I guess I'm a little late on the whole mad posting hour it seems, but I'll put in my two cents worth on the subject anyway.
I'm relatively new to the corn snake breeding business. I'm not anywhere as large as Rich or Don's businesses by any means. But I do ship out of my home occasionally. 98% of my snakes I have now were shipped to me using three shippers: UPS, Fedex, and Airborne Express. UPS is ok, but they tend to be slow and drop off my package in a complete other town. Fedex is better about having my stuff here before noon. And Airborne Express was an utter nightmare. Couldn't find my house with a map and directions, and I ended up having to drive 30 miles nearly 40 hrs after they were shipped to pick them up.
For my own shipment needs I first tried using UPS Overnight, as I thought if the larger name breeders can do it successfully with "Live animal and stuff" written all over the outside of the box, so can I. It worked for a couple of shipments. The second shipment the UPS driver tells me that he can't ship animals as he points to the labels on the boxes. I simply told him I'm just reusing the box.
Then as I send out a third shipment, I get a call 6 hours later from the UPS depot 30 miles away for me to come and pick up my snakes, because they don't ship live animals and least of all snakes. I'm a little perturbed by this as I used the plainest shipping box I could find. I put no mention of what was inside the box at all, no references on the shipping label, nothing. They simply opened my box and saw what was in there and phoned me up. So I grab a box from Rich Z (sent via UPS), cut off the flap with the shipping label and drove down to discuss with the UPS people why my shipment was excluded and opened.
I spend an hour getting down there and am greeted by the rudest customer service person I think they could find to work. She immediately starts reaming into me about how irresponsible I am for shipping live animals and least of all a snake. It could be deadly for all they know. So I calmly wait for her to finish her tyrade and calmly put in my portion of the argument. I tell her that when I first started shipping out snakes I wanted to make everything legit, so I put all of the necessary information on the outside of the box. But as time went on, I was informed I could not ship animals. So I resorted to simply sneaking my packages through, something which I know is wrong. But what else am I to do? I can't just pick up and drive to Tennessee to deliver a snake. I then ask why this particular person can ship thousands of snakes a year via UPS, advertise that fact on the outside of the boxes and get away with it? She tells me that Rich doesn't have approval to do so and risks his animals everytime he ships. And that they will pull a box out of transit if they feel it's breaking the rules. I ask her to refund my shipping cost because it never went to its destination. She refuses and I ask to speak to the manager on duty. He refuses my request for a refund and tells me to call the 1-800 number. I do that and I leave two messages and they never call me back. So I'm out around $35. I come back home.
At the same time I'm negotiating for a couple of snakes through Don at SMR. I tell him my plight and he says I should continue fighting it. He said that if some people can seemingly get by with it, so should I. And I agree. If I jump through all of the necessary hoops I should be able to ship right along with the other breeders. So I take his suggestion and use Fedex. I've been using them for nearly a year now without a problem. The Fedex driver, a family friend and neighbor, knows what I'm shipping and takes every precaution to make sure that my packages get through. He says Fedex unofficially takes a "don't ask, don't tell" policy when it comes to questionable shipping contents.
There needs to be a legal even ground for everyone. No offence to Rich or Don, but what makes them so special that they can ship out thousands of hatchling corns a year with warnings and advisories printed on their boxes, and when I try to reuse a box from them it gets singled out and I'm forced to reclaim the animals. I think the average person can tell the difference between a venomous snake and a non-venomous one. If I make all of the necessary arrangements as to taping their deli-cups tight, encasing them in crumpled/shredded paper, with heat/cool packs and styrofoam..I'm not any different than anyone else. As long as the shipping company does it's job and gets the package there on time and knocks on the door to get a signature or heeds the temp warnings, there shouldn't be any problem.
There definately needs to be something done about it, and I'm glad I'm not alone. If they'd actually make it available to get approval to ship they'd cut down on the instances of sneaking packages through for sure. We don't like to ship that way, but that's what it takes. Let a rep come to my home and see what I'm shipping out, give me a special number and account and it'd be all done. Imagine the revenue they would receive if they charged for the "special" accounts, money is the universal language after all.
Misty Lundberg
