KelliH
doesn't drink the koolaid
First of all I want to say that this is something I did not want to have to do. I have given this individual every chance to do the right thing, and he has left me dissapointed and frustrated every time. Here is what happened:
We sent Terry Parks our group of Baird's Rat Snakes on breeding loan in late 2003. The group consisted of the following:
1.1 adult Mexican Baird's collected by my husband in 1985
1.1 Mexican Baird's F1's unrelated to the above pair from Alan Kardon
1.0 adult male Mexican from Don Gallagher
0.1 young adult female from the wild collected adults
1.1 cb adult Davis Mountains Texas Baird's produced by Michael Price
1.0 WC adult Edwards County Texas Baird's
2.0 WC Val Verde County
0.1 cb Juvenile Val Veree County produced by Aaron Mattson
A total of 12 snakes.
We sent the collection to him rather than sell them because they were very important to us. At the time my youngest son was 2 and I didn't have as much time as I used to. Also my large gecko collection was taking up a lot my time. As anyone that really knows me can testify, my bairdi collection meant a lot to me. That is why I chose not to sell them, but to send them to another bairdi enthusiast on loan. These are not "money maker" snakes, but they are very special animals. Terry Parks had purchased Bairdi from us in the past, and was active on the kingsnake Rat Snake Forum. After speaking with him about this, we decided to send the entire collection to him on loan.
Well, we never got anything from the 04 season, no babies, no cash. Steve finally emailed him a couple months ago and asked him what was going on with our bairdi and Terry sent him a very nasty reply. I have that email and several others saved on my old computer and will have to get it off there but I will post it here as soon as I can.
As time went on and we never got our share of the babies or any money we were a little concerned, but we understand things happen sometimes and that was really not a big deal. It was only $300. What was a big deal however, was that a friend of ours purchased 1.1 04 Texas Baird's from Terry, and paid for them in September of last year. He never received his snakes, and asked Terry for a refund in December of 04. Terry agreed to this, but never sent his his refund. Terry has essentially just stopped communicating with this guy, really blew him off. This upset us more than anything else, and we decided to pull the snakes from Terry and have him send them back to us. These are the last communications previous to this that we had gotten from Terry. He sent this email on 01/31/05-
Hi Steve -
Nice to hear from you. I had a real nice holiday. I hope you and everyone had one too. I'll be sending monies to you in a couple weeks. I will be sending monies to you by February 18. I hope that is O.K. with you and hasn't messed you up. I realize it's your monies.
Things look good for this coming season. I gave the brumating snakes fresh water over the weekend. They all appear to be doing well. The female and male Mexican bairds that you collected back in 1985 just amaze me. They fit almost all the requirements you would expect from a nice snake and for a pet snake.
I was replying to your email earlier and making a list of some things to do to ensure I give you better communication and things for this coming season and future. I was making the list and my email dropped out and I lost it so I will send it to you shortly. I want to make sure I have better communications and things for everyone this season. I didn't realize during the egg laying, egg hatching and shipping season that it was getting to the point it did. Let me get this first part out to you and the other will follow shortly.
Terry Parks
He then sent this email on 02/02/05-
Hi Steve -
I mentioned wanting to set up a few things to help ensure that I communicate with you and Kelli better this coming season.
1. I will let you know when I begin putting pairs together.
2. I will let you know when clutches are dropped and how many eggs.
3. I will give you a couple updates during incubation and note if any eggs are going bad.
4. I will let you know when eggs start pipping and give you updates on sex ratios.
5. I will let you know when I receive any monies and I will send your share as I receive it. This should make it better for both of us.
6. I will let you know when offspring are shipped. Not sure if you want to know this or not.
This is just some of my minimum thoughts Steve. Let me know if there are any other things or changes to improve from last season. I sold Texas and Mexican Bairds for $35 each last season. Is that O.K. or would you like me to put a different price on them?
Terry Parks
We heard nothing again from him and our friend that was waiting on his refund did not either, so we sent him the following email on 03/01/05-
Terry-
We are writing you this letter in order to inform you that we are
terminating the breeding loan on the bairdi. Please consider this a 15 day
notice to return our snakes and to send payment for our share of last year's
breeding season.
We did not want to have to resort to this action, however we have reasons to
terminate this loan:
1.) You have failed to send us any of our share of money you made in selling
the offspring sold by you, after several promises to do so.
2.) In at least one instance, you sold a customer of yours snakes, and never
shipped his animals, nor did you refund his money (customer paid in
September, asked for a refund in December, has not received it and has
received very little communication from you regarding this matter as of
today).
3.) When we inquired about our bairdi last year, your reply was way less
than civil. We were willing to overlook that however when combined with the
above two examples, it raises red flags for us.
We expect the snakes to be shipped back to us by way of Federal Express
Priority Overnight, UPS Next Day Air or Delta Dash, at your expense. As far
as payment for our share of babies sold, you can pay us by credit card, Pay
Pal ([email protected]) or you can include a postal money order or cashiers
check in the box with the snakes.
There is nothing further to discuss about this and we expect this to be
taken care of no later than March 16.
Sincerely,
Stephen and Kelli Hammack
H.I.S.S.
http://www.hisss.net
817-246-7740
We then received this email from him later that night of 03/01/05-
Steve and Kelli Hammock
I'll take them out of brumation and warm them up and start feeding them for their shipment to you.
Terry
Then on 03/14/05, he sent the following email-
Steve and Kelli -
I took your snakes out of brumation. I can ship them March 16 as you directed. I've offered meals to the snakes. All have eaten, except 4. Two of the Mexican and 2 of the Texas bairds are the ones that have not eaten. The Mexican from Don Gallagher and the female offspring from the two wild caughts are the ones that didn't eat yet. The 2 younger Texas bairds are the ones that didn't eat yet. I offered thawed frozen so far. I didn't bring them up a few degrees at a time as I normally do to try and get them ready to ship by March 16. The view on my end is to ship them the beginning of next week. Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday which is March 21 to March 23. I feel all of the snakes would fare better with the extra days prior to shipping. Just my thought. I will ship them on Wednesday as you have directed, but I want you to know they came out of brumation the evening I got this email (I didn't bring them up in temp a little at a time) and 4 have not eaten yet and they are still coming up to speed in my opinion. Let me know on the shipping.
Terry
We replied later that evening on the 14th with this-
Terry,
I discussed things over with Kelli tonight and we feel that we would like
for you to go ahead and get them to us when we asked.
So, we will be looking forward to a tracking number or airbill number on
Wednesday.
Please make sure to include a money order, cashiers check or credit card
number and expiration date for the payment due us on our share of the 2004
production. We do also take paypal, so let us know how you intend to make
payment.
A cashiers check or money order could be included in the box with the
snakes.
Just so you have it for the shipment, our shipping address is:
Steve Hammack
605 Panay Way Drive
Fort Worth, TX 76108
(817) 246-7740
Steve Hammack
H.I.S.S.
The next day, 03/15/05, Terry sent us this:
Steve -
I'll ship the snakes on Thursday, March 16. I will plan to ship them via Fedex. I'll email the airbill number to you after I drop them off on Wednesday.
Terry
We were confused because he said he was shipping them on Thursday the 16th, but the 16th was Wednesday. Then he said he would email us the airbill number after he drops them off on WEDNESDAY. We emailed him back and told him we assumed he meant Wednesday the 16th he would be shipping, and that we would email him and let him know when they arrived. He sent us this reply on Wednesday the 16th-
Steve -
I was thinking it would be Thursday. I am getting the snakes ready this evening, Wednesday, and will ship tomorrow Thursday via Fedex. You are correct that the 16th is Wednesday, but I was thinking Thursday. That's why I asked about holding off until Monday or early next week as I was thinking about shipping Thursday. I have planned to take the afternoon off work tomorrow, Thursday, to ship the package. The airbill number is 841632531912. It will be delivered Friday morning to this address:
Steve Hammack
(address deleted)
Fort Worth, TX (zip code deleted)
Terry
Well I received the package today. First of all he didn't even have the decency to ship them Priority Overnight, he sent them Standard Overnight, which meant they were guaranteed to arrive by 3PM instead of 10:30AM. He also did not even use a styro box, he sent them in a regular cardboard box with a piece of styro on top (lot of good that did). They were packed very poorly also, and no heat pack. When I started taking them out of the bags to inspect them I was horrified to see that they were infested with mites. There were literally mites crawling all over my hands whilke I was inspecting them. A couple of them were extremely thin and do not look good. Also, he only sent us 5 snakes back, not the 12 we sent him! AND included in the box were two very small 04 Texas Baird's that were labeled with our friend's name, and a very small 04 Mexican Baird's that I am not even sure why he sent. Now he had already agreed in writing several times to give our friend a full refund so I am not sure why he sent us the snakes for him.
After I looked over the snakes and realized they were not only mite infested, but that 7 snakes were missing from the box, I did call and leave a rather nasty message on his voice mail. I was crying and very upset because he had not sent all our snakes and also because of the condition the ones he did send were in. Then I check email and he sent this message to us at 9:18 this morning-
Hi -
I sent a package to you that will arrive on Friday, 3/18. I mentioned to you previously that some of the animals hadn't eaten yet since brumation. They aren't looking top notch yet. I was going to pack them all in a big shipping container, but decided to hold them back due to their condition. I will ship them next week.
I shipped the Hammack pair of Mexican Bairds and the Alan Kardon bloodline pair of Mexican Bairds. I shipped a Davis Mountain Texas baird that was owned by Michael Price (I have the mate to ship next week). In addition I shipped the pair of 04'CB Texas Bairds that were going to go to Mark Adams and a 04'CB Mexican Baird. The Mexican baird is the offspring from the Mexican Baird Pair #3 per the breeding pairs listing I sent you.
Terry
Now, we instructed him to send all of our animals back, and he did not let us know that he only sent 5 of them until today, and I did not receive the email until AFTER I received the shipment, so of course I was freaking out. At this point I am just very sad about the condition of the snakes and also very dissapointed (to say the least) in Terry. I can only hope that he does the right thing and we get the rest of our snakes back on Tuesday. I felt I had to post this story here to warn others. If he does send the other snakes back on Monday as he says he will, at least he could be partially redeemed, in some people's eyes.
Now I need to try and figure out where to set up these snakes and start treating them for a very bad mite problem. Thanks for reading.
We sent Terry Parks our group of Baird's Rat Snakes on breeding loan in late 2003. The group consisted of the following:
1.1 adult Mexican Baird's collected by my husband in 1985
1.1 Mexican Baird's F1's unrelated to the above pair from Alan Kardon
1.0 adult male Mexican from Don Gallagher
0.1 young adult female from the wild collected adults
1.1 cb adult Davis Mountains Texas Baird's produced by Michael Price
1.0 WC adult Edwards County Texas Baird's
2.0 WC Val Verde County
0.1 cb Juvenile Val Veree County produced by Aaron Mattson
A total of 12 snakes.
We sent the collection to him rather than sell them because they were very important to us. At the time my youngest son was 2 and I didn't have as much time as I used to. Also my large gecko collection was taking up a lot my time. As anyone that really knows me can testify, my bairdi collection meant a lot to me. That is why I chose not to sell them, but to send them to another bairdi enthusiast on loan. These are not "money maker" snakes, but they are very special animals. Terry Parks had purchased Bairdi from us in the past, and was active on the kingsnake Rat Snake Forum. After speaking with him about this, we decided to send the entire collection to him on loan.
Well, we never got anything from the 04 season, no babies, no cash. Steve finally emailed him a couple months ago and asked him what was going on with our bairdi and Terry sent him a very nasty reply. I have that email and several others saved on my old computer and will have to get it off there but I will post it here as soon as I can.
As time went on and we never got our share of the babies or any money we were a little concerned, but we understand things happen sometimes and that was really not a big deal. It was only $300. What was a big deal however, was that a friend of ours purchased 1.1 04 Texas Baird's from Terry, and paid for them in September of last year. He never received his snakes, and asked Terry for a refund in December of 04. Terry agreed to this, but never sent his his refund. Terry has essentially just stopped communicating with this guy, really blew him off. This upset us more than anything else, and we decided to pull the snakes from Terry and have him send them back to us. These are the last communications previous to this that we had gotten from Terry. He sent this email on 01/31/05-
Hi Steve -
Nice to hear from you. I had a real nice holiday. I hope you and everyone had one too. I'll be sending monies to you in a couple weeks. I will be sending monies to you by February 18. I hope that is O.K. with you and hasn't messed you up. I realize it's your monies.
Things look good for this coming season. I gave the brumating snakes fresh water over the weekend. They all appear to be doing well. The female and male Mexican bairds that you collected back in 1985 just amaze me. They fit almost all the requirements you would expect from a nice snake and for a pet snake.
I was replying to your email earlier and making a list of some things to do to ensure I give you better communication and things for this coming season and future. I was making the list and my email dropped out and I lost it so I will send it to you shortly. I want to make sure I have better communications and things for everyone this season. I didn't realize during the egg laying, egg hatching and shipping season that it was getting to the point it did. Let me get this first part out to you and the other will follow shortly.
Terry Parks
He then sent this email on 02/02/05-
Hi Steve -
I mentioned wanting to set up a few things to help ensure that I communicate with you and Kelli better this coming season.
1. I will let you know when I begin putting pairs together.
2. I will let you know when clutches are dropped and how many eggs.
3. I will give you a couple updates during incubation and note if any eggs are going bad.
4. I will let you know when eggs start pipping and give you updates on sex ratios.
5. I will let you know when I receive any monies and I will send your share as I receive it. This should make it better for both of us.
6. I will let you know when offspring are shipped. Not sure if you want to know this or not.
This is just some of my minimum thoughts Steve. Let me know if there are any other things or changes to improve from last season. I sold Texas and Mexican Bairds for $35 each last season. Is that O.K. or would you like me to put a different price on them?
Terry Parks
We heard nothing again from him and our friend that was waiting on his refund did not either, so we sent him the following email on 03/01/05-
Terry-
We are writing you this letter in order to inform you that we are
terminating the breeding loan on the bairdi. Please consider this a 15 day
notice to return our snakes and to send payment for our share of last year's
breeding season.
We did not want to have to resort to this action, however we have reasons to
terminate this loan:
1.) You have failed to send us any of our share of money you made in selling
the offspring sold by you, after several promises to do so.
2.) In at least one instance, you sold a customer of yours snakes, and never
shipped his animals, nor did you refund his money (customer paid in
September, asked for a refund in December, has not received it and has
received very little communication from you regarding this matter as of
today).
3.) When we inquired about our bairdi last year, your reply was way less
than civil. We were willing to overlook that however when combined with the
above two examples, it raises red flags for us.
We expect the snakes to be shipped back to us by way of Federal Express
Priority Overnight, UPS Next Day Air or Delta Dash, at your expense. As far
as payment for our share of babies sold, you can pay us by credit card, Pay
Pal ([email protected]) or you can include a postal money order or cashiers
check in the box with the snakes.
There is nothing further to discuss about this and we expect this to be
taken care of no later than March 16.
Sincerely,
Stephen and Kelli Hammack
H.I.S.S.
http://www.hisss.net
817-246-7740
We then received this email from him later that night of 03/01/05-
Steve and Kelli Hammock
I'll take them out of brumation and warm them up and start feeding them for their shipment to you.
Terry
Then on 03/14/05, he sent the following email-
Steve and Kelli -
I took your snakes out of brumation. I can ship them March 16 as you directed. I've offered meals to the snakes. All have eaten, except 4. Two of the Mexican and 2 of the Texas bairds are the ones that have not eaten. The Mexican from Don Gallagher and the female offspring from the two wild caughts are the ones that didn't eat yet. The 2 younger Texas bairds are the ones that didn't eat yet. I offered thawed frozen so far. I didn't bring them up a few degrees at a time as I normally do to try and get them ready to ship by March 16. The view on my end is to ship them the beginning of next week. Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday which is March 21 to March 23. I feel all of the snakes would fare better with the extra days prior to shipping. Just my thought. I will ship them on Wednesday as you have directed, but I want you to know they came out of brumation the evening I got this email (I didn't bring them up in temp a little at a time) and 4 have not eaten yet and they are still coming up to speed in my opinion. Let me know on the shipping.
Terry
We replied later that evening on the 14th with this-
Terry,
I discussed things over with Kelli tonight and we feel that we would like
for you to go ahead and get them to us when we asked.
So, we will be looking forward to a tracking number or airbill number on
Wednesday.
Please make sure to include a money order, cashiers check or credit card
number and expiration date for the payment due us on our share of the 2004
production. We do also take paypal, so let us know how you intend to make
payment.
A cashiers check or money order could be included in the box with the
snakes.
Just so you have it for the shipment, our shipping address is:
Steve Hammack
605 Panay Way Drive
Fort Worth, TX 76108
(817) 246-7740
Steve Hammack
H.I.S.S.
The next day, 03/15/05, Terry sent us this:
Steve -
I'll ship the snakes on Thursday, March 16. I will plan to ship them via Fedex. I'll email the airbill number to you after I drop them off on Wednesday.
Terry
We were confused because he said he was shipping them on Thursday the 16th, but the 16th was Wednesday. Then he said he would email us the airbill number after he drops them off on WEDNESDAY. We emailed him back and told him we assumed he meant Wednesday the 16th he would be shipping, and that we would email him and let him know when they arrived. He sent us this reply on Wednesday the 16th-
Steve -
I was thinking it would be Thursday. I am getting the snakes ready this evening, Wednesday, and will ship tomorrow Thursday via Fedex. You are correct that the 16th is Wednesday, but I was thinking Thursday. That's why I asked about holding off until Monday or early next week as I was thinking about shipping Thursday. I have planned to take the afternoon off work tomorrow, Thursday, to ship the package. The airbill number is 841632531912. It will be delivered Friday morning to this address:
Steve Hammack
(address deleted)
Fort Worth, TX (zip code deleted)
Terry
Well I received the package today. First of all he didn't even have the decency to ship them Priority Overnight, he sent them Standard Overnight, which meant they were guaranteed to arrive by 3PM instead of 10:30AM. He also did not even use a styro box, he sent them in a regular cardboard box with a piece of styro on top (lot of good that did). They were packed very poorly also, and no heat pack. When I started taking them out of the bags to inspect them I was horrified to see that they were infested with mites. There were literally mites crawling all over my hands whilke I was inspecting them. A couple of them were extremely thin and do not look good. Also, he only sent us 5 snakes back, not the 12 we sent him! AND included in the box were two very small 04 Texas Baird's that were labeled with our friend's name, and a very small 04 Mexican Baird's that I am not even sure why he sent. Now he had already agreed in writing several times to give our friend a full refund so I am not sure why he sent us the snakes for him.
After I looked over the snakes and realized they were not only mite infested, but that 7 snakes were missing from the box, I did call and leave a rather nasty message on his voice mail. I was crying and very upset because he had not sent all our snakes and also because of the condition the ones he did send were in. Then I check email and he sent this message to us at 9:18 this morning-
Hi -
I sent a package to you that will arrive on Friday, 3/18. I mentioned to you previously that some of the animals hadn't eaten yet since brumation. They aren't looking top notch yet. I was going to pack them all in a big shipping container, but decided to hold them back due to their condition. I will ship them next week.
I shipped the Hammack pair of Mexican Bairds and the Alan Kardon bloodline pair of Mexican Bairds. I shipped a Davis Mountain Texas baird that was owned by Michael Price (I have the mate to ship next week). In addition I shipped the pair of 04'CB Texas Bairds that were going to go to Mark Adams and a 04'CB Mexican Baird. The Mexican baird is the offspring from the Mexican Baird Pair #3 per the breeding pairs listing I sent you.
Terry
Now, we instructed him to send all of our animals back, and he did not let us know that he only sent 5 of them until today, and I did not receive the email until AFTER I received the shipment, so of course I was freaking out. At this point I am just very sad about the condition of the snakes and also very dissapointed (to say the least) in Terry. I can only hope that he does the right thing and we get the rest of our snakes back on Tuesday. I felt I had to post this story here to warn others. If he does send the other snakes back on Monday as he says he will, at least he could be partially redeemed, in some people's eyes.
Now I need to try and figure out where to set up these snakes and start treating them for a very bad mite problem. Thanks for reading.
Shoot never fails, I spend 10 minutes two finger typing something, and Wes gets a point across in a few words. Seriously though Wes from the sounds of it, if you went anywhere near him we'd have to treat you for mites after that.
