Top Shelf Exotics (Inquiry)

[Cat_72]

Why do they need your password? That seems a bit odd to me?

 

[KNOBTAIL]

Has anyone sent

Chris any certified letters with a return receipt. Also are their any records indicating who actually owns the address that Chris is residing at or working at. This is public information.

Let me also point out, which can be a very effective motivation. If their is a mortgage, and the bank is notified of impending litigation either civil or criminal, depending on the way the mortgage is written up, they may or can call in the note. This is not uncommon for banks, since they want to insure that they are protected first from any impending legal problems.

 

[SVT Snake]

I will be contacting everyone that has sent me an e-mail thus far later this evening. In the mean time, I suggest contacting pay-pal as Maki suggested. The more complaints they get the more likely they are to help.

***If you purchased an animal from TSE and have not recieved it, contact me with your e-mail address if you would like to be added to our list.***

 

[SVT Snake]

Does anyone have the address for Chris/TSE?

 

[PaulSage]

Good Idea!
Has anyone contacted KS to see if they might provide a list of TSE's customers who filed a complaint?

By the way, I did save the KS thread before it was deleted so if anyone wants to see it, just send me an email (link below). Sorry if someone else already mentioned that--I haven't read this whole thing.

 

[kmurphy]

Let me also point out, which can be a very effective motivation. If their is a mortgage, and the bank is notified of impending litigation either civil or criminal, depending on the way the mortgage is written up, they may or can call in the note. This is not uncommon for banks, since they want to insure that they are protected first from any impending legal problems.

Banks are very well protected with the mortgage note and they won't call in the note for things like this. They may call it in if Chris tries to change ownership or transfer title to an LLC etc. but even then it is rare as long as the mortgage is being paid and they're covered(which they are.) There is nothing in the note that states Chris has to remain an upstanding citizens in order to keep the property. No matter who attaches the property they can't circumvent the note.

If Chris has commercial loans then they may be in jeapordy because they're only as good as his business. Even if the commercial loan dept has liens on Chris's property they're out of luck if there is a mortgage.

I have the link for the Erie County Clerks office for researching deed etc. I didn't see any entrie for TSE/Chris Johnson after the one I posted earlier so it
can be assumed he still owns the property. There are a lot of Chris Johnson entries but there is no way to match them to this C.Johnson. If you want the link let me know.

 

[tejasranger]

That's curious, Chris/Pat/Glenn/Doug/Sybil have, according to Chris, been Shipping, Shipping, Shipping for the last two weeks. Yet no one has responded to the poll, that they had received animals in the last two weeks. Are they shipping via Pony Express? Chris could this be another lie? Shame on you.

 

[nicolai]

I just visited the TSE site and am getting a big white line accross the screen where "contact us", "TOS", "warranty" , "about us" and all that other stuff was. Is it my computer or did he get rid of it all?

 

[Scott Ashton]

I just visited the TSE site and am getting a big white line accross the screen where "contact us", "TOS", "warranty" , "about us" and all that other stuff was. Is it my computer or did he get rid of it all?

Time to reboot.

 

[nicolai]

Maybe he blocked me or something. i tried atleast 10 different sites and it is only on that site????? By the way, My brother said it might be advisable to quickly hire a P.I. to do some video and background stuff on CHris in case he is moving stuff and also find any history on him. He said a lot of PI's will do flat fe work and run about 200.00-500.00. Just an idea in case no one already did that and has someone watching him right now.

 

[Lizard Lair]

I have been watching this thread very closely and have refrained from posting, thinking Chris would finally come through and overcome all of these problems. I believed he was truly sick and would make good as soon as he could on his deals. But continuing to post when he said he’d be unavailable has put a lot of doubt in my mind. I’ve got a problem with TSE also and was giving him as much time as possible after this thread started to make things right with me.

Last November Chris and I agreed to a trade of the following adult breeders: 1.3 tangerine amel fat tail geckos, .1 peach amel fat tail and .3 fatties het for striped tangerine amel. In return Christ would send me 1 Mack female leopard gecko het for Rainwater Patternless. I shipped November 7th, and Chris received them and posted on Fauna pictures of them (except the peach amel) and his satisfaction with the trade. (http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=71806&highlight=lizard+lair). I received my Mack female from him on the 9th. (she can be seen on his available page) On the 10th I notified him the gecko had serious problems and sent him an MPEG of her trying to walk. We both agreed she probably had MBD. and I would return her for an exchange. I kept her for a few days before the return shipment because I did not want her to go through 2 shippings within one week.

11/10/05
I could not make out much from the videos, but if you have any doubt whatsoever regarding the health or condition I’ll be happy to swap her out for another. What you describe sounds like mbd. We’ll get her back here and begin an additional calcium supplementation and hope it clears up, but either way I’ll inspect the others and swap her out for you. Let me know.

C. Johnson
Owner – TopShelfExotics.com / LeoMorphs.com

I shipped her back at my own expense and never received the replacement gecko. The weather was to cold for safe shipping, apparently all winter.

11/15/05
The girl arrived fine, ill let you know when I select another female for you. Overnight temps have been dipping a bit low so youll have to set me up with some expected overnight temps for the next five days or so…. Let me know.

C. Johnson
Owner – TopShelfExotics.com / LeoMorphs.com

All winter long I repeatedly asked for a picture of my replacement gecko and he never responded. When I’d start getting irritated at his not answering my e-mails he would finally respond with a very polite reassuring e-mail that all was well, and yes they do have a gecko there for me. But he would always conveniently ignore the picture requests. Finally so much time had gone by I started asking for reassurance that I was in fact getting a 2005 gecko, not a 2006 hatchling. This question was also ignored. But, hey, Chris had an excellent reputation! Completely based on his Fauna Trader Rating and lack of bad posts I thought I was the only one with a problem. No need to worry – right? I still had confidence Chris was telling me the truth about his health and work backlog.

Now that this thread has started I’ve been anxiously awaiting notification from TSE that they are sending me my gecko. After all, he did say last week that Thursday they were going to devote their time to answering peoples e-mails. And I would be so easy to take care of. No refunds involved, just one little gecko. I sent e-mails to both of his addresses, and also faxed one. Since his funds are locked I made the offer to pay the shipping with my shipping account. I felt surely they would jump on that. They could eliminate one responsibility without having to pay any money. After no response I offered to send shipping supplies if they were out of those. No response. Then I saw Bob’s recent post showing he and Chris had been e-mailing back and forth several times in the same night and I thought that finally Chris is contacting customers – so I anxiously watched my inbox. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. It is now obvious to me that Chris does not have my gecko. Otherwise don’t you think he’d be all over the offer to ship her to me for free? He had a lot of high end leopard Geckos. Where are they now? Also – what became of my group of Fat Tail breeders I sent him for his breeding project?!

On the positive side – I did a similar trade with Kelli at HISS, also started in November. That trade went very well and Kelli is so easy to work with! She sent me a wonderful female that is a Mack het Rainwater Patternless. So I at least have one female leo with the bloodlines I was looking for. I had wanted 2 females – TSE’s was supposed to be my 2nd one.

Almost all of the previous postings have been from the snake community and serves as a warning to future snake customers to stear clear of TSE. I saw that Paul Sage posted, also with gecko problems from TSE and I hope that our experience with Chris will be a warning to people that are interested in geckos to be careful of the animals coming from TSE.

 

[nicolai]

I saw that Paul Sage posted, also with gecko problems from TSE and I hope that our experience with Chris will be a warning to people that are interested in geckos to be careful of the animals coming from TSE.

This just keeps getting worse and worse. i am glad to see you posted. People need to see this stuff in black and white here.
Some one on this thread stated that you really dont know the people you meet online and therefore you dont have true friendships. I have always been the kind to accept people as friends very easily, and offer my friendship to anone that would have me as a friend. his whole thing is making me rethink what friendships are all about. Apparently i did not know Chris for who he truly was and am astonished as to how far off I was when i judged his character. I would hate to think of everyone I know from here and other sites as just names on my screen rather then friends to interact with, but what are the altenative when it is so easy to fool people and take advantage of them.
Chris thanks for adding yet another twist in my life and making me rethink my values and loyalties once again. Money and animals aren't the only thing hurt in what you have done.

 

[Lizard Lair]

Nicholas please don't be afraid to make reptile/computer friends because of one stinker. There are a LOT of really amazing people that turn into loyal friends that last through the years, and will watch your back. I say the good friends you do acquire are well worth the occasional dissappointment.

I got a kick out of the former post about people being het for integrity. That would make life so much easier! But - I think that instead of integrity being a het trait it would more than likely prove out to be a line-bred trait

 

[shrap]

Chris thanks for adding yet another twist in my life and making me rethink my values and loyalties once again.

It aint you who needs to rethink your values, Nicholai. You aint the one who violated peoples trust and loyalty.

 

[DSsuper92]

The Private Investigator route sounds like a great idea to me. I'm tired of wondering what is actually going on and this would be a great way to answer a lot of questions. Maybe on the TSE ripoff email lists this can be brought up and organized?

Thanks,
David Schroeder

 

[KNOBTAIL]

and what possible value could a private eye provide that cannot be obtained from public records. If you really want to know whats going on, find someone who lives in the area and see it the operation is still ongoing. I can tell you its not!

 

[nicolai]

A private eye can video tape him moving his animals to a different location for use in in a civil court or criminal prosecution???? him packing up to get out of state?? Find out if there are "other employees" (pat,glenn,doug), Give us all a face to go with the name, And a number of other things that could help out when things get to court.

 

[DSsuper92]

Was Chris really sick? Are there really employees there? Is there even a Chris Johnson? Has Fedex been visiting the address we have? There are a lot of questions that can't be answered by public records.

I missed the post where you had money stolen Jerry. How much did Chris get from you?

Dave Schroeder

 

[Chameleon Company]

Look. Manum P.I. is not the next step.

A private eye can video tape him moving his animals to a different location for use in in a civil court or criminal prosecution???? him packing up to get out of state?? Find out if there are "other employees" (pat,glenn,doug), Give us all a face to go with the name, And a number of other things that could help out when things get to court.

And you're going to get all this info by hiring a PI to stake out Chris's place for an afternoon ? One day ? Two days ? Maybe they are already moved ? Just my opinion, but you get your first best mileage from an attorney up in that area. Let him check assets, etc, and if he then recommends a PI, which he very likely will not, then make the leap.

 

[KNOBTAIL]

Dave, proposing a P.I. is ludicrous, a waist of money, and unless you can show some type of contraband being moved, prooves nothing. If anything is left in the inventory of animals, it is of no consequence at this stage of the game.

I can appreciate some "creative police undercover work" by individuals in certain cases, but this does not qualify. But if you feel that your loss needs to be greater than hire a P.I. and see what videos he can produce that would relate to his going out of business. Insofar as my loss, unfortunately, I cannot answer that in this forum, because I already have had some warning notices from Rich, but let me just say, that I have worked on the enforcement side of dealing with people like Chris, so I do have an opinion to provide that would satisfy you .without having to loose money as you did.

What I am suggesting is to be realistic and look for the legal remedies when dealing with this type of situation. By the way, satillite surveilance is also not an option.