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Tampa Show

Ben,

Now you are contradicting yourself again. Now you are saying this was happening after the show was over and people were loading their cars and such. Of course there are major dealing going on then. But these things were not going on during the normal buisness hours of the show. Of course I go around and purchase as well as sell things during shut down for alot less than during the show. You very well may have purchased some balls for those prices and chondros at those prices at the end after the show but not one ball was for sale at $10 during the show. This is not really getting anywhere. You have stated that you are unhappy with your animals being stolen (which is terrible and I agree it should not have happened) and unhappy with your sales and your location. But it still does not mean that just because you did so poorly on sales that is was because everyone else was selling so much cheaper than you. I know for a fact that there were people there selling some of the same animals I had for sale at about $25-$50ea cheaper and I sold mine without a problem. From what I remember did you not have the tables on the end cap except for the table on the one side? Tony gave you an extra table at no charge to try and make you happy even though there really was no need to other than to try and make a happy customer.
I am sure we can all agree you are not happy with the show and you say you will not be doing the show any longer but as said before it was not and is not Tony's fault nor responsibilty.
 
reply to rk

No, I did not have all the tables except one. My table was the end with the sliding box/lexan display cases and Premium Herp was on the side with all the large boas in totes. So that meant his 8X8 space was the same 8x8 space mine was. Mr. Cueto was not giving me the space to be a nice guy and make me happy, he gave it to me because he sold me a booth, and then sold the same booth to Premium Herp. He just had us facing different directions out of the square. The table was given to me becuase there was a cancellation. If there had not been he would not have done anything!

Yes you are right I am not happy, and I will not be attending any of Mr. Cueto's shows in any state, he has also informed me I am not welcome-oh well


Ben Cole
 
I have done Tony's shows in Atlanta and Columbia for the last 4 years now and have ALWAYS been treated VERY kindly by Tony and his staff. Tony is VERY easy to work with and I think he puts on a good show. I know this isn't much, but when a show promoter that I see once or maybe twice a year can call me by name without me having to tell him, I think that shows he cares about his vendors. He provides free food to all of his vendors as well. What other promoter does that? And there was one instance where I had a problem with the vendor I was to be placed next to at a show and upon explaining it to Tony, he had me set up in a new spot in 5 minutes. And I am not a big time vendor by any means. I get one table most times(though at the last Atlanta show I was working two) and am still treated as if I buy 10.

Also, Ben, I am curious to see the correspondences you and Tony had. I find it highly doubtful Tony would be as rude and disrespectful as you claim, but I could be wrong, and I would like to see what was said.

When it comes to wholesale, you did not explain that you were running around at the end of the show buying animals cheap or making offers. If you went to a vendor at the end of a show and offered them $175 for an import chondro(which I think are wholesaling in the $150-175 range right now?), that is totally different than them having them on the table priced that low for the general public. You making an offer to vendor and them accepting it is totally different than the picture you appear to have been painting. The last half hour of a show is different than the rest of the TWO days it's going on. Almost everyone at that point is looking to unload things and will sell things cheap, ESPECIALLY when other VENDORS come to their tables and make offers.

And the vendors you mentioned, Ben Siegel, Regal, and Glades are not exactly wholesalers. Granted, they deal mostly in imported animals and sell for lower prices, but they are not exactly big wholesale houses like Strictly or Burgundy.

Your mention of Tony's staff possibly being involved in the theft of your animals I think is a bit much. Tony usually has a core staff that does all of his shows with him and I find it far more likely that another vendor snatched your animals. This is the reason I usually don't leave my animals on the table overnight at shows. NO matter what kind of security you have during show hours, if you leave your animals on the table overnight, I think that is an open opportunity for something to get stolen.

Oh, and Tony has NEVER advertised or claimed that his shows are CB only.

Either way, it's too bad that you weren't satisfied with Tony's show and that animals were stolen from you. Hopefully you'll do better at another show:)
 
I'll agree with the originator of this post about the negative experience of this show. This is the first year I had ever attended the Tampa show, and all I ever hear of it is how it is the next Daytona! Anyways??????? It was a hole in the wall compared to Daytona, not to mention cost more to get into between parking and admission and besides my friend Tom Carlton with Cypress Creek and Ben Siegel the rest of the show was completely over rated and over priced. The coordinator obviously hasn’t been doing this long and should go to a few more of Wayne’s shows before promoting his next. And I also don’t see where they come up with saying over 275 vendor booths?

It sucks you lost you animals It could in part be with how cluttered the tables were. Maybe he should have spread them out and made resource of the other half of the building.

And I guarantee you’re not the only one who will not be attending Tampa again.
 
reply

I was told that once my animals were vet checked they had to stay, so that is why I left them on the table over night.

I also never said Mr. Cueto was a captive bred show either. I was under the impression it would be mostly captive bred due to vet checks-but I never said it was going to be all captive bred.

I only now of a dozen or so shows in the u.s that are true captive bred only


Ben Cole
 
Ben,

Do you have emails or any other records of conversations with Tony? I think that is the only part of your situation that has yet to be established here. Everything else seems to have been hashed about rather thorougly. If you have recorded conversations in some form, I think several here would like to see them.
 
reply to david

Yes I do have some e-mail conversations with Mr. Cueto. I have left them absent since this was Mr. Cueto's private e-mail to me. I have sent it to a few people who have asked but did not post it as it is Mr. Cueto's writing.


Ben Cole
 
Ben,

I asked you to forward the e-mails to me and in your response you told me you had deleted them and had a print out you would read to me if I called you. If you still have them please forward them to me as I still would like to see the conversation between you and Tony.
 
I would also like to view these e-mails if you have them. You can forward them to me through the e-mail button on my profile.

But if you feel that you were treated poorly enough to come here and post all those negative about Tony's show(pretty much most of which are out of his control), I am surprised you won't post the e-mails here publicly.

But please, I am very interested in seeing the e-mails as it would be a side of Tony I have never seen or even heard of before.
 
Ben,

I understand your hesitancy, but they are Mr. Cueto's writings to you. Therefore, they are free for you to handle as you see fit.

I also have to say that I am somewhat at a loss to understand why it was necessary for you to make these accusations about Tony, but you are unwilling to show the evidences that support them. If his attitude was bad enough toward you to justify the start of this thread, surely it was bad enough to justify the posting of his emails. Doesn't that follow, logically?
 
I have sent it to a few people who have asked but did not post it as it is Mr. Cueto's writing.
Click to expand...

Ben,

Just whom did you send these emails from Tony to? I was one whom said I would like to see both sides of the conversation and a couple of other people here whom have asked to see the emails are stating that hey have not received them either.

And no, there is no legal reason why you can't post those emails. Basically once an email is sent via the internet, it is then public domain.
 
Buyer's perspective

I realize that this thread is geared mostly toward sellers which is why I've lurked till now, but Sean's post has prompted me to write.

I've been attending the Tampa show for years on and off and have always come away happy that I've gone. True the show is not as large as I've heard Daytona to be (this year will be my first time attending that show) but the show does attract a large crowd of buyers as well as quite a few quality sellers. I don't think that for the most part prices were inflated, of course there are always a few vendors who hold out for top dollar but that is their decision. I purchased 2 boas a normal and a morph, along with supplies and was happy with the prices I paid. The atmosphere is much more professional than any of the shows I've attended when I was living in New York. With the selection being greater and of better quality. As far as ticket prices I believe them to be pretty much the standard, parking I do wish cost less but I am/was willing to pay the additional $5.00 to park as were the hundreds/thousands (?) of others who attended.

To Ben my sympathy on your stolen animals. If the show requires that you MUST leave the animals on show premises then it should be the promoters responsibility to better secure the animals overnight. If it was just a matter of having your animals rechecked before vending the next day, perhaps the animals should have been removed from the show each evening.

On the topic of WC versus CB selling/prices I think that an educated customer can easily see the benefits of CB. One booth that I visited a few times had a lady selling CB Leopard Tortises, she was handing out care flyers as well as explaining to prospective purchasers the benefits of CB animals and purchasing directly from the breeder. Even though her prices were higher than those I'd seen elsewhere in the hall at the end of the show she was sold out, many others selling for up to $50.00 less were not. So price is not the only consideration especially to a client who is gently led to understand the advantages of CB over WC balls.

I'm sorry you both had bad experiences but as I'd hate to see some posts from an unhappy buyer & seller give any of those thinking of attending the show in the future second thoughts figured I'd just add my TAMPA SHOW THUMBS UP.

Meryl Lechner
 
I can vouch for the fact your animals were there @ 8pm Friday when the set-up closed and that there were only about 6 people besides us there when we left. Also that someone had to make a real effort to get to them, this was not done in a few minutes. We were also told there was someone spending the night in the Hall for security.

I am very sorry your lost them and we have spread info on them and the pictures in this area... What is really strange is there where far more valuable animals left there Friday night and they were not touched. We also know you were not the only one that had animals disappear during the same time frame.

But, in Tony's defense also, I don't think I have met many other people in the reptile industry that would make more of an effort to see that someone was satisfied, and does his best to coordinate these shows professionally. He not only promotes these shows, he tries to give back to the industry too and does many little extras to make it easier on the dealers and vendors.

I am sorry to see you felt you had a negative experience. We knew several other vendors that had excellent sales results and they were not wholesaling or discounting animals, in fact two of them has some of the most expensive at the show, 5 times the same species as others, but sold them. I think alot of it is reputation in this area and thats something you build in time.

Also, I want to point out the ATM machines not only in that hall ran out of money, but in the two adjacent halls also, I know, I was upset that I could not access any cash Sunday afternoon. Considering all factors, I think your location was more of a handicap than anything as your display was nice and also your animals.

Again, I am sorry that you had a bad experience, but knowing this show for over two years now, this is not the norm for most people attending or vending
 
It's me

Hey guys I was showing with Ben infact I was the table next to him. I had some of my stuff in Ben's display case and it was stolen too. me and Ben have done about 4-5 shows together and we never had any thing stolen or escape overnight from his display case. in fact he even put new born kingsnakes in there and they never escaped before, but they tried and they couldn't squeez out. The reason we know it was stolen because we found the display case in the same postion it was in and the locking mechanism was gone and later was found in a bin of drift wood that we brought and place next to the table. In order for the locking mechanism to be out of place and in somewhere els is clear evidence that someone has taken the animals in a hurry.

Ben has told me he deleted the e mail he recieved from Tony. I understand that Tony and his staff did everything they could to prevent the theft of any animals, but the fact remains that animals were stolen from the show over night, not just from Us but from couple other people too.

I did like the show, I would like to give Tony's show another try, but this time I'm gonna keep all the animals with me at the hotel every night.
That is my 10 cent about it. This is not to point finger or accuse anyone I'm just stating the fact.

Thanx

Winston
 
Ben,

Did you delete those emails from Tony? I have to tell you that I find that very distressing. First, you say that it was his attitude toward you that left you with such a bad taste in your mouth toward him (among other things too, but those have been addressed, I believe). Then, you say that you would not post his emails to you here because they were Tony's private writings. Then, you say you did send them to others who had asked for them (were they no longer private at that point?). Now, Winston tells us that you have deleted these emails?!?!?

I'm sorry, but if his attitude toward you was bad enough for him to be named in a negative light here on the BOI, it was your responsibility to provide proof to back up your assertions. I think you should post them here, or retract what you have said. It would seem to be the least (the very least) you could do at this point.

:(
 
interesting facts

I received the e-mail correspondence between Ben and Tony from Tony today. I am waiting for his ok for me to post it on here for everyone to see. I read and re-read the entire thing and Ben there was no where in the e-mail that he acted as you tried to make him sound. There are a few places where he was sarcastic (even by his own admissions) but Hell I would have said alot worse to you with the way you were acting toward him. I truly hope that Tony will allow me to post them here so that everyone can see EXACTLY what was said and transpired and can see you are not speaking the truth completely. This is not by any means saying that the theft of your animals did not happen but rather that your attitude toward Tony and your accusations and comments are not true about him being RUDE and attacking you.
 
I did delete the emails the day I got them. The people I mentioned I sent them to are friends and old roomates in my home state that I buy offspring from-not people asking for them from this site.
All this happened before I ever posted on the Boi or even looked at fauna classified for the first time. I only came here because Winston told me to look at this site, and I saw someone who asked "how was tampa". I DID NOT start this thread intentionally. When I replied to the tampa posting the webslave said my answer got into to many topics and I had to move it here becuase he new it was going to get busy.
I do have the printout in my herp business file cabinet. However, if i type it in-instead of uploading it someone is going toblast me that those are not Mr. Cueto's words.
The other thing is that what I interperate from a sentence may not be what someone else get's out of it. So i could spend an hour (since I suck at typing) typing this in and then half of you say "what's the problem?" and I have to spend another hour of my life explaining to everyone what I got out of the e-mail and why it pissed me off.

In my original few postings all I wanted is to say that I had a bad experience with the show and with Mr. Cueto, and that I and many others had animals stolen. Then due to the way I was treated I would never go back.
I believe I said most people or some had a good show, and that I wished I was one of them.
I was never saying ALL of Mr. Cueto's productions are bad, or he is a bad guy. I have said that my dealings with him on this occassion which happened to be my FIRST time ever dealing with him went sour-very sour.
I have tried to maintain a level of professionalism because that is the way I want to be treated. I get this feeling that all you guys want is for me to start mud-slinging and try to degrade him, so you can all prove me wrong and try burn me.
If you go by statistics alone, with the number of shows Mr. Cueto does, and his attendance, and his advertising, and his following here-I probably am wrong.
I will admit there were several people who did o.k.-heck one of my helpers sold out of his personal stock and wants to do the FIRE show! So here I have a friend proving me wrong also. All I have been trying to say without all the side tangents we have been on-is that I had a really bad show-in fact my worst ever-and that some of it was due to Mr. Cueto's advertising giving me a drastically different view of what the show was going to be, a different spectrum of animals than I though was going to be there, and just plain old bad luck.
Where I am mad is that when I had issues at the show not much of anything got done to help me, and what was offered was done so reluctantly. That prompted me to file a complaint. I got answers that said I was a liar, nieve, and a whiner. That is when I sent Mr. Cueto an e-mail saying I did not want to have any future business dealing and he replied I was not welcome anymore.
Everyone should remember that when this started with the original question "how was tampa" my response was my opinion. I'm glad some of you loved the show-if so great give Mr. Cueto your money and your business he'll appreciate it. But you will not convince me that the show was great to me.
 
reply to rk

Go ahead an post it you got my support. I feel that by the end of the e-mail he called me a liar, nieve, and a whiner. Now if you didn't get that then, or what he said didn't bother you then oh-well it didn't bother you, but it being called a lier, nieve, and a whiner pisses me off.

ben cole
 
another to rk

Please go back and read the first posting I ever did, and I believe you will see that it was worded very opinion based and non-attacking. Also I say that i do not want to disparage Mr. Cueto.

I believe that I have said repeatedly that I and I probably alone had a bad show- and my methods to reasoning were blah blah blah whater number of postings I have done.

So I don't know where you guys think I have these anger/ attacking type responses that make me hate Mr. Cueto , and that it was my sole reason for posting here was to verbally ruin him.

If you go back to that first posting it was opinion based and opinion alone.
 
Ben,

I saw your original post, and what the WebSlave told you there in the other forum, and it was NOT what you stated above. The WebSlave actually gave you some options on what you could do, and ONE of those options was to move the thread over here, using your full name.

The problem with this original post being in the other forum was not that it would draw a great deal of attention, but rather that you were naming someone and basically saying that he was a bad guy for the way he treated you, but that you had not used your full name and you had posted it in the wrong area. If you're going to be naming names and drawing conclusions about someone or their business practices, then the BOI is the place for such a thread. If names are not used, and you're simply asking for opinions about a generic, hypothetical situation, then that would go on the General business forum.

Another option the WebSlave gave you was to do nothing at all, and he would delete your original post all together. If you were not intent on making Tony Cuelo out to be a bad guy, why not let that happen as the WebSlave said it would?

Also, and I may be completely wrong about this one, I **believe** the WebSlave gave you the option of reposting the original post with Tony's name and other identifying information deleted, leaving it on the other forum. Maybe that was not an option offered you (but I think it was), but it certainly could have been done to remedy the situation, if your intent was never to post a bad guy comment about Tony.

You said that you did not want to post Tony's emails on here because it was his private writings to you. But it was fine for you to pass them around to your friends if they asked for them? Don't get me wrong, I think it would have been fine for you to post them all right here, but your position as stated is hypocritical, in my opinion.

Finally, let's just get this down to the brass tacks, if we could. You said you were given a bad spot to set up on, but Tony gave you an extra table to make up for the problem. You say your animals were stolen. I believe you, but even you have agreed that this is not Tony's fault. You say that you were led to believe that you ould not have to face certain types of competition at the show. Fair enough, but others who were there said that the competition was not that stiff from those selling the cheaper animals, and the initial figures you cited as validation for your complaint have been rebuffed by numerous sources (vendors also in attendance). All of this being true, the SOLE issue left in this thread with which to deal is the idea that Tony was rude to you in his reaction to your complaints. However, you have said a) You would not post them here, b) You deleted the emails the day you got them, c) You sent them to your friends, but not to anyone here on the BOI, even though d) several of us asked to see them!

I'm sorry Ben, but you simply have posted no evidence whatsoever for your accusations against Tony that you made in this thread. That would be "a little" more tolerable if your reputation was of such a great stature that everyone knew you and knew you would never lie to us, but since your story concerning the emails has been somewhat, shall we say "variable," I find it difficult to take your word about this at all. You say now that you just wanted to give your opinion about the Tampa show and not post a bad guy report on Tony? Fine; you did, but I'm afraid it says more about you than it does Tony or his shows.
 
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