• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    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....

The BOI will be coming to an end on 02-02-2020

ONE LAST EFFORT ...

Good mirning Webslave...

As you have put a lot of time into the BOI over the years.
Quite a few of us have been able to use it and avoid costly bad
transactions. Would it be too much to ask that you keep the
historical parts of it online without allowing any new entries.

You have stated you fought the good fight.... and it is/was
much appreciated by many of us... so why let this battleship
sink completely?

I have read your replies over the past couple months it appears
that it has caused you much anguish that we were not privy
to. What better way to make your point and Legacy then to
keep this Alive and Kicking though in an inactive state.

One of your recipients of your good work,

Charles
 
Cudos to Rich...

If it wasn't for the BOI I would probably have gotten burned on a deal or two. Not only was this a very useful tool but it did supply some awesome entertainment as scammers were outed. I'll miss reading this while having my morning coffee.

Thanks again to the admins and Rich for the work and frustration you put into the BOI.
 
ChondroPy said:
Good mirning Webslave...

As you have put a lot of time into the BOI over the years.
Quite a few of us have been able to use it and avoid costly bad
transactions. Would it be too much to ask that you keep the
historical parts of it online without allowing any new entries.

You have stated you fought the good fight.... and it is/was
much appreciated by many of us... so why let this battleship
sink completely?

I have read your replies over the past couple months it appears
that it has caused you much anguish that we were not privy
to. What better way to make your point and Legacy then to
keep this Alive and Kicking though in an inactive state.

One of your recipients of your good work,

Charles
Click to expand...

I hear what you are saying, but fact of the matter is that even the old threads are a potential liability. At least until a particular thread has passed the point where the statute of limitations steps in.

And to be perfectly honest, I'm not all that sure that it would be worthwhile having a BOI that was read-only and not able to have information updated about a person or business when new facts come to light. In some cases, that might not really be fair to bad guys that saw the light, and could even be dangerous if some good guys (as has happened in the past) turn bad.
 
Big Time Reptiles said:
images
Click to expand...

The BOI will not be here, where we can read it, but it will never be gone. It has changed the way reptile transactions are seen and done, so that buyers are no longer helpless when confronted with scammers, but realize they can research first, use payment methods that afford some backup, and use reputation and peer pressure to help when deals go wrong. Not many have had the courage and patience that Rich has shown, after all the opportunity to make and read reviews was fairly new territory in the reptile world when the BOI opened its doors.
We owe Rich our thanks for the tens of thousands of hours of hard work that went into the creation of the BOI. We owe Connie our thanks too, as I'm sure there were days when what went on here could not help but affect Rich. And we probably owe Rich about a zillion dollars for the cases of Excedrin he has taken over the years when a few of us got out of hand.

We owe the moderators thanks for their work, done without pay, and many times involving the drudgery of removing the perennial spammers, and their moderating efforts to keep the site the professional place it is. Their continuing work even after the BOI is closed will ensure the Fauna remains a quality site.

We owe the good geek Logician thanks for the behind the scenes technical work that kept the place open in the face of glitches, computer attacks, and the rest of the evil arcane world of bad geeks. I suspect that he has helped the BOI in secret ways we will never know, and as technology grows more complicated his work here will become even more challenging.

We owe those who posted here thanks, especially those who tried to help others, and those who had the courage to post about their transaction problems or the scammers who had taken their money. Rich provided the place and the means, but the BOI successes happened when all of you helped each other here.

We owe those a thank you who contributed funds for memberships and hope you will continue your support.

A very special thanks to those heart warming readers who would read especially egregious wrongs, such as children being done out of the reptile gifts they were supposed to get when their parents were scammed, and who donated funds or a critter to help the situation. Those you helped will never forget, and those who read of your good deeds will remember also.

Sometimes the BOI has been a bumpy ride, but I am honored to have been along, and I certainly pray that any good I've done will be remembered and any transgressions forgiven.
 
Lucille said:
We owe Connie our thanks too, as I'm sure there were days when what went on here could not help but affect Rich.
Click to expand...

Very well-said, Lucille! I wholeheartedly agree, and especially with that mention of Connie.

Just about everything we do affects our spouses/significant others; good or bad. I don't think it's possible, that through all the years of the BOI, and all the challenges, that Connie wasn't subjected to some of the overflow. I know that the vast majority of us take it in stride, because we are committed to our relationships, but I'm sure it wasn't smooth sailing at times.

Thank you Connie, and of course, Rich!

Kathy
 
Well, fudge..typing in the dark just doesn't work when you're not watching the screen, lol. Should have read, "Kudos to one and all" :IThankYou
 
WebSlave said:
I hear what you are saying, but fact of the matter is that even the old threads are a potential liability. At least until a particular thread has passed the point where the statute of limitations steps in.

And to be perfectly honest, I'm not all that sure that it would be worthwhile having a BOI that was read-only and not able to have information updated about a person or business when new facts come to light. In some cases, that might not really be fair to bad guys that saw the light, and could even be dangerous if some good guys (as has happened in the past) turn bad.
Click to expand...

So, I take it and or assume, the BOI is gone and NOT a read only file, correct?

Thanks Rich and everyone else, for this fantastic resource. It will be greatly missed.
 
Dyscophus antongilii said:
So, I take it and or assume, the BOI is gone and NOT a read only file, correct?

Thanks Rich and everyone else, for this fantastic resource. It will be greatly missed.
Click to expand...

Yep. BOI is gone. Wish it were otherwise, but people going elsewhere and abandoning their participation and support here had unavoidable consequences.
 
Facebook is no longer viable to sell animals on. Most people will have to post nice pictures and information about the animals but cannot indicate in any way they are for sale. They can always check ads.
 
Bill Lamoro said:
Facebook is no longer viable to sell animals on. Most people will have to post nice pictures and information about the animals but cannot indicate in any way they are for sale. They can always check ads.
Click to expand...

There will always be places on the web for people to sell their animals. The trick is finding a place that gets enough traffic so they can get enough eyes on their ads to have a fighting chance to actually sell them.

I suppose that those people who threw all of their eggs into the Facebook basket got quite a surprise when the rug got pulled out from underneath them. And then when they tried to go back to some places they used before to sell, some no longer existed. You all need to give such places a reason and the ability to keep on paying the bills. Otherwise one day the owners, with just a click of a button, just finds something better to do with their time.
 
For those who might have missed my earlier statement concerning the now closed Board of Inquiry:

WebSlave said:
Sorry, but I will not entertain any requests from anyone to do any research for information they are seeking that might be contained there.
Click to expand...
 
I actually checked the BOI when I was more active online. I would be willing to pay for the information on a monthly bases. I wish more people would help out. It's a shame.
 
barker109 said:
I actually checked the BOI when I was more active online. I would be willing to pay for the information on a monthly bases. I wish more people would help out. It's a shame.
Click to expand...

Without the interactive nature of peer review, comment, and support, I doubt that would be of much use to most people. The strength of the BOI used to be exactly because of the broad support it used to have. When that support went away, so did the power for it to help people. To now open it up to a very small subset of members would pretty much be useless, IMHO. And the older the information contained within it got every day, would become more and more "ancient history" anyway.

At several points along the way while the deadline was approaching, I had considered leaving it open to contributing members, but I kept on coming back to the argument I presented above, and decided against it for that reason. Well that, and the fact that liability for frivolous lawsuits would still remain. Yeah, it would be an archive, but of little value to most people, and negative value for me.
 
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