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Bad Guy Rhode Island Reptile Enclosures: Warning

I hate to bad mouth anyone but I think you guys underestimate the amount of straight up bs we have been fed here. I have dozens of screenshots with promise after promise of delivery and crazy lists of excuses. Not only that, but with his first few promises, I paid for two more snakes that are still waiting to be shipped because I have nowhere to put them. So now it's causing problems for the guyi bought them from as well. Jim told me he refunded my money, but there is no money or even pending transactions showing up yet, so the waiting game continues.
 
I did indeed refund, It's only been a little while and you paid via debit or credit card, so depending on your financial institutions Process and procedures, Unfortunately i cannot make it move any faster, if i could I certainly wood.
 
Rhode Island Reptiles said:
about the phone thing... , my "day Job" does not allow the use of cell phones due to equipment and servers etc. we work in mechanical rooms and basemtns where most networking equipment is held, Generally speaking there is little to no service,

When i don't answer it's never on purpose, Which is why, when you don't hear from me and i text, Again one day I can do the building full time and not have to deal with those types of issues.
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While I appreciate respecting your day job, you can't use that as a crutch to not be in regular and clear communication with your customers. Sounds like you have probably taken in more orders than you can reasonably handle and instead of being straight forward about delays provide excuses and spotty communication.

Again, I do not believe you are out to scam people but it is your responsibility to meet reasonable deadlines and if you can't, be honest and in touch with your customers. Telling your customer that you are on route with enclosures and then just failing to show up without any contact is inexcusable.
 
Rhode Island Reptiles said:
I agree. No excuse at the end of the day. My day to do should not fall onto the customer.
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Do you admit, then, to knowingly lying to customers about being en route with cages when you never intended to be? And to telling two separate customers that you were delivering their cages at the same time, with no intention of delivering either?

I get that this guy is swamped and trying to dig his way out, but I feel like people are giving him a pass on a lot of shady misdirection/lying to keep the house of cards standing. He may very well be a "good guy" who just got behind, but an honest businessman does not lie to customers about deliveries that are on the way, or that he's heading out in the car to deliver, and then not show up... this is merely a variation on "the check's in the mail". Is everyone really willing to overlook all that as just "well he's a good guy who got behind"? When a good guy gets behind, he doesn't flat out lie to his customers, does he?
 
NO. not at all, 1. IM not a scammer, if i fail to deliver on time, and a refund is requested then a refund is given immediately.
2. I did not lie, I actually was in route, Had an issue when my phone die which was also my GPS. ,
WE get busy, I tell the truth about what is happening at any given time. With any Custom build things happen which I do not have to explain, Manufacturing issues, Changes in Designs, Supply delays from 3rd party vendors, or even layaway clients. Thats why The OP had two brand new cages delivered to his home at 11pm at night just so his animals would have a proper home.. Thats 1000.00 worth of cages, Heatpanels and lights.

Ive apologized, Ive issued refunds, and gone above and beyond to try and right any wrongdoing i may have caused by being late on delivery.

As a business thats all i am able to do. I do apologize that i Couldn't deliver in a timely manner but these things happen and I clearly outline that very fact both in the original invoices and all over my website.
 
Rhode Island Reptiles said:
NO. not at all, 1. IM not a scammer, if i fail to deliver on time, and a refund is requested then a refund is given immediately.
2. I did not lie, I actually was in route, Had an issue when my phone die which was also my GPS. ,
WE get busy, I tell the truth about what is happening at any given time. With any Custom build things happen which I do not have to explain, Manufacturing issues, Changes in Designs, Supply delays from 3rd party vendors, or even layaway clients. Thats why The OP had two brand new cages delivered to his home at 11pm at night just so his animals would have a proper home.. Thats 1000.00 worth of cages, Heatpanels and lights.

Ive apologized, Ive issued refunds, and gone above and beyond to try and right any wrongdoing i may have caused by being late on delivery.

As a business thats all i am able to do. I do apologize that i Couldn't deliver in a timely manner but these things happen and I clearly outline that very fact both in the original invoices and all over my website.
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For what it is worth (which isn't much), I believe you. Further, I commend you for giving the customer "loaner-racks", as I think that is reflective of good business ethics.
With that said, take it from me (as a small business owner myself), it would behoove you to really re-evaluate your production times (and add a "buffer" of time to that estimate of ~20%!!!) so that things like this don't occurs in the future.
From reading the posts of dissatisfied customers, I don't really see that there is anything more that you can do at this time to rectify this situation. I think you have done your best to rectify what you could, but you are just going to have to chock some of this up as a learning experience and try to give better estimates in the future.
Best of Luck,
Beau
 
MissFirefly said:
Would recommend laying out your timeline - when you first made contact, when you paid, and the promised delivery date. Also helpful to share any communication you have had (emails, FB messages, texts) to backup your story.

If you paid via PayPal or with a credit card, would see about submitting a claim to get your money back.
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I'll never understand why people don't post all of their information right out of the gates. Nothing but fragments in this thread.
 
I wonder about that too Chris, especially when they are asked to and don't. It sounds like there is corroborating information and the seller also agreeing that there are issues, but it's hard to come to a solid conclusion when things are vague.
 
Also paid for enclosure but never received it or refund

I believe I have also been scammed by James, I think i bought that guys used cage that started this thread and was built be James RIRE for a very good deal, if this is the same guy then yes he was provided caging and heat for his Tegu while James finished building and delivered his enclosure, I know this because James let him keep MY ENCLOSURE that i had already paid James for until he delivered the new one to Eric, which Eric stripped of the light fixtures and radiant heat emitter before it went back on the truck to RIRE.

James was going to reseal it for me and do some other work, I paid him to put a removable center divider in it so my baby Tegu that is due to be here 8/15/17 and my year old Tegu are not in contact, besides the baby needs to stay in a 40 gal breeder tank while getting established. The breeder cage was going to go on one side and my year old boy on the other until my baby was safe with him. The enclosure would provide heat basking heat lamp and UVB to the breeder tank while it is placed in the sectioned off part of the enclosure.

We also agreed on a price for sliding doors and a 12" stand for the enclosure, replacing the radiant heat emitter and the light fixtures Eric stole, some other little stuff I cant remember, I paid him in four payments.
I live in California. The enclosure was purchased on 3/20/2017 and shipped on or about the date of the last payment 5/20/17.

Several attempts to deliver my enclosure to me were claimed, by the shipper. I was here for each and every one, they never came. Excuses were they couldn't fit the truck down my street and there was construction going on. We are in a high fire area, remember the Oakland hills firestorm in 1991, we weren't burned but we were evacuated and since then every day the Oakland fire dept drives its ladder truck down our street to remind people to not block the street, they will stop and have cars towed if they are blocking the street so there is no damn way this delivery truck couldn't get down my street and I took each day off work each day delivery was promised and hovered by the front windows waiting for something that could deliver my enclosure to show up, it never did.

Now i'm permanently out the money i lost by taking off work to be here for delivery that never happened and so far i'm out the money for the enclosure. I've commissioned another builder to build me an enclosure, its going to be twice as expensive and almost exactly the same, not as tall, no radiant heat emitters no stand and not ready in time let alone delivered in time.
James said he refunded me all of my money back to my credit card, well the bank hasn't received any of it.

July 5, 2017 James first promised to refund me, never got around to it. Same thing everyday after that until he told me he did refund me via email, he blocked me on his phone so July 7 was the last text communication I had with him that way, then he said to dispute the charges if I hadn't received my refund, I did, that was July 18, 2017 . James said he wasn't going to fight my dispute, but Friday I received a letter stating that, that is exactly what he did. I don't want to think the worst of people, James really seemed like a good guy or i'm just a big giant sucker to be stomped on.

I just want my refund, I'm not asking for lost wages for all these make believe delivery attempts where I had to take off of work to receive the enclosure. I still want to believe James isn't scamming me but everybody else that reads the emails and texts between us says i'm a sucker.

I hadn't heard from James at all since July 20, 2017 when he last emailed me and said "So at this point there is nothing else I can do for this situation".
Just return my funds, send the money paypal or instant transfer and Ill stop the dispute. Square never returned any of my money as was claimed.
 
This was an unfortunate situation and there was a delivery issues as stated, once we reached a point of non delivery or even the possibility I issued a refund immediately as I did explain and email.
I also kept in communication up until the point were I was informed by customer that she had requested a charge back via her credit card issuer, ontop of the refund there is not much I can do at that point..We do not directly handle credit cards, however once a third party requests a charge back its then out of my hands, meaning there is nothing I can physically do to stop it, the issuing bank releases the funds to customer, so the lack of communication was only because to my understanding the transaction had been completed, having heard nothing to contradict that, that was a safe mindset to have.
however it was not until today did I find out otherwise. I immediately contacted the customer and will continue to work the problem until it is resolved 100%. The customer also has my direct phone and email and always has an open line of communication if need be. Whenever there is an issue regardless of the situation our customers will never lose their money if there is an error on my part. Simple as that.
 
Rhode Island Reptiles said:
This was an unfortunate situation and there was a delivery issues as stated, once we reached a point of non delivery or even the possibility I issued a refund immediately as I did explain and email.
I also kept in communication up until the point were I was informed by customer that she had requested a charge back via her credit card issuer, ontop of the refund there is not much I can do at that point..We do not directly handle credit cards, however once a third party requests a charge back its then out of my hands, meaning there is nothing I can physically do to stop it, the issuing bank releases the funds to customer, so the lack of communication was only because to my understanding the transaction had been completed, having heard nothing to contradict that, that was a safe mindset to have.
however it was not until today did I find out otherwise. I immediately contacted the customer and will continue to work the problem until it is resolved 100%. The customer also has my direct phone and email and always has an open line of communication if need be. Whenever there is an issue regardless of the situation our customers will never lose their money if there is an error on my part. Simple as that.
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Can you provide proof that a refund was issued? Third party or not, there will be some kind of receipt for a refunded transaction. Or a bank statement showing the refunded funds withdrawn from your account. There will be a record of this somewhere.

If you do have proof of a refund, and the customer has proof they did NOT receive it, then you need to speak to your "third party" who handles the transactions and find out why they took money from you and did not return it to the customer.
 
senusenu said:
Can you provide proof that a refund was issued? Third party or not, there will be some kind of receipt for a refunded transaction. Or a bank statement showing the refunded funds withdrawn from your account. There will be a record of this somewhere.

If you do have proof of a refund, and the customer has proof they did NOT receive it, then you need to speak to your "third party" who handles the transactions and find out why they took money from you and did not return it to the customer.
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Where is the "LIKE" button:exactly:
 
Everything was screenshot and emailed to customer. Including the disputed transactions. We will work the problem and go from there. I will not be able to post transaction screenshots due to pci compliance issues. However we are in communication and working the problem.
When a resolution has been made I'll update this thread accordingly. Thanks to everyone for having such compassion in the reptile community, it's truely refreshing to see. Have a good night.
 
Rhode Island Reptiles said:
Everything was screenshot and emailed to customer. Including the disputed transactions. We will work the problem and go from there. I will not be able to post transaction screenshots due to pci compliance issues. However we are in communication and working the problem.
When a resolution has been made I'll update this thread accordingly. Thanks to everyone for having such compassion in the reptile community, it's truly refreshing to see. Have a good night.
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Well that's not true, The first "Request for Refund" was screenshot and sent to me, then a message saying balance to follow Monday, I never received a screenshot of the balance refunded, I requested it several times since my bank said that even before a refund is issued , when it has been run they get that information as pending but it wont post to me until it posts with them, however when they get the pending refund info they also post that it is pending so i know something is happening. In this case nothing has been pending ever, nothing has been refunded ever, and I only received one screenshot stating a refund not a refund in full but part of a refund had been requested.
 
Please check your email dates July 7, that shows the disputed amounts per your bank that I received
And again 7/7 with the screenshot of the refund that I requested, in addition the balance was also processed during the same weekend ahead of schedule which I emailed you an update of not having to wait for the $100.00 and that they would all go through at the same time.
Again, I'm not going to post any of this info on a public forum but would be happy to send them again if you needed me to.
 
Rhode Island Reptiles said:
Please check your email dates July 7, that shows the disputed amounts per your bank that I received
And again 7/7 with the screenshot of the refund that I requested, in addition the balance was also processed during the same weekend ahead of schedule which I emailed you an update of not having to wait for the $100.00 and that they would all go through at the same time.
Again, I'm not going to post any of this info on a public forum but would be happy to send them again if you needed me to.
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I have everything, I double checked amounts and dates before typing this out. The amount to be returned the following Monday was not $100.00 it was more. and when you finally answered via email not SS of refund requested that you sent it the same evening as you sent the first amount, you also said you added some to it to try to make up for all the problems. But only one SS or a return requested and it doesn't even matter, Square never returned any money, never even told the bank they were going to. its been a month not a week or two.
I will never do business with anybody that uses square ever again, they are impossible to get a hold of and don't respond to emails, square is all about square.
We agree this is a messed up situation, ball is in your park to fix it, ive been working on it to get taken care of but have hit an impasse, my copies of our emails and texts will be sent to the bank to continue the dispute unless you can make it right before that.
 
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