The BoidSmith said:
John makes a good point. That’s one of the main problems in which businesses (or families for that matter) run every now and then. They fail to calculate an adequate “cash-flow” for those times of the year when less money is flowing in or to cover the “unexpected”. In the case of a reptile sale the refund should be there promptly. You are not going to a store to return and item only to be told that they’ll take it back but they’ll refund you once they have the money. You can spend all the money you want provided you have left for conducting normal business. That includes paying the fixed an variable costs as well as any unexpected bills that might arise. The problem is that for too many people this is not a business is a “bussinobby”. Although they try to portray themselves as solvent they are not. They usually sell an animal because they want to buy another one, and they need the money now now! In my opinion even if you do this as a hobby you need to act responsibly with those that buy from you. That includes having enough cash to back you-up in the event something goes wrong.
Sadly, that is not how the real world is. Most people do not adhere to such lofty standards. You can choose to not do business with such individuals, but most "young" businesses are thinly capitalized. Now if he spent the money on a piece of jewelry or a new boat there would be an issue. But what if his air conditioning went and he needed $3000 to keep his collection from
dying? Would you let your $100,000 worth of snakes die
in case someone needed a refund on a snake you planned to ship (but forgot because you were busy getting a guy to fix your AC in Nevada in August)? Or maybe he was brokering the animal on credit and paid for it because he (thought) had sold it. We don't really know what happened. We only have Ken's word that he spent the money. It's easy to cast stones but businesses often use money from their current cash flow to fund current expenses. Do you think your bank has enough cash on hand should everyone decide to withdraw all of their money? Of course not. Most of it is invested in loans. If that happened that bank would be out of business.
To take this a step further, and analyzing this situation specifically, Myles could well have refused to issue a refund and said "I am truly sorry that I forgot to ship and I
will ship at your convenience, but that animal is bought and paid for." And he would have been within his rights to do so. After all, he took the animal off of the market and may well have lost out on another potential sale. Instead, he offered to make it right by throwing in an extra animal. Had Joe accepted that offer, none of this would have come to light.
Again, there may well be an ethical problem with this (we do not know all of the circumstances), but to me this is business as usual in most of America. Refunds on "big ticket" items often take time. If you get a "lemon" of a brand new car and you turn it in on the "lemon law" you get your refund from the corporate office when they print the check. Why? Because the dealer no longer has the cash. He used it to pay off his loan and buy another vehicle to sell.
The fact that this does not happen often is a credit to the (mostly) honest people in this business/hobby. This guy's performance is way better than some of the scumbags out there who simply steal money, like Neil's buddy...what's his name again?
