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    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Bad Guy Sellers Beware of John Franco!

The seller/OP needs to step back here and think about how many people will avoid dealing with her because of this issue. I know she thinks she is righteously sticking to her TOS, but she is only hurting herself.

I would never buy from Mariah after seeing this thread. A seller should want happy customers more than they want to "win" over a mix up and take someone's money because of a TOS. I mean, win the battle but lose the war......buyer is out money and the seller is out reputation and most likely out customers down the road. Lose-lose scenario. Not a smart business plan at all. (And I am not defending problem buyers either; the buyer made a mistake here too but I still think the seller is wrong).


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tlmoon said:
The seller/OP needs to step back here and think about how many people will avoid dealing with her because of this issue. I know she thinks she is righteously sticking to her TOS, but she is only hurting herself.

I would never buy from Mariah after seeing this thread. A seller should want happy customers more than they want to "win" over a mix up and take someone's money because of a TOS. I mean, win the battle but lose the war......buyer is out money and the seller is out reputation and most likely out customers down the road. Lose-lose scenario. Not a smart business plan at all. (And I am not defending problem buyers either; the buyer made a mistake here too but I still think the seller is wrong).


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Click to expand...


I agree.

Yes, the buyer has some culpability, just not as much as the seller. The seller shouldn't profit from misdirection and almost outright lies.


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264 posts, 11,032 views, I hope this was worth keeping $150 :ack2:

Amazing to see people throwing their reputation out the window just like this.

Sometimes being the bigger person is better than wanting to be right maybe she will have learn a lesson from this, because now when a potential buyer will google her name this will show up, and this paint a less than flattening picture.
 
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1456333593.542255.jpg

Mariah Peterson

Dalmatian Nation


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That post summery saying "Mariah basically scammed him out of $150" right there front and center is pretty epic fail on her part.

I hope it was worth being memorialized on Google for a measly 150 bucks.
 
I have been encouraging him to do so.

Mariah Peterson (Dalmatian Nation) deserves to have a red x by her name.


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Snake-Queen said:
Mariah Peterson (Dalmatian Nation) deserves to have a red x by her name.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Definitely won't be doing business with an individual such as Mariah.

This all could have been avoided had she just refunded the full amount and not gone so far as to post a bad guy thread. Really? She continuously refers to the animal as a female. Although the ad said "poss female", the larger picture she painted throughout the entire conversation with the buyer was that this gecko was a female.

Should have given him his money back and kept your gecko and avoided all this drama.

I hope that John Franco will start his own bad guy thread aimed at Mariah, as I only see one bad guy here and that's her.

Beyond ridiculous and to see this have dragged out for so long is mind baffling. Refund him his money and move on.
 
TeguBuzz said:
Agreed. Definitely won't be doing business with an individual such as Mariah.

This all could have been avoided had she just refunded the full amount and not gone so far as to post a bad guy thread. Really? She continuously refers to the animal as a female. Although the ad said "poss female", the larger picture she painted throughout the entire conversation with the buyer was that this gecko was a female.

Should have given him his money back and kept your gecko and avoided all this drama.

I hope that John Franco will start his own bad guy thread aimed at Mariah, as I only see one bad guy here and that's her.

Beyond ridiculous and to see this have dragged out for so long is mind baffling. Refund him his money and move on.
Click to expand...


:iagree:

This thread, though long and boring, has actually turned out to be quite useful! I have added not one, but two names to my "Don't Do Business With" List!
~Beau
 
TeguBuzz said:
Beyond ridiculous and to see this have dragged out for so long is mind baffling.
Click to expand...

I agree.

The gecko people I see here regularly are pretty nice people, committed to customers and committed to the well being of their geckos.

But it is conceivable that some people might be into geckos just as an ego trip, going around and sticking it to their customers, starting Bad Guy threads, and in general acting as if they were part of a Snotty Gecko Clique.
I can see the members getting together and having a few, and trading stories about how they made sure to discipline their customers for having the nerve to want what they were told they were going to get.
 
GOOD! I am SO glad this was resolved in the buyer's favor!

If the Seller has any common sense, she will see that (in the long run) this was resolved in HER favor as well! She should learn a very important lesson regarding the wording she uses in her advertisements and when discussing her products from this BOI!

~Beau
 
Glad you received your money back John! As I have said before, it is amazing to see these things turn around. Add my name to the "do not do business with Mariah Peterson" list. Never know what 150 dollars can buy you these days (bad reputation).
 
BeauBoi said:
GOOD! I am SO glad this was resolved in the buyer's favor!

If the Seller has any common sense, she will see that (in the long run) this was resolved in HER favor as well! She should learn a very important lesson regarding the wording she uses in her advertisements and when discussing her products from this BOI!

~Beau
Click to expand...

Maybe if it had been by her volition. It may not have quite the same ring if PayPal makes the call.
 
Oh good! I've been watching and reading this thread and was hoping that Mariah would do the right thing, but instead it turned out that paypal did the right thing. (Notice I said hoping, not expecting. I never expected her to admit that she was wrong and then correct it. Nope; that would have been foolish of me.)

Mariah, You have shot your own reputation by handling this transaction in the manner that you have. Your hands are not bound by your TOS, especially when you do not blatantly tell the customer that it is a possible female. Yes it was written in the ad, (in a very sneaky manner,) but you never once force fed the customer the idea that it was a possible female. You fed him the idea that it was for certain a female. If I have a seller constantly using the pronouns "SHE, or HER" then I am going to assume that it is a female, even if the seller slyly put it in the ad as a "poss."

Yes the buyer should have read and re-read the ad to make sure that it was something he was willing to risk. But the seller (that's you Mariah) should have taken it upon herself to make sure that due-diligence was done on her end as well. Which means that you should have pointed it out to the customer several times that it was a "poss" female.

Even with smart and engaged customers you have to make sure that they understand what something is, and what it is not. It doesn't matter if that's all they deal in, or if they're a newbie. You have to spell it out for every customer so YOUR rear-end is covered. (We deal with this when we sell on eBay. We have to spell everything out for every customer as if they knew nothing about what they are buying. That way the customer cannot say that we did not tell them about whatever it is we sold them. We have to cover our bases, and at the same time give the customer all information that they might or might not know.)

I'm just glad to see that paypal refunded the buyer in this particular transaction. The seller seemed like she was all too happy to accept the money, but when it came to dealing with the customer she couldn't give a rat's meow.
 
Having PayPal "force' the refund is actually worse than her having done it herself as it shows she still had no intention of making said refund!
As far as I see it she is still not a person I would EVER contemplate doing business with.
Glad John got his money back but it is no thanks to Mariah whatsoever!
 
Mistyck said:
Even with smart and engaged customers you have to make sure that they understand what something is, and what it is not. It doesn't matter if that's all they deal in, or if they're a newbie. You have to spell it out for every customer so YOUR rear-end is covered. (We deal with this when we sell on eBay. We have to spell everything out for every customer as if they knew nothing about what they are buying. That way the customer cannot say that we did not tell them about whatever it is we sold them. We have to cover our bases, and at the same time give the customer all information that they might or might not know.)

.
Click to expand...


:iagree:

This is exactly my thoughts.


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John put the word female in the note section of the Paypal invoice. That's why Paypal ruled in his favor, the seller couldn't deliver the product as described. According to Paypal, John was paying for one female gecko and Mariah couldn't fulfill the order as described in the note.
 
I don't know if it is a matter of paypal refunding the money or not. It is my understanding that when you file a claim, paypal locks assets on that account. So it might be hard for her to refund the money anyway. if you have 151 dollars on that account and paypal locks 150 dollars of it, it makes it hard to pay someone back. I don't fully understand all the rules for paypal either so I should probably store it.

Unfortunately, the refund was not the only thing I was hoping to get out of Ms. Peterson. I was hoping she would do a refund, apologise for her behaviour, and learn from her mistakes.

Heck, I am now down to just hoping she learns from her mistakes and placing her on my do not buy from list.
 
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