Bad Guy William "Billy" Gangemi

[PotterJ]

I recently purchased 2 albino and 4 het albino Chinese Softshells from Billy. Upon arrival I noticed that He had sent me an extra albino and an extra het which I thanked him for. However one het was DOA, I did not make any fuss about it since he sent me 2 free animals. However all of the hets arrived in very poor shape with all of them having white fuzzy fungus on their shells and limbs. When I brought this to his attention he responded with " none of my turtles have fungus". Within 24 hours of having the turtles another het died. I emailed him and his response was that I would receive no refund for free animals, I let him know that I did not want a refund for the extra animals he sent me that died but for the very ill turtles that I paid for. I have had the turtles for 6 days now and a total of four of them have died( one albino and 3 hets), the two remaining hets are not doing well and I suspect that they will not survive much longer. The only turtles that were purchased from him that are doing well are the two remaining albinos. He is now ignoring my emails and requests of a partial refund. From his attitude about the sick animals I'm guessing I won't be seeing any of my money refunded, but I would like others to be aware of this situation to prevent anyone else from getting ripped off with sick animals.

 

[EPICRATES]

Keep the turtles very warm, air & water, & put a handful of sphagnum moss in the water. That'll help eradicate the fungus. Good luck.

 

[inca]

I have done business with Billy for years. Great animals and service. Not sure what happened with Jay but I have always received good animals. Billy is a good guy.

 

[marke1]

I've never dealt with him before ,he was more than fair with me ..... I bought two 20-25 gram turtles at the end of November , I gave him the wrong zip code , they rode around the truck all day with a heat pack on what turned out to be a record setting warmest day ever in November , they were all but cooked ...ended up with respiratory infections , bacterial infections in their shells , and one with a particularly nasty aural abscess .... my vet and I did save them after a couple hundred dollars and 4 months they are doing great at 90 grams .......about a month after that incident he sent me 5 more at a price I can't see how he could have possibly made any money at . I gave him the right zip code , i got perfectly healthy hatchling in December in the northeast , they never missed a beat ....... i believe your experience and understand your frustration , i just felt i owed him me sharing my experience with him ....i actually appreciated it ... hopefully it works out for you .........

 

[PotterJ]

I don't think he is a "Bad Guy" but the thread forced me to pick a pre fix for my headline. I do however think he is in the wrong by not giving me a partial refund for turtles that had fungal infections when I received them and because of said fungal infections have died.

 

[PotterJ]

Update: One of the two remaining hets died within the last hour. I now have one het left, hopefully this one pulls through.

 

[BeauBoi]

Update: One of the two remaining hets died within the last hour. I now have one het left, hopefully this one pulls through.

I am sorry you are going through this, but I have to ask: why haven't you sought out medical treatment for these animals...? If I had ordered multiple animals, and one died, I would immediately take the others to the vet.

~Beau

 

[WHYTEARK]

The white fuzz is not actually a fungus, its from hard water and is common with these turtles, and is easily cured.. Im pretty sure they died from internal parasites, nematodes and tapeworms among others.. as they are usually
Full of them. these farmed babies need to be treated for this early then kept in super clean water lightly salted, with soft sand substrate..

 

[PotterJ]

I have gone to the vet, the problem is a softshell the size of a quarter is hard to treat. You can't dry dock a softie that's the size of a quarter very long, you can't give injectable medicines to something so small, and they are so small you can't get to where their limbs meet the shell very well. Treating the water and softly cleaning the shells were pretty much my only option. With all of that being said I should not have needed to take CB animals that had been in my care for less than a week to the vet for fungal infections.

 

[PotterJ]

The white fuzz is not actually a fungus, its from hard water and is common with these turtles, and is easily cured.. Im pretty sure they died from internal parasites, nematodes and tapeworms among others.. as they are usually
Full of them. these farmed babies need to be treated for this early then kept in super clean water lightly salted, with soft sand substrate..

I'm not trying to be rude, but why have the two good albinos I have never shown any trace of the white fuzz when the hets seemed to be covered in it. I'm just curious not trying to start anything.

 

[nickolasanastasiou]

White filamentous "fuzz" is generally a matter of oomycetes. Not to be confused with shedding skin. It should be noted, though, that oomycete colonization can stimulate the sloughing of epidermal layers as well.

Not saying that is the COD or anything here, but it is a factor you will want to consider for medical intervention.

 

[PotterJ]

I have spoken with Billy and we are going to work something out. He was not ignoring me but had some very important things going on.

 

[tcp2]

I have recently purchased two small turtles from Billy. They were $300.00 each, so I was holding my breath when they came in. They are in perfect health, and he has been nothing but great to deal with. Too bad people are so quick to open a public roasting of someone before they have exhausted all other avenues to resolve the situation.

 

[ElexisC]

I thought it was illegal to sell turtles under 4 in?

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[TeguBuzz]

I thought it was illegal to sell turtles under 4 in?

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Illegal to sell them as pets.

Legal to sell them for things such as research, education, studies, exhibition, etc.

"Turtles under four inches are sold for scientific, educational, and export purposes only".

 

[ElexisC]

Well weren't these sold as pets?

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[nickolasanastasiou]

Well weren't these sold as pets?

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Not if a seller worded his ad in an even remotely intelligent fashion.

 

[tlmoon]

I have recently purchased two small turtles from Billy. They were $300.00 each, so I was holding my breath when they came in. They are in perfect health, and he has been nothing but great to deal with. Too bad people are so quick to open a public roasting of someone before they have exhausted all other avenues to resolve the situation.

I'm glad your experience went well. The OP's however, did not. I don't think it's fair to say the OP is "roasting" the seller before trying other avenues. He did contact the seller and did not get a resolution. He also posted an update that the seller was going to work something out with him. We have all seen posts that unfairly bash a seller; this does not to me appear to be one of those times. Hopefully the seller will make things right and will we see some good news.

It's too bad that people are so quick to shoot the messenger sometimes...

 

[marke1]

glad it looks like it's going to work out for you ........shipping hatchlings is not always safe , my vet tells me he sees lots of them ...... to use injectables on hatchlings your vet needs to cut whatever your going to use to a dose you can see and not too large a volume for the turtle . I believe the dose the vet shot for was around .01 ml , it's a drop ...... I've used fortaz , zeniquin , and amikacyn on turtles that weighed 15-20 grams ..... you'll need good eyes , or good reading glasses ........ I've also seen the vet use sub'q saline to rehydrate hatchlings ......

 

[PotterJ]

Well I figured I would post an update to this situation. I would have posted this right after my last contact with Billy but I have been busy moving my collection to my new home. In my last post to this thread I explained that Billy had finally gotten back to me and was willing to work something out. I gave him a week or so to take care of some things he said he needed to do and then emailed him asking how he would like to take care of this. He told me that next time he had something for sale that I wanted he would give me a good price break on it. I explained to him that since I just moved I would not be able to purchase anything new for a while, and instead asked for something(turtle)that was equal to the value of the dead turtles or a refund for the dead animals. I did not hear back from Billy for about a week. When he finally did respond it was possibly the most rude and condescending email I have ever received in a business related conversation. His response is what I would expect from an angry child instead of an adult. I responded and told him that I would never be doing any business with him again. I am attaching screenshots of the email convo.