| Author | Subject: Matt Tinney/Gecko America selling misrepresented Leopard Geckos... |
| Robert Hill | Posted At 08:57:35 04/13/2001
If you have viewed the gecko classified ads on kingsnake.com over the last few days, you have probably seen this person's posting of "true" jungles and tangerines. The animals in his posts are not jungle leopard geckos by any stretch of the imagination, as well as the definition he posts for the term jungle as it applies to Leopards is also incorrect. The correct term has been offered to him many times from several people, yet he still refuses to change his listings. Also, the animals he is posting as tangerines and hypos are, in my opinion, too young to be selling as such. Most animals of these morphs do not show it until they are several months old(save some superb examples). He also claims to have contacted Ron Tremper directly and was supposedly told by him that Mr. Tinney's definition was correct(broken neck band and/or broken tail bands, as opposed to the definition of nonringed tail and aberrant body markings). He also made claims stating that Tremper did not orginate the jungle morphs and that he inbreeds thousands of geckos each year making "retardations" as Mr. Tinney calls them. His animals are perfectly healthy, but I believe that anyone wishing to do business with this person should follow the Buyer Beware rule. PS this is not an attempt to start a flame war of any kind, but I am sure something will get started from this warning. |
| Matt Tinney, Gecko America |
Re: Matt Tinney/Gecko America selling misrepresented Leopard Geckos...
2582.html Posted At 00:34:52 04/14/2001 I did not say he breed for retardations I said because of his high imbreeding rate he get alot of retardations. Look at my animals if you don't like them don't buy them. If you have questions about them ask. If you think they are priced to high make me and offer. That is all that I have got to say. |
| Corey Sawyer |
Re: Matt Tinney/Gecko America selling misrepresented Leopard Geckos...
2587.html Posted At 02:31:30 04/14/2001 Matt Tinney has been very rude and dishonest. He ripped a lot of people out of displays on a well known banner exchange (yess I and many other people lost display credits.). I do beleive his animals are healthy, and his prices are fine, but I do not think they are what he calls them. |
| Chris Newsom |
Re: Matt Tinney/Gecko America selling misrepresented Leopard Geckos...
2617.html Posted At 04:38:46 04/15/2001 And I quote: "Posted by Gecko America on April 12, 2001 at 22:36:53: In Reply to: Gex is right... posted by Oddie on April 12, 2001 at 14:46:34: Please call or e-mail pon tremper and ask him. He will say in the market today a jungle will be used for alot of differnt animals that just have aparent markings. The original jungle is one inwhich the neck and or tail base band is broken. Also Ron Tremper was not the founder of the jungle he takes credit for every thing. and if you want to talk about breeders in it for the money think of him. He imbreeded thousands of animals and what may be morphs or really retardations. Please look at the animals and relalize what you are saying. TRUTH!" |
| Corey Sawyer |
Re: Matt Tinney/Gecko America selling misrepresented Leopard Geckos...
2653.html Posted At 11:31:24 04/17/2001 http://www.kingsnake.com/forum/lgecko/messages/50113.html IF you are thinking about buying from matt, look at that. Until today I thought he just misrepresented his animals. |
| Robert Hill |
Re: Matt Tinney/Gecko America selling misrepresented Leopard Geckos...
2698.html Posted At 17:30:30 04/18/2001 Matt, it is not a question of me not liking your geckos, it is a question of your misrepresenting them and selling them as something they are not. And NOW, it is an issue of misrepresentation of health of the animals and your very questionable shipping practices. An animal arrived near death, and probably would have been dead had it been delivered 5 minutes later due to you not including a heat pack and writing "Keep Cold" on the box. Bottom line, learn how to ship, learn how to represent, learn how to sell honestly, or find another trade. PS if you happen to read this Matt, please remove my care sheets from your website. |
| Dana Pennebaker |
Re: Matt Tinney/Gecko America selling misrepresented Leopard Geckos...
2803.html Posted At 11:41:07 04/21/2001 now wait a minute...first off, i do not know and have never purchased from Matt Tinney. and i dont really know everything about this situation but after following some of the events that went on in the kingsnake leopard gecko forum and here, i am a bit skeptical about how Matt Tinney is getting slammed. sure, there were some mistakes, but something smells fishy. how did corey get the photo of the box? if corey "hates" matt, why did his friend buy from matt? and even if no funky stuff is going on-- if there was a problem when the box was received, i feel it is a bit unfair for the recipient to immediately post and rant about matt on the forum (which i think is a forum violation anyways) without first calling matt to let him know what happened. whenever i receive a problematic shipment, i do not run off and post nasty, business-damaging info on the internet, i first call the breeder and discuss the matter with him/her. almost always the matter is resolved nicely and i am reimbursed, given a more than fair exchange, and the breeder is not publicly slammed. i think this is a much more fair way to conduct business. all breeders have made mistakes, as long as matt was willing to compensate for his, i do not feel that this treatment is warranted. it is only when breeders do not make ammends for mistakes that we should be bringing this attention public and posting "bad guy". i am not trying to say that the criticism of matt is unwaranted, i just do not think that this is the way to handle the situation. i would not want to see his business damaged unfairly--as far as i can tell, gecko america is a beginning business, let's try to empathize a bit--how many breeders have not made some mistakes shipping?-- it seems a lot of the "professionals" still have shipping problems. as for misrepresenting animals, i cannot comment, except many people out there claim jungle, high yellow, tangerine, etc when it is questionable--ask for photos of what you are interested in purchasing and, as always, buyer beware. Dana |
| Robert Hill |
Re: Matt Tinney/Gecko America selling misrepresented Leopard Geckos...
2859.html Posted At 10:02:48 04/23/2001 Dana, How Corey managed to receive a photo of the box I am not totally sure. I am sure though, that since the buyer was a friend of his, she thought she would get his opinion on it. And yes, although I think that people should be warned of doing business with this person, the slamming(even some that I participated in)on the kingsnake forum is against the kingsnake TOS. That is very unfortunate, however, as more people visit that forum than here(no offense webmaster, and I could be wrong)that are into the gecko part of this hobby, I think that it should be changed to allow this. Also, giving immunity to kiongsnake advertisers is not fair in my opinion, but I won't go there;) I agree that he could be a "new" business, but he is not new, exactly. He has had at least one other business name that I know of, Mr. Matt's Geckos. Also, most new people to selling most animals will take advice and fix whatever they are doing wrong, however, Matt Tinney has refused to take the advice of more seasoned keepers and breeders and has been downright rude regarding the issue, going so far as to say that he knows better the definitions of specific morphs of Leopard Geckos than the people that first bred them. He has also been rather rude about the shipping issue. He says that it was too hot to include a heat pack where he was shipping from, but it was in the 40s where he was shipping too, and the animal arrived near death. In my opinion, conditions need to be right on both ends to ship. And from what I was told and have seen of the situation, the animal was not healthy and was very skinny to begin with(although Matt's pictures and statements show the complete opposite). Oh well. I just go back to my previous statement, if you can't honestly represent your animals, acknowledge and correct mistakes,or ship them properly, don't sell reptiles. |
| Matt Tinney, Gecko America |
Re: Matt Tinney/Gecko America selling misrepresented Leopard Geckos...
2874.html Posted At 15:04:18 04/23/2001 Robert Hill, I have removed you caresheets and link from my site. I am sorry if it seemed that I was rude. Maby you shoul dlook at the fact that you guys where rude first. Jenny never called me but did e-mail me and I e-mail her back. When I was Mr.Matt's Reptiles I only sold to breeders and by selling to breeders they would tell me how they woul dlike it pack. I have learned that not every one is educated on packing. I now ask if they would like a heat pac or not. This wsa my first time ever to have a complaint. A week befor ethat I shipped 2 leopard to New York with out a heat pack and they arrived fine. I did not misrepresent my animal and my pictures are never fake or suped up. And all of you seem to forget that I am a new buesness as the fact that I have partners. I am the guy who answers e-mail and does the website. My other partners do have all the access to Gecko America screen name and kingsnake. I am really sorry that this happened. And Jenny says I did not try to help but I did but she did not e-mail me back or give me her home phone number to call her. It sounded lik eit was a plain of her and Corey's. That is the main reason I do not like doing buesniss online is because of peolpe who clam things. I sent the gecko and before my self even knowing what happen they posted all over the forum. This is the second time I have been malested by Corey and he has tried to shut me down. I always wonder why you guys don't get off at the other advertisments on kingsnake. And I wonder why Corey puts animals on his site that have just hatched and clams them to be something then gets made at me for doing the same. I only post things that I know. To me and my happy customer that have been with me for years belive this is a scame of some sort. I have no clue. |
| jason horvath |
Re: Matt Tinney/Gecko America selling misrepresented Leopard Geckos...
5036.html Posted At 16:10:32 06/30/2001 i hope this does not continue. i chose the leopard gecko trade because i thought that only the most kindhearted people would have the will to do so. lets take a second to evaluate ourselves and our hobby. do we all want to become corrupted businessmen, or are we doing this because we LOVE OUR LITTLE SPOTTED FRIENDS?! our trade is not based upon money, or competition.... its all about the beauty of our favorite little critter. and if our leos could talk they would probably tell us all to act like adults. please stop the business bashing... not for you, me, him, her.... but for the EUBLEPHARIS MACULARIUS whose allure brought us all together in the first place!!!! lets just be honest with eachother and our projects will progress!!! |