever possible, he should be brought to the attention to the site keepers that he is trouble.. If nothing is done, he will continue to rip people off...

 

[screameleons]

Tried to contact them about stealing our photos but still no reponse

Recently, several customers had notified us that Precision Reptile Labs had been stealing photos of our breeders, and using them as their own. Understandably, all the photos and content on our website are copyrighted.

Below is Xerxis, one of our Red-Barred Ambilobe breeders. This was the original photo, and you can clearly see that the image was copyrighted in the bottom left-hand corner with our logo.

Here is the Precision Reptile Lab website. They cropped out the breeder's name in the top-right corner. They also disregarded our copyright and cropped that out as well.

We've already attempted to contact them about this privately. We even offered to let them purchase the original hi-resolution photo (without logo) for their own commercial use. We have yet to receive any correspondence from them. They have yet to acknowledged that they are in clear violation of copyright infringement.

Vincent

 

[ClayShack]

I think they have removed it, although clearly it had been there.

 

[TattooedHerper]

Not that I am trying to "save" Nick's reputation but I ordered a Sambava panther chameleon from him about 2 weeks ago and had a pleasant experience.
As I am fairly new to the whole herp world (a crossover from the fish and reef world) I just found out about Fauna after googling Precision Reptile Labs AFTER buying from him off of Kingsnake and found the threads about him. I was surprised to read what I read. When I called he answered the phone, answered my questions and sent me a healthy cham.
Now I know alot of you are going to say that I am probably somehow linked to him as this is my first post but I can assure you I am not. I may be new to Fauna but I certainly am not new to message boards. I also understand that peoples reputation precedes them and that one good experience cannot cancel out several crappy ones but I thought my experience worthwhile to share.
I expect flames from people about this post and would like to say that I will not respond to them. I look forward to being a productive member of this "community" and do not wish to start with negativity. My ignorance allowed me to order from a seller with such poor feedback but I genuinely had a good experience. Believe me, I am going to be much more careful in who I select to do business with in the future but, that being said, I would order from Nick again.
I'm sure I'll be talking to some of you soon, probably about Chameleons.

 

[Precision Reptile Labs]

Hello, i am looking for the good experience thread, can anyone help me?
hahahha
Thank you to all my faithfuls for speaking up.
Just to clarify.
Nick and Jerry, 2 different people.
Nick needing a financial backer (anyone who knows nick will laugh at this)
Feeding other reptiles to Frogs (as often as possible)
Being one of the largest wholesalers in the country (come visit my place!!!)
I invite anyone here to visit our facility!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE