While I am NOT absolving the owner of responsiblity I didn't want to place full blame on the owner just yet.
Different scenarios could have played out:
1. Employee has a grudge against owner..comes to bad mouth him..but owner did not pack and ship that box.
2. Shipper could have made a switch
3. Owner told shipper (per his statment, "I did what I was told to do." to make the switch.
I am looking at the facts and what I am seeing is:
* An employee packed the box AND shipped it.
* The OP apparently did not receive the snake advertised so contacted the owner.
* Employee does not divulge the conversation between himself and owner (if owner questioned him about the contents of the box).
*Employee gets online bad-mouths his boss, claims innocence and inablity to do anything to satisfy the OP.
YET...who packed the box, who handled the animal last? Was the packing and shipping supervised by the owner? Did the employee have an opportunity to pull a switch?
Is the employee telling the owner that he shipped exactly what he was told to ship? How is the owner responding to that?
Does the owner know that the employee is here dumping the whole situation on his lap?
Here I am seeing we apparently have a "middle man" on whom the whole thing hinges..the person that packed and shipped the snake.
Given the particulars about the OP, let's assume his story is true and he has nothing to gain by lying (he's paying for Vet bills!)
We are back to who packed and shipped the box.
At this point, the owner may be taking his employee's word that he packed and shipped the proper snake and it had no issues. OTHERWISE, they could both be dirty.
This is just a hypothesis based on what I am reading....