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Bad Guy Reptiles by Rekowski

It may be my eyes, but the animal looks fatter in the first picture than the last picture and this is after being in your care for a while, so based on the pictures, I would assume the animal was eating before you purchased her.

As for the stuck shed on the eyes, if you can't produce a bill that indeed links THAT animal to that issue in the time frame of your purchase, I wouldn't pay any attention to your claims.
 
Federico... This is exactly what i was trying to explain to you in my first few posts... If you contacted Mike directly before posting here, I would be willing to bet that he would have made you the EXACT same VERY GENEROUS offer to replace your gecko with NO questions asked, MONTHS after purchase.. And, there would be no need for this "bad guy" post on the BOI for the rest of time..

I know you're saying that you are warning people to check (his) animals prior to purchase, BUT in my opinion that should be common practice for any consumer..

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: to Mike Rekowski for handling the issue in this fashion.. There are MANY breeders/dealers that would not be so helpful after being called out on here..

~ Mike Russo
 
Listen guys....I really dont want this to drag on and on.....I also dont want Frederico to have to come up with photographic evidence of his purchase. I attend a lot of reptile shows and do alot of transactions, and do my honest best to educate the consumers as much as possible. I just wish simply that Frederico would have contacted me directly about this situation. Just from looking at the pictures you provided....it appears that in he first pic the gecko is healthy and has no readily apparent eye issues. I am not saying that he absolutely has perfect eyes...just that I see no obvious issues. In the next pic it appears that the animal in question has a tail that is thinnning out but the belly still looks good. To me this would , especially at this time of year, be evidence of a female leopard gecko that is ovulating heavily and wants to breed. Females will often go off feeding for an extended period of time. This is a fact that I make sure to mention to people at shows....am i 100% sure that is my animal?....am i 100% sure I talked to every person I sold animals to at Ft.lauderdale show about this fact ?..no to both ......
But it is very possible I could have saved you and the animal a lot of strife had I just received some communication of the issue you were having. And i am extremely taken-a-back by having a bad guy thread on here about me on an issue that could have been resolved very quickly and easily if, I feel, a more appropriate action was taken on your part to rectify the situation. I, too, hope this is a little bit of a learning experience for people just entering this awesome hobby (albeit at my expense), in that there are no 100% guarantees...we are dealing with live animals and as with any live being, there may be bumps in the road along the way.....but getting through them respectfully and learning from these situations is what makes keeping these terrific critters a very truly rewarding experience. JMHO
 
deborahbroadus said:
As pointed out...those eye sheds left could have come while in the buyer's possession.
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Having very little experience with leopard geckos, and operating under the assumption that what the OP has said is true, it seems counterintuitive to think that even a young lizard would shed 5 times in a month after having zero food intake.

Fede59 said:
I will post pictures as soon as I get home. No I don't have the vet bill. I can't seem to find her but I do have the text message from the person that cleaned her eyes out
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I'd imagine that the vet would still have their report on file, even after a couple of months. Even if for nothing more than posterity, since he doesn't seem to want anything, I think it'd be in the OP's best interests to have the office fax/email the report to him so it can be posted here. These types of things aren't so easily lost in the computer age.

Lucille said:
Do you have proof you purchased THIS critter from Mike? A picture, you can get anywhere.
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That may be a tough one for either party involved to either prove or disprove. Does the seller involved supply descriptive or photographic receipts for his sales? Can the seller prove that he didn't sell this animal? While the seller claims to have no specific memory of the transaction, I didn't see anything where he denies the possibility of it having taken place.

Personally, I've never received a receipt for anything I got at a show. And back then I didn't have enough foresight to ask for them.

While there may be a certain expectation that the seller is providing a quality product, I've learned the hard way that as a buyer, you gotta sweat the details before handing over cash. Especially when it's all done in person and you have the opportunity to thoroughly check out the goods. Since the buyer isn't asking for anything in return, he should take it as a lesson learned in how to do things in the future.

To anyone that actually takes the time read and understand the thread, there's nothing that's particularly damning for the seller. He's responded calmly and professionally and offered to take responsibility for something that may or may not even be his fault. I think this speaks volumes about his character and I doubt this will hurt him one bit.
 
ApexPredatorBoids said:
Having very little experience with leopard geckos, and operating under the assumption that what the OP has said is true, it seems counterintuitive to think that even a young lizard would shed 5 times in a month after having zero food intake.
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I've had a gecko for a number of years, and kept a friends when I wanted to experience the breeding aspect. I can testify that even if they don't eat, if they are stressed they will shed almost back to back.
 
deborahbroadus said:
I've had a gecko for a number of years, and kept a friends when I wanted to experience the breeding aspect. I can testify that even if they don't eat, if they are stressed they will shed almost back to back.
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Thanks for the clarification based on actual experience. Since mine ate like a pig and wasn't in a stressful situation, I never got the opportunity to experience that. Guess you learn something new every day.
 
Fede59 said:
I had to give her a syringe solution and took her to the vet. After about 100+ dollars in vet bills including the check up and test. The vet told me she had 5 layers of shed stuck in her eyes!!!
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Fede59 said:
heres the proof: the first picture is when i first got her > the second picture is me syringe feeding her with the solution since she wasnt eating > the third picture is the day that the couple picked her up > the fourth picture is a text from the couple that took her after they also took her to the vet.
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So when was the stuck shed discovered? Was it when you took the gecko to the vet, or when the couple who took her from you did? In your first post, you say the vet told YOU she had 5 layers of stuck shed, but in the text messages the couple tells you they found the stuck shed.
 
Since I can't quote the photo of the texts, the message I am talking about is this one (from the people who took her from you):

"We think we found her problem...we cleaned her eyes out she had layers of shed in her eyes that's why she always had them closed. They are no[w] slowly opening.:) thought i would give you an update."
 
FireStorm said:
Since I can't quote the photo of the texts, the message I am talking about is this one (from the people who took her from you):

"We think we found her problem...we cleaned her eyes out she had layers of shed in her eyes that's why she always had them closed. They are no[w] slowly opening.:) thought i would give you an update."
Click to expand...

Nice catch. Guess those pics were posted while I was making my own "long-winded dissertation" and I missed it. The plot thickens. Some people need to realize that if you're just honest from the start, you don't gotta try to keep your stories straight.
 
Federico, go take a break and get some water because your pants are on fire.
 
ApexPredatorBoids said:
Nice catch. Guess those pics were posted while I was making my own "long-winded dissertation" and I missed it. The plot thickens. Some people need to realize that if you're just honest from the start, you don't gotta try to keep your stories straight.
Click to expand...

Yep, looks as if the buyer was trying to "Pass the buck." Probably in an effort to escape responsibility for his part in the mess.:shrug01:
 
Lol you guys are hilarious. All I was trying to do what get people to see what happen to me with a well reputed company and it may have been bad luck or bad care. But if I had bad care then the male would be sick and hes not I got him at 45 g from mike and now he's at 67g my fat tails are all above 50. So it wasnt bad care I can tell you that. People make mistake and I happened to buy that mistake and I had to deal with it. So I'm just sharing my experience. You guys can talk and say that I have bad care, no vet bills, and so on. But honestly I was just trying to make people aware of what I purchased. If you guys say mike has been providing quality geckos for a while then like I said I might have gotten unlucky and chose to share that with you guys but I guess it's a sin to warn people about mistake in this forum. Oh well...
 
Fede59 said:
Lol you guys are hilarious. All I was trying to do what get people to see what happen to me with a well reputed company and it may have been bad luck or bad care. But if I had bad care then the male would be sick and hes not I got him at 45 g from mike and now he's at 67g my fat tails are all above 50. So it wasnt bad care I can tell you that. People make mistake and I happened to buy that mistake and I had to deal with it. So I'm just sharing my experience. You guys can talk and say that I have bad care, no vet bills, and so on. But honestly I was just trying to make people aware of what I purchased. If you guys say mike has been providing quality geckos for a while then like I said I might have gotten unlucky and chose to share that with you guys but I guess it's a sin to warn people about mistake in this forum. Oh well...
Click to expand...

Post the vet bill. If you no longer have it, the office will have the original and can send you a copy.
 
I have a burning question, and then I will let this be out of respect for Mike.

Federico, are you 100% positive that you purchased this animal from Mike?
 
I also can't see any eye issues in the first picture. The gecko looks healthy there. I can tell you that you put that gecko through a lot of stress. You took her home and obviously handled her a lot. Sometimes it takes older/larger geckos more time to get comfortable in a new home. I also agree with Mike on the ovulating part. Then you gave/sold her to another couple. They had problems and supposedly took her to a vet. That is a lot of stress to put a new animal through. Mike is a great breeder who takes very good care of his animals. I have a very hard time believing that there were layers of stuck eye shed when you purchased her. I would think that after 2-3 layers, the gecko would show obvious eye issues.

The only proof you've shown is that you had a gecko that looked healthy, you gave/sold her to someone else and that gecko lost a lot of weight.
 
I think this thread will actually be good for the seller. Due to his responses here a lot of people that have never heard of him will probably be more confident in buying from him after this. The buyer, however, probably has a lot of people that wouldn't want to sell to him now.
 
ApexPredatorBoids said:
He's responded calmly and professionally and offered to take responsibility for something that may or may not even be his fault. I think this speaks volumes about his character and I doubt this will hurt him one bit.
Click to expand...

I agree. This seller definitely has class.
 
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