Kevin,
It's very obvious that you weren't bashing Reptster over there. It's clear that your reason for posting was the hassle with the FedEx clerk. I can relate to your hard times and trying to save $25. Morality usually has a way of coming back to cost those of us that struggle with it.
As for the live animal shipping agreement that packages are to be shipped "from business to business," the best way that I know of to completely avoid issues is to drop off your package at the nearest ma & pa FedEx pack-n-ship store and to have it sent to the customer's nearest FedEx pack-n-ship store.
Prepare your shipment online and set the "Pickup/Dropoff" option to "FedEx Authorized Ship Center." Drop the package off at your nearest ma & pa pack-n-ship store. It won't cost you any more, the ship center gets $1 or so from FedEx for handling are bound by FedEx terms to accept your package. Put the customer's name & phone number in the "To:" field and then the name and address of the customer's local pack-n-ship store in the "Address:" field. The store will call when the package arrives. It's best for the customer to notify the store ofthe expected package beforehand so they'll know to call ASAP. Yes, it's a bit more of a hassle on the customer's end but there won't be any questions about legalitlies interrupting the shipment.
Because I live so far out in the boonies a package that I have picked up at my house will be on the truck longer than it would if I drop it off at my local pack-n-ship store. Before I started shipping I went to the small store & talked to owner about my plans to see how he felt about it. He was perfectly fine with it. I tip him & his clerk every now & then because they take good care of me.
To get back more on topic - I believe that Reptster had a legitimate account with FedEx because I can't imagine FedEx not catching a fraudulent account of that magnitude, let alone
any fraudulent shipping account with them.
Personally, at the moment I don't think David is an all-out crook. Yes, I do feel he did a crooked thing by not settling up with Kelly of "Central PA Reptile Expo." I think that was a very bad decision. I feel that if he had crooked intentions for Reptster from the start he would already be sitting in Aruba via fraudulent credit card charges from all his shipping users.
Could he eventually do so? Yes. Hard times make some people do things they normally wouldn't do. Cancelling credit cards? Not to create panic but it is better to be safe than sorry.
When registering for Reptster's shipping you're basically registering on a forum. My password standards are more relaxed on forums than they are on banking, financial security, sites. When entering credit card info at Reptster you are, or were at the time I did so, transfered to a secured server. The fact that your credit card info is left unscrambled is a real concern though. All a person that knows your username needs is to figure out that simple lil' 4 - 6 character password you used to get your credit card info.
I caught the credit card info glitch back in the end of July. I shipped a package one day & went to ship again the next day and saw my card # in whole. I processed my shipment and turned around and deleted my credit card info. I did that the next few times I shipped with them, not leaving my number in there. I know that David was informed of the glitch back in the end of July from a person I mentioned it to. It was never fixed as far as I know.
As far as Reptster's FedEx account being delinquent - I think that the billing/payment terms would most likely have been somewhere between 30 - 90 days. And with the credit crunch gripping the nation these days & how young of a business Reptster was I'm leaning towards 30 days. I suspect David couldn't afford to make a payment and FedEx wouldn't grant an extension, thus the end of a great thing. I don't buy the "problems with FedEx's shipping" line for one second. Nobody in their right mind would severe ties with FedEx before UPS was up & running.Here's another reason I don't buy that story.
It takes a lot of money to run a business, especially one like Reptster had. A lot of money required up front with slow incoming gains.
If I were to get myself in David's current position I would probably temporarily withold FedEx payment if I needed that money to get my business back on it's feet. After all, I've had to let a few bills go into collection & pay them later down the road when I was younger & new to the world of credit's "buy now, pay later." So maybe that's what David's doing and hopefully he's not going out on the town with that money. I don't know. Him buying Tom Pecanic's BRBs doesn't look too good, though.
The post that Rextiles copied/pasted is from Reptster's forums, I've seen it myself. I think it could support my theory that David first got behind on his FedEx bill & he tried to get FedEx to work with him further about the bill. FedEx probably said;
"OK, but you pay full rate until you catch up, and we'll apply refunds towards your bill instead of returning the money to you." Why else would FedEx recently begin refusing to issue refunds? I also don't think FedEx would even dare to violate their previous rate contract
just by upping the rates without a previous breach of contract by Reptster (payment default).
My biggest concern is all the innocent people that have counted on Reptster and have already sold snakes with no way to ship them now. I don't think David planned for all this to happen, but still, his business practices have, and will, hurt a lot of people.
That leads me to my next big concern - the fallout from all of this. Now, because of Reptster, I'm sure FedEx will begin to scrutinize future live animal shipment applicants and the shipping from "business to business" aspect of everyone already approved. I'm seriously afraid that we're all going to feel the impact of this. Whether you've ever shipped with them or not.
I rate this right up there with the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the big bailout, and all the other financial catastrophies - I think it's due strictly to poor management and oversight.
I've tried several times but I just can't end this post without one more attempt to be perfectly fair. So here it goes; Several famous, and now prosperous, people have failed the first few big adventures they went into. Maybe this will get David's attention and wake him up to where he'll settle up with Kelly and right all wrongs and begin again. I do hope he sees what he's done, whether he did it unintentionally or intentionally. Does that mean we should give him a pass? I don't think so. If we all end up feeling the heat from this I might move towards lynching, but until then........
Michael Sanders
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