• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Price Fixing by Kingsnake Moderators

Here is the question That is still being missed.. Who is K.S. To tell you how much you can sell for period... As long as you are paying them and keeping to yourself who cares How much you sell it for.. Seems the best course of action would be to just stay away from K.S. I.M.O
 
John,
You ask:
Who is K.S. To tell you how much you can sell for period...
Click to expand...

It has not been determined that they directed "how much" to begin with. They have a vested interest in how ads are presented in their site. That includes the pricing, or more specifically the clarity of an indicated price. They do not want headaches or disputes. While many animals are misrepresented in internet sales (ie: seller says you're buying a 1000g snake for $300, and on arrival its only 800g), to have a price calculated by the exact, and possibly inaccurate weight, adds one more layer of dispute. Having an unclear or ambiguous TOS is not to say (assume) that the worst possible interpretation is fact, which is what you and others have done here.

If Ben were on the Board of Directors of a larger company that had such, and made the decisions that he did here so as to lose a marketing account justified by "taking a stand" .... guess what .... you're fired :shrug01:
 
Our staff requested you post a reasonable price range
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Who determines what is reasonable.. If he said he wanted 20 cents per gram in his mind thats reasonable.. If nobody wanted to purchase the animal thats their right.. The terms of service clearly protect K.S from being held responsible for bad dealings.. Thats in their TOS.. So why object to his price.. Just an opinion I won't use them regardless
 
Great post, John! That KS quote "Our staff requested you post a REASONABLE price range" is exactly why the possible practice of "price fixing" is relevant. Kingsnake has no legal right to force someone to adide by their idea of a reasonable price. I don't care how you word it, it's not right.
 
Serafim said:
Who determines what is reasonable..
Click to expand...

In short John....Kingsnake does on their site...It's really that simple. Ben weighed the potential backlash and chose a course of action pretty much guaranteed to get his account cancelled. 100% his choice and while i support his idealism, he knew what the outcome was gonna be.

Bottom line, you play in their ballpark, you play by whatever rules they see fit to set.
 
Serafim said:
Who determines what is reasonable..
Click to expand...

I don't think from KS's stand point from the beginning that it was an actual issue with an unreasonable price as much as it was to them just an unreasonable advertisement all together. I don't think they would have a problem with a person selling an individual animal at below market value but if you were doing it with 100's of animals I think you'd find out pretty fast what they thought was reasonable.
 
I am still impressed by the professionalism this post has held over the number of pages it has grown to!

I agree with Suncoast that had I been a big company with active investors I would have need to take this slower. I also agree with Suncoast that I knew the outcome would be if I did what I did. But it doesn't change the fact. I to date still have not had an email clarifying the reason. There has been no change to the TOS, as of saturday(last time I looked) as to "a no price per gram ad", and I still have not recieved the refund Jeff B. requested how to send to me.

What I know for a fact is:

1. Kingsnake favors people who spend more money on advertising and lets them get away with more-but that is there perogative I guess.

2. Kingsnake customer service has gone way downhill ove rthe last four years

3. Kingsnake mods(or at least a few of them) are on a constant power trip, and could care less about keeping my business.

4. A huge percentage of my ads have been deleted over the last several months for vague and inaccurate reasons. Finally this "reasonable price" rubbed me the wrong way enough to stand up and argue back

5. I will have no financial hardships due to the loss of my account.

6. I have less kids, scammers, and problem customers from all the other sites, so loosing kingsnakes high volume traffic I limit my problems somewhat.


Some people think that my title was premature, and some think it was too strong of an accusation. Well that is fine, and it is true looking through many peoples eye's. But for me I have paid hundreds of dollars over the last four-five years to be able to advertise animals on Kingsnake. For them to have no interest in my problems with thier system shows they don't care about my business. I was kingsnake's customer I should have been treated as one. If I had a complaint from one of my customers and I simply dismissed them I would be brought here in a second and labeled a scammer, or a thief and then had to sit here and try and prove myself to a crowd of people trying to talk me into a circle.

I wanted jeff b or the mod in question to come here and answer why they didn't explain the deletion in further detail, why they sent me one sentace emails with no hi's and bye's or punctuation. I want to know why Jeff B's first email to me was a threat instead of how can we work this out to be mutually beneficial? Guess what, he hasn't come on this long, so they really don't care either about the public image becuase if the mod read it enough to quote me to jeff b. then they are probably reading it and there are several people here that are dissatisfied with Kingsnake.

If Jeff B. really cares about his company to immediately threaten me why can he come on here and try to work the issues out and persuade the 10 or so of us that K.S. really isn't that bad.

Thanks
ben cole
 
Hey Guy,
Don't take it so hard.
I was kicked off because I supplied them with what they asked for.
Another company on Kingsnake was infringing on our Trademark.
When I brought it to Jeff's attention his reply was we won't do anything w/o a court order.
When we won our case and the lawyer sent Jeff the court order he took off all my ads.
When I tried to ask why I got an e-mail saying no e-mails from my address would be accepted.
Finally I got a letter that told me no communication would be accepted from me.
It stated letters would be returned unopened and calls not accepted.
Funny considering how vocal he was when he believed his trademark was infringed upon.
What''s even more strange is the guys we successfully sued even wrote Jeff an E-Mail admitting the entire problem was their fault and agreeing they were in violation of my rights.
Since then I've heard many horror stories and would not support Jeff or his Nazi tactics in any way again.
Kudos to Rich for being the "real King" of the reptile forums.
Free speech isn't dead but I think it's in intensive care.
Take Care,
Gino
 
chfd143 said:
Did you contact KS? I had the same thing happen and I got angry too, so I emailed them. They replied saying they made a mistake and reposted the ad.....
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Interesting... How long ago did this happen?
 
Sorry to here about your experience with them, Gino. I am glad you won in court and the other party fessed up. The response you got from Kingsnake fits right in line with the picture I think we are all beginning to see. Pay your account fee-never say anything-let kingsnake do what they want and you have no problems. As soon as they have to invest time in you they just ban you.

I don't have a trademark or anything but I am concerned about my on line handle. I have been bcherps since 94 when I went to college and got my first email account. Several other guys with similiar names like bradford cole, and brian cole also have very similiar emails to mine. I have had 3 people email me thinking I was bradford cole. Fortunately, the two guys I know of with similiar names are good stand up guys. However, I am jsut waiting for someone else to now start up bcherps on kingsnake and cause problems, or fool some of my non regular customers.

I am sure if I needed to contact KS due to such an event I will get the same don't call or write me b.s. also.

Thanks
ben cole
 
Hey Ben,
I just want you to know that I think the per gram pricing is actually the most reasonable and intellegent way I have ever seen a reptile priced. It accounts for variability between similar specimens AND thus reflects the effort put into each animal. Better than paying for an animal that is "2 years old" and getting it to find out it's the size of a 6 month old. At least what they pay for in size is definitely what they are getting...

KS is stupid... period.
 
Its rather cold selling animals by the inch or gram. I understand thats the best format for bulk selling, but it grates on me as a hobbyist to see animals peddled like fabric and narcotics. Listings of whole clutches or lots doesn't bother me though. Strange.
 
i definately see both your points on the last 2 posts. Becuase so many people have put so much into the animals we now have very good growth outline for breeding potential worked up.

To Critical Bill, I definately see your view and thought of it the same way when I used to get yellow bird farms price list a decade ago at my petshop. they priced rat snakes by the foot.

However, in this scenario where an animal is being raised with breedstock potential in mind a feed to gain ratio over time is necessary to determine who is best fit for the job. Luckily since many ball morphs are co dom, dom, and incomplete dom many people have been outbreeding to normals, instead of inbreeding at the rate other species morphs were. This should give a broader genetic base and less frequent detremental mutations. However, hatchling size in albinos has been brought up more than once. So with baby balls that I am selling that I have raised since silver coat I think prcing per gram when used in reference to my feeding schedule is actually helpful. Would you want to base you colony on an animal that is about a year old and only weights 200grams after 40 meals, or weights 600 grams after 40 meals.


ANyway back to the topic. Many ball breeders, and show vendors price per gram becuase of the amount of food they have into the animal. The public is going to pick an animal due to looks and they are going to dicker from there. But a breeder needs size. Some 1000 gram balls will breed other will not. Some balls are 18 inches and 1000 grams, others are 28 inches and a 1000grams. So a size to weight ratio is also needed to determine breeding ability. So I have seen about 20 vendors in florida who come from all over the eastern seaboard price balls raised as breedstock potential by the gram. In this scenario it is LIVESTOCK, just like cattle, pigs, or horses. It is a common industry pratice in the ball world.

I did question a buyer a month ago when they wanted a gram weight on some adult ETB's I was selling, but in the ball world it is commonplace and for KS to not know this just shows how much they are disconnected from thier customers.

But I am sure that the same number of new sellers hoping to get rich signed up for a KS account today as there is people that have voiced thier opinions about not wishing to post on KS anymore.

Thanks
ben cole
 
Just a rant but I had my ads deleted on KS because for "location" I put "pick up only at Hamburg PA show 10/21" I guess the word show violated TOS. I definately am through with them and will not renew my account. Very frustrating nitpicking ......

Excerpt from TOS:

Referencing upcoming "Events" in the subject heading, name field or locationfield, in ads is prohibited. You may mention in the body of an ad that youwill be at an upcoming event, but it cannot be the focus of the ad itself.The exception to this is if you are posting an event-only ad in the "Events"classified section.
Click to expand...
 
Maybe they just don't like people pricing animals by weight. I don't see a problem with it, but it sounds more like meat for sale than live animals. Maybe try posting with a price scale in table format to express the prices, or list the actual prices and explain that it comes down to $0.20 per gram.
 
There won't be any future posts on KS from me, as my account is deleted. So it probably won't come up again.

But to date KS has not changed thier TOS

thanks
ben cole
 
I see

I didn't read all the pages of threads. I'll go back and chack them out. At least you have fauna here without the B.S.
 
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