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Inquiry Sunshine Serpents

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poomwah

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Has anyone dealt with sunshine serpents?
We saw an ad on KS, for a snake, we really loved it. I contacted sunshine serpents about it, and the response was prompt and polite. I was told the price for the snake as well as shipping. We had an issue with the weather that caused some added expenses. So we had to wait. I told them about it, they seemed understanding and told them to just let them know .
So, I finally let them know that we were ready to get her. And even though it says nothing in the ad about not selling lone females( in fact, the ad doesn't even mention males, the ad is for ONE snake), they won't sell her to us now unless we buy a male as well. They will sell us a male by itself, but not the female that was the one we agreed on earlier.
Anyone dealt with them? What are your thoughts and experiences.
It seems pretty bad to me to agree to sell someone a snake for a particular price, then when it comes time to purchase switch it out with something else or make them buy extra .
 
Good or bad, many colubrid breeders have the policy of not selling lone females or breaking up trios (one male and two females). Many breeders also price their female snakes higher.

From what it sounds like, you guys just had a verbal agreement on the sale of the female cornsnake. Unless a deposit was placed, or money already exchanged hands, you are kinda stuck with the breeder deciding to up her price or make a purchase of a male a prerequisite.

Things could have changed in the time you needed to come up with the purchase money.

However, if the classified ad is still up, it's worth mentioning that to the breeder. I've had to raise prices on babies, but if somehow I forgot to update or remove an ad that mentioned the lower price, I always honored it. Good luck!
 
Thanks for the reply. The ad was up and unchanged until I asked the breeder for clarification, and the. He took the ad down. Even as he was telling me, that I would need to buy a male in order to get the female that we had discussed, the ad was still for one lone female.
 
Would you mind posting the name of the person with whom you were corresponding, and the email address used?
 
For what it's worth, I bought a pair of bulls fron Daniel a few years back shipped to me in Pa. Perfect transaction, perfect shipping and beautiful healthy snakes. I'd do dusiness with him any day.
 
I did a transaction with Daniel a couple years back for a one of a kind, kind of expensive snake. No issues at all with the transaction, Daniel is good people.
 
I have noticed in a few of his ads he will have males and females listed separately but often times in the ads for the female animals it will say "No lone females sold"

As stated above, it appears you two may have had a verbal agreement for a female, or possibly he was just quoting you a price for a single animal and was confused what you were asking.

It's common practice to only sell animals in pairs.
There is always the option of going with another breeder if you are unsatisfied with the way a certain person does business, as there are numerous colubrid breeders that will more than likely have what you want.

I've talked with Daniel in the past regarding his "devils garden" corns and he seems like a pretty honest and straight forward person.
 
He does seem like a really decent guy. He even told me that he would have no trouble holding the animal for me after payment until the weather warmed up enough for shipping. I thought that was very generous of him.
I know what you mean about it being common practice to sell pairs, trios, or only lone males. But the ad was for a lone female, didn't mention anything about males, and nowhere in the ad did it say anything about having to buy in pairs. Had it said that, I wouldn't have expected any differently. He knew which specific animal I wanted. He had even sent me the link to the ad, the price was in the ad.
I don't know, I'm glad to hear that he's a stand up guy. Its just kinda depressing that the deal changed all of the sudden. Now I have to come up with extra money to get the one we really wanted. Not to mention having to find room for another snake , but then again, that last part is a problem we would all love to have right, LOL.
 
poomwah said:
He does seem like a really decent guy. He even told me that he would have no trouble holding the animal for me after payment until the weather warmed up enough for shipping. I thought that was very generous of him.
I know what you mean about it being common practice to sell pairs, trios, or only lone males. But the ad was for a lone female, didn't mention anything about males, and nowhere in the ad did it say anything about having to buy in pairs. Had it said that, I wouldn't have expected any differently. He knew which specific animal I wanted. He had even sent me the link to the ad, the price was in the ad.
I don't know, I'm glad to hear that he's a stand up guy. Its just kinda depressing that the deal changed all of the sudden. Now I have to come up with extra money to get the one we really wanted. Not to mention having to find room for another snake , but then again, that last part is a problem we would all love to have right, LOL.
Click to expand...

Seth,

To me, the seller is at fault for the confusion.

I know nothing but outstanding things about Daniel/Sunshine Serpents, as I have mutual friends that know him, and he has a great reputation.

What I do not understand though, is why did he quote you a price for the female alone, you wanted with the shipping, at first, but then, later on, tells you that he can't sell a lone female without a male? That makes no sense to quote you the complete price of a female shipped, when he was thinking that you should be buying a pair to begin with. Why didn't he tell you UP FRONT and at the BEGINNING of the correspondence for the transaction, that he would not sell her by herself? Him quoting you the price of the female with shipping would lead anyone to believe that they would be buying that one snake, not a pair!

Also, I just looked at 8 ads for female snakes posted by Sunshine. Not one ad mentions anything about females not being sold without a male. NOT ONE AD!

If that is Daniel's policy to not sell females without a male, that is fine, but the least they could do is actually post that in ALL of their ads. That way, there is no confusion.

And if it were me selling the snake, I would then, because I did not list what I meant to say in the ad, making it not the problem of the buyer but my own problem that I need to fix on my end, honor our agreement and sell you the female by herself. To me, that would be the only reasonable, professional, and courteous thing to do, as this was not your mistake.

Since you are actually the one being inconvenienced, by now being told you have to buy a male to get this female, when again, there was no way for you to know that he would not sell you a lone female ( as no ads state that ) you can always just not do the deal and move on as well. There are plenty of other breeders out there.

Just my two cents.
 
Poomwah--

If it were me, and I were the seller? And you calmly (and respectfully) mentioned/pointed out my mistake in my classified ad, I would honor that price and ship out that lone female.

Maybe nicely strike up a conversation? Can't hurt.

(And it makes for good returning customers, lol)
 
I have considered Daniel Parker a very good friend for many, many years. I have done quite a few breeding loans with him and consider him to be a very honest and caring person. I would not hesitate recommending him to anyone.

That said, it is certainly possible that he made a mistake or that there was some sort of misunderstanding. I personally would generally honor a mistake in an ad, but I don't know enough about the situation to say whether he should or not in this particular case, if that is what happened. But I do know him well enough to say that if a mistake was made, it was an honest mistake. I know he has gone out of his way to make customers happy in the past, and that most people who have dealt with him have been very happy.

My advice would be to give him a call and ask him if he remembers making the offer you stated, and ask why he has changed his mind. Maybe there is some good reason, or maybe there was some misunderstanding that he can clear up for you. But I would give him the benefit of the doubt, considering his repuation for integrity and customer satisfaction.
 
Thank you discern for your view pin the subject.
Magic and Kathy. Thank you for the advice. I sent Daniel an email about it. I hope I didn't come off as a jerk
It said:
"Daniel, I'm sorry for all the emails, I'm just confused and trying to understand. Why is it when I told you last week that I wanted her, you never said anything about having to buy a male to be able to buy her? Also, why did the ad not mention anything about having to buy a pair. The ad was for one female yearling. It didn't even mention that you had males available,let alone that they had to be purchased to get the female in the ad. Was that always a requirement and it just wasn't mentioned or is it something you decided recently? Again, I'm sorry for bugging you, I'm just trying to understand. We really loved her and have been checking several times a day to make sure the ad was still up so we knew if she was still available."
I am waiting for a response. I hope I haven't ticked him off
 
poomwah said:
Thank you discern for your view pin the subject.
Magic and Kathy. Thank you for the advice. I sent Daniel an email about it. I hope I didn't come off as a jerk
It said:
"Daniel, I'm sorry for all the emails, I'm just confused and trying to understand. Why is it when I told you last week that I wanted her, you never said anything about having to buy a male to be able to buy her? Also, why did the ad not mention anything about having to buy a pair. The ad was for one female yearling. It didn't even mention that you had males available,let alone that they had to be purchased to get the female in the ad. Was that always a requirement and it just wasn't mentioned or is it something you decided recently? Again, I'm sorry for bugging you, I'm just trying to understand. We really loved her and have been checking several times a day to make sure the ad was still up so we knew if she was still available."
I am waiting for a response. I hope I haven't ticked him off
Click to expand...

Daniel's a nice guy and a big boy. I'd say you wrote him a good email. I'd put my money on a positive outcome.
 
We thank our friends and customers for their kind words and support. The vast majority of our customers are very happy with their animals and service from us.

Our sales policies are, for the most part, industry standard and can be viewed here on our website:
http://www.sunshineserpents.com/Sales.htm

To address the issue at hand, the customer making the inquiry has been in contact with us since January 21 (around two and a half weeks). He originally inquired about babies we had available. He asked about hatch dates, prey items, prey size, frequency of feeding. He requested photos of all available offspring.

We told him about a yearling female that we were going to offer for sale if he was interested. He was interested in that. We photographed that one and sent him a pic. We also posted an ad for that female a little later.

He sent more questions on the appetite, temperment, and handleability of that snake. In the meantime, we were fielding other emails and questions about the same animals. He sent another email asking about the length of the snake.

Later, we made three yearling males available of the same type. The customer requested photos of all of those and photos of the parents of all the yearlings, which we sent. In the meantime, we had all of those animals for sale at a reptile show last weekend.

Lone males are often difficult to sell without a female and we generally prefer not sell females alone if there are males available. We encouraged the customer to buy a pair or a lone male. When males outnumber females, a lone male is a more reasonable option for a pet snake, while a breeder would be interested in a pair. Our last message to this customer was actually about shipping. His response to that email, which we checked this morning, was about wanting just the lone female. I have not yet had a chance to respond to that.

We never made a verbal agreement to sell any of the animals. If we held animals for all customers asking about them, half of our inventory would be in limbo all the time. Payments reserve animals. We even offer a deposit system for customers who are unable to pay the entire cost of an order at once.

It was not our intent to specifically try to switch up the deal on this customer. However, it must be understood that we are dealing with many customers at the same time. Our inventory is constantly changing. Sometimes, we give customers that show a special interest first crack at an animal before even offering it to the public, as we did here. Many customers send an email asking a few questions. We answer those and then they send a payment. We usually are able to ship in short order. These tend to be the customers that are most happy. However, if the customer does not make a commitment, we offer the same opportunity to other people. If we have a chance to pair up a male with a female, we also do that.

It has become clear that he has his heart set on the lone female. We will probably just go ahead and sell him that snake if he is still interested. We do the best we can to satisfy our customers whenever possible and our reputation in the industry and our loyal customer base will support that.

Please feel free to check our website (www.sunshineserpents.com) or contact me ([email protected]) to answer any other questions.
Happy Herping!
Daniel Parker
 
Daniel, I'm sorry for any trouble I caused. I hope you are not offended by anything I posted. I was just looking for opinions, which I thankfully got. If anything this thread should help others decide to do business with you.
Thank you so much for your offer. We are going to be so happy with her. Paypal has been sent.
Thank you everyone for the information, advice, and opinions. Thank you Dan for being such a good businessman and such a decent person.
And just in case anyone was curious about the little girl we fell in love with....
 
Why on Earth would you require someone to buy a male with something as common as a Yellow/Everglades Rat Snake? Seems pretty pointless and a good way to run off potential customers.

Had it been me, and AFTER payment arrangements had been made, and the seller says "Oh by the way, you HAVE to buy a male with her" I'd tell them to take a hike and spend my $ elsewhere.
 
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