• 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....

Upstate Exotics No Good!!!!

B

butterflybaby

New member
Joined
May 4, 2003
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Penrose, CO
I traded a 4 ft albino burm for a rosy boa with Upstate Exotics. When I recieved the snake his skin was wrinkled and he was a little inactive. I tried to feed him the day I recieved him and he didn't eat. I wasn't too concerned then because he'd ben shipped so far and he was young. Well I tried to feed him once a week after that for three weeks and not once did he eat. I posted messages concerning this at the rosy boa forum at Kingsnake.com to ask the experts what they thought. They gave me some tips but none worked and last week the snake died. The snake could not have starved to death in this short amount of time and Upstate guarantees their animals feeding. They sent me a sick snake and from other complaints I see that I am not the first person to recieve an unhealthy animal from them. They do not have their customers interests in mind. They run their business solely for money alone. Please no one else get scammed through these people. There are better people out there who will give more than what you expect.
Lori
 
Just a bit of frindly advice Lori...

Your full name needs to be on every individual post on the BOI forum, you can amend posts by going to the User settings and adding it to your profile so you don't need to type it each time...

You're also supposed to add comments to existing threads within a reasonable period of time. A friend of yours has already addressed this issue on the currently running upstate exotics thread and you might want to add this to the end of that thread... sometimes WebSlave will delete posts that violate these rules.

With that being said...

Upstate Exotics has a guarantee that you agreed to when entering into the transaction, their terms of service are pretty clearly stated... As much as Upstate are pretty sleazy, you failed to meet their conditions and thus defaulted on the potential for a refund. Very few sellers would try to accomidate you given the events and the timeline... you can't provide proof of death, you never contacted them directly about the issue, it was outside of their terms and you are attempting to use third party forum postings as evidence of a problem that you chose not to inform them of...

They run their business solely for money alone.
Click to expand...

Anyone running a business runs it for the money alone... the fact that they can do so while enjoying it is a secondary concern. If money were not a factor, they would not be a business, they would be a hobbiest. It's not exactly sound logic to base a moral judgement on a situation like that.

Again, there's plenty of posts detailing situations where Upstate was clearly in the wrong, but in this instance, they fufilled everything they agreed to and you, Lori, were the one who failed to understand the conditions as set forth prior to entering into the transaction.
 
I'm not asking for a refund, I know where I went wrong. I am just trying to protect other people like my self from getting a bad deal.
Lori Modlin
 
PICS

Lori,

Did you ask for or get a pic of the rosy boa you traded for, before trading?

If so, was the animal the same as in the pic health wise when you got it?

The only other thing I can suggest is you do an inquiry in future before buying off anyone, if you had, you would of found out what upstate exotics are like before hand.

Did you make any effort to contact them when you got the boa to voice an concerns?

Waiting three weeks is a little too long to vent your frustration if you didn't.
 
It looked healthier in the pic but it was a little dark. I didn't know this site existed until another person told me. Like I said, I know where I went wrong but that is still no reason for them to give me a sick snake.
 
My thoughts

These are just my thoughts:

1-Does Upstate Exotics guarantee a feeding animal?

2-Does Upstate Guarantee a healthy animal?

If they do guarantee a feeding animal, and it never fed, I feel a refund is in order. The animal never fed, appeared skinny, folds of skin, and lathargic according to the buyer, something was not right with the animal. I hear alot of talk about the conditions the buyer keeps animals in, what about the sellers conditions? Sometimes you have to just do the right thing, and I have never seen Upstate take the initiative and make a suspect situation right.

Anyhow, that is just my opinion, and I for one will never buy from them.

David Reid
 
I posted messages concerning this at the rosy boa forum at Kingsnake.com to ask the experts what they thought.
Click to expand...

Asking questions on forums is a great source for opinions but you still must evaluate all the advice you're given and decide for yourself if it's correct or not. Don't assume that just because someone offers advice on a forum that they're an expert.

I don't believe anything you would have done would have gotten you a refund but you still should have kept them informed so they would have had the chance.

Good luck to you. I hope your next purchase is from someone with morals.
 
If they do guarantee a feeding animal, and it never fed, I feel a refund is in order.
Click to expand...

Essentially you're stating that you agree a refund is in order if it was specified in the seller's guarantee that a potential situation was covered.

But the guarantee states that they must be contacted via telephone within twenty four hours of delivery. The guarantee ends the minute that twenty four hours passes without contact.

Are they bad terms?

Yes.

Were they agreed to though?

Also yes.

It may have been an action that takes advantage of a new keeper who didn't know any better but in this instance, Upstate can't be held responsible for the buyer not contacting them to express their dissatisfaction.
 
UPSTATE EXOTICS

I don't believe anything you would have done would have gotten you a refund but you still should have kept them informed so they would have had the chance.
Click to expand...

This is 100% correct. I don't think it would matter what you do, you wouldn't get a refund either even if you wanted one. Like I said, waiting three weeks is a little long and there doesn't seem to be any complaint from the buyer to Upstate exotics at all or was there?

I did ask the buyer if they had contacted upstate about it, that hasn't been answered.

If they do guarantee a feeding animal, and it never fed, I feel a refund is in order.
Click to expand...

This you can't prove. Of course, upstate can say, "it never refused a meal" and they may of never offered it a meal either!
 
hmmmm

I think if you offer a 24 hr guarantee, AND a feeding guarantee, it must be one OR the other. Meaning, you get the animal and it looks ok, no obvious health issues, 24 hrs pass, and you feed it the next day, won't eat, no big deal, you wait a week and try again, won't feed, etc. and eventually it dies, and never fed. You will not know you have a non feeding animal in the 24 hr period. I am sure there is some lawyer verbage that covers this "situation."


Dave Reid
 
I agree with the above post, there's no real way of knowing if the animal is a good feeder within the first 24 hours of delivery. That 24 hours mostly pertains to anything you see initialy wrong with the animal but there's no way of knowing if the animal is feeding. A lot of the time it takes a few days for a new animal to start feeding because it needs time to acclimate. And 3 weeks is way too short a time for an animal to starve to death. I believe Upstate does owe them a refund.

I would sure like to hear what Upstate has to say in defence about this deal.

Diana Mason
 
I think that they should have a longer guarantee period also, but 24 hrs. lets them off the hook if anything should go wrong. I didn't feel that I should bother them with this, especially since rosies don't eat for long periods of time. Then all of a sudden, he died. I didn't know what to do so I asked some others and they said I should ask for a refund. I was pretty sure they wouldn't give me one and b/c I couldn't provide pictures, I'm ok with that. Another person has decided to give me a new, healthy snake for free. A lot of people could learn a lesson in kindness (i.e. UPSTATE) through this alternate party. There are not a lot of people that would do something like that. So I am fine with this experience, and I know who not to buy from next time and how to handle such situations.

Lori Modlin:blush:
 
I agree with the above post, there's no real way of knowing if the animal is a good feeder within the first 24 hours of delivery.
Click to expand...

Feeding is not a quality that most people guarantee even when an animal is sold as being feeding... it simply means it was eating for them. Unlike genetics, gender or size, feeding can change easily after being shipped and when in the care of a new individual under different conditions.

Unless Upstate said "It will feed for you or we'll take it back" that is not justification for a refund.

I hate to be on upstates side, but they have conditions that were agreed to and never met. The buyer did not call within the twenty four hours or even the first few days to report their concern over the snake's outward appearance, the buyer is the one who made their choice about their conduct and the bottom line is that upstate owes them nothing (except perhaps an apology).

3 weeks is way too short a time for an animal to starve to death.
Click to expand...

It's not too short a time for dehydration, untreated RIs, parasite loads, chemical contaminants or incorrect husbandry to kill one though.

A brand new snake owner... The possibility must be considered that the death had nothing to do with upstate whatsoever.

I would sure like to hear what Upstate has to say in defence about this deal.
Click to expand...

But you know what they would say if they chose to talk... that the animal was healthy, that it fed for them and that their guarantee protects them.

The first two might be questionable but they are 100% dead on with the third item, you can't contact a seller after a duration of time twenty one times longer than their guarantee and say you're not happy because the animal died on you, it's just rediculous to assume upstate owes this person ANYTHING.
 
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY THAT I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A REFUND! I HAVE SAID BEFORE THAT I KNOW WHERE I WENT WRONG!!! And BTW, I have owned snakes before, although never a rosy, and each time I purchased a new species I thoroughly researched the animal before doing so. I don't like to go into things without knowing what I am getting into. Granted I didn't know about this site until it was too late, I am still not going to accept the criticism saying that I had no idea what I was doing.
 
I don't think you did anything particularly wrong. Don't take Seamus too much the wrong way, sometimes he says the right thing in a way that will piss you off if you haven't seen him do it to someone else. Personalities, what can you say, we've all got at least one and not all of them are always easy to deal with.

Keep in mind too that this thread is not just to you. upstate has been the subject of several others by people with the same sort of problems you've had and this entire thing will be here forever. So some redundancy may help someone who only reads the last couple of posts two years from now to see the entire picture.

I have not thought you were expecting a refund, mostly because I think you caught on pretty quick that you should have been in touch with them sooner.

I certainly hope you have a better experiance with your new boa. Who is it that's giving it to you? It's nice to know who the nice people are too.

Wes Pollock
 
What happened to the 3 strikes and you're out policy over there??? I mean, w/ all the bad stuff I've read about them in the past 6 months, I find it rather odd that there account is still open for business. I don't know...am I just a good judge of character or what?? Has my 15 plus years in the hobby taught me how to spot the weasels??? I mean, I wouldn't have considered buying off of them even without that bad reports, it's their pics, their ads, their prices, their everything, it reaks of poor quality...
 
wow

That boa in the link you put up looks like crap Dan.

I wouldnt buy from them after seeing that pic alone.
 
I really wanted to come up with something biting and witty about colors and patterns and scars and wrinkles and how bad that animal looked. But I just couldn't do it. That's an argentine boa like I'm a skinny little accountant. Read that as NOT AT ALL !!!

They've got some nerve anyway. BAD GUYS BAD GUYS BAD GUYS

Wes Pollock
 
Back
Top