ThompsonsDEN

Author Subject: ThompsonsDEN
Marcia Bradley Posted At 13:56:44 05/22/2001
Has anyone done business with Chris and Arnie Thompson? I am trying to find out what kind of people they are business wise. I know that they are unethical outside of their business because they got mad at me and sent me an e-mail with a virus attached. I sort of felt that maybe others have felt their anger and if not that maybe you should all be warned that you best not get on their bad side!
Chris from ThompsonsDEN Re: ThompsonsDEN
3588.html Posted At 15:44:03 05/23/2001

Ok hear it is. She got that backwards I believe she was the one mad at me, and that she may know where the virus (that took me two days to clean up) came from. Hears the whole story. I have a care sheet site on my web site . I don’t have the knowledge of all animals that I get asked about, so stupid as it is or was I gather information from other web dwellers, and that is what caused all this. As apposed to posting all the info from any one care sheet I only use what I agree with or what sounds right to me. I never claim any of the sheets or sign a name to anything clamming to be the author. I only want people to be able to go and be able to find the proper way to care for there reptiles. She states that I copped her sheet word for word witch I know is not true cause I only use what I agree to, and some of it came from LIZARDS IN CAPTIVITY, BY RICHARD WYNNE, A TFH Book. I suppose they will be after me next.
As far as for Marcia Bradley it had nothing to do with her it was Cheyanne Day who was the injured party. I have written her an apology and deleted the care sheet as soon as I was first notified.
Cheyanne Day Re: ThompsonsDEN
3601.html Posted At 19:25:56 05/23/2001

Yes, They copied my old caresheet from before we encrypted our web pages to hopefully stop that sort of thing from happening. Work that I had spent more than two difficult years putting together.
But it was not until 4 days later, after the BBB had contacted them , that I got any response or apology. I do not find their apology believable. It seems to me that if you unashamadly use information of someone elses you would not need to change parts of it to hide the fact that it is not yours. And if it were "borrowed" in innocence they should have given credit. The information they stole from me was altered subtly in some places ( to say I instead of we) and in other places was a paragraph that was a direct copy of my original words.
Yes, they copied whole paragraphs of it. Adding mostly incorrect information of their own, or wherever they claim to have found it, to make it look just different enough.
Marcia and I have been in correspondance for over two years and I know that she would not send a virus to someone .
Marcia has told me about the e-mails she recieved from ThompsonsDEN, including the first one were all she was doing was trying to help them correct one mistake in my information and a few other mistakes that they or whatever their other source of information had made.
Their response to her initial contact was very rude and implied that they already felt that they were in the wrong and were just not happy that someone had found out.
After she realized the plagiarism and informed them of it they were even ruder to her stating that she should not "heras" them, then wanted her to show where the caresheet they copied was. I can only figure that they didn't think she would be able to prove anything.
The link to the old care text is active at the bottom of my picture page on our website..
It was around this time that I got a warning e-mail from Marcia informing me of the virus she had recieved from them and warning me to not open any e-mail they sent me Pretty easy since they have made only one attempt to contact me and have instead concentrated all of their bad attention on Marcia. She is not in the wrong here. Plagiarism is against the law. ThompsonsDEN was displaying and distributing information that was mostly mine without my permission. She did the right thing by informing me. She was not mad at ThompsonsDEN at first, I don't know how she feels now. I do know that so far corresondance with ThmpsonsDEN has not been enjoyable for her to say the least
I am aware that they have a disclaimer about the caresheets that they display. I also have a disclaimer, "This text is not to be reprinted without the expressed permission of Cheyanne Day" very cut and dry, no room for ignorance, no way to mistake what was written.
ThompsonsDEN never once contacted me for permission. Since they claim to provide a caresheet to anyone who buys from them then they were also distributing my information without permission.
Another thing I found is a blurb that states that ThompsonsDEN sells only captive bred animals. I do not believe this either. Captive breeding of this lizard to date has been rare with only a few recorded cases one being myself another being Marcia. Anyone who has managed to breed the species of lizard that my caresheet was written for knows that they are NOT ground dwelling lizards, yet in the caresheet they provide they claimthat the lizards are mostly ground dwelling.
Anyone that owns one of these lizards knows they are tree dwellers. How could someone breed an animal in captivity and not know how they live?
In my own honest opinion, it is ThompsonsDEN who is in the wrong and has been from the start. I think that they are not ethical and just got angry when they were found out. I personally would never do business with them and I advise anyonw who has or has thought about it to think twice.
Chey Re: ThompsonsDEN
3605.html Posted At 20:11:04 05/23/2001

Okay maybe that last part was unecessary, but this kind of crap is really making me mad.
Marcia Bradley Re: ThompsonsDEN
3606.html Posted At 20:33:50 05/23/2001

Here is the original e-mail I sent to ThompsonsDEN. Yes I did contact Cheyanne Day after reviewing the caresheet after having sent this e-mail:

Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 10:27:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Marcia Bradley Add To Address Book
To: cnasden@HOME.com
Subject: Acanthosaura species caresheet errors.....
Reply-To: froggieb@user.kingsnake.com
Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Disposition: inline
X-Originating-Ip: [170.186.97.230]
X-Mailer: MIME-tools 4.104 (Entity 4.117)


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Hi, I have been working with Acanthosaura capra for over 2 years now and have had several successful breedings and hatchings. I just ran across your caresheet and found a couple of items that I believe to be incorrect.

1. These are not ground dwelling animals and need lots of climbing areas in order to be comfortable. All four of the Acanthosaura species do live in trees and brush but do spend some amount of time on the ground for feeding and seeking out water.

2. A. crucigera - you have described this species well except for the statement that it is the largest of the four species. In fact, it is the smallest with A. armata and A. crucigera being the largest.

Also, a note on the water, if it is not moving they will not pay it any attention. It is a necessity that it have a bubbler or other system to keep the water moving in order to keep these animals drinking and soaking.

Hope you don't mind me sending this information, but I am trying to help those who purchase these wonderful animals to keep them properly.

Marcia Bradley
FroggieB Creations

And here was their reply:

Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 13:20:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris and Arnie Add To Address Book
To: froggieb@user.kingsnake.com
Subject: Re: Acanthosaura species caresheet errors.....
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You need to go read my care sheet again.
--- Marcia Bradley
wrote:
> Hi, I have been working with Acanthosaura capra for
> over 2 years now and have had several successful
> breedings and hatchings. I just ran across your
> caresheet and found a couple of items that I believe
> to be incorrect.
>
> 1. These are not ground dwelling animals and need
> lots of climbing areas in order to be comfortable.
> All four of the Acanthosaura species do live in
> trees and brush but do spend some amount of time on
> the ground for feeding and seeking out water.
>
> 2. A. crucigera - you have described this species
> well except for the statement that it is the largest
> of the four species. In fact, it is the smallest
> with A. armata and A. crucigera being the largest.
>
> Also, a note on the water, if it is not moving they
> will not pay it any attention. It is a necessity
> that it have a bubbler or other system to keep the
> water moving in order to keep these animals drinking
> and soaking.
>
> Hope you don't mind me sending this information, but
> I am trying to help those who purchase these
> wonderful animals to keep them properly.
>
> Marcia Bradley
> FroggieB Creations


To this I did not reply. I didn't feel it was needed and I figured I would just let it drop.
Chris Thompson Re: ThompsonsDEN
3609.html Posted At 20:54:46 05/23/2001

Ok hear we go :
The four days While I was trying to get rid of the virus that someone sent me , and I just got the letter today from the BBB. I talked to Dee Welshans(BBB) on the phone the 21. the same day that I emailed Chyanne. Mostly because my computer was screwing up as soon as I started to receive Email from everyone on the 17.
Opened them on the 18 and that was the end of my computer working right till the 21st.
That can be confirmed through the people that we have had business with while this was going on.
I am not going to do this form fight. I apologize for what I did, said I was wrong. And removed the care sheet as soon as Marcia contacted me. I never clamed the care sheet as mine. Just as the rest of the sits sheets there is no author or claim to anything just a collection of what I fill is good ways to care for reptiles. We will handle this through the BBB.
Bonita Galas Re: ThompsonsDEN
3638.html Posted At 12:12:51 05/24/2001

I have done business with Chris and Arnie several times...no problems here. That has been my only contact with them. But they seemed as professional as anyone else that is out there doing a good job...or trying to do what is right.

Viruses can come from a million sources I am sure...and sometimes they are passed on by accident. Sounds like this may be one of those cases....just my opinion.

They did remove the sheet...and apologize.

In the long run care sheets are to help the potential buyers of a species they are not sure how to care for. Why don't you let people copy your sheets...as long as it has your name on it. You get the credit...and a new purchaser has the chance of keeping their animal alive. Just a thought.

I will do business with them again I am sure.
Marcia Bradley Re: ThompsonsDEN
3643.html Posted At 14:38:08 05/24/2001

Yes, viruses can be transferred by accident. And if ThompsonsDEN received a virus on the 17th as Chris stated, that rules out my sending it intentionally. I had no ill feelings toward them until after I received the virus from them. In my opinion, it was intentional. It was sent to me from a different e-mail than the snide remarks they sent to me on the 17th, it had no message, just 2 attachments, and with “!"#$” in the subject line! It was sent to me on the 21st, after they claim to have fixed their system. In my opinion, that is not an accidental infection.

As for the caresheet thing, there is not a problem with using a caresheet when it is credited to the owner and permission is requested and granted first. That is the problem, the owner was not given credit. Then on top of that, they mutilated the caresheet so that on top of being stolen, it contained incorrect information.

How would you feel if you bought one of the Acanthosaura from them and it died because you provided the incorrect habitat at their recommendation?

I have a caresheet too. I have tried to make sure it has been submitted to all of the herp lists I could find. I have done this because these animals are close to my heart and I am hoping that my efforts can help even a few of the animals to survive in their new homes.

But, how would you feel if you wrote some short poems, let someone read them, and then saw them published in a book of poems written by another author? Plagiarism is plagiarism, whether it is published printed material, or published Internet articles. If you want to copy from written published material, you must request permission, if you want to copy material off of the Internet, you also must request permission. Usually, permission is granted! Why chance a legal battle when it is soo easy to just ask permission?

Also, I don't object to anyone choosing to do business with them. I already said I don't know anything about their business dealings except that they are saying they sell only captive bred animals and as far as I know, the only ones really doing that, and that can prove so, are Cheyanne and me.

Can't prove any of it, but just the same, I know what I know! I will know more when I hear back from their e-mail providers concerning the complaints I submitted to them!
Arnie Thompson Re: ThompsonsDEN
3737.html Posted At 22:28:51 05/25/2001

First what we did real & imagined we are sorry for. We are not bad people. We messed up. The first lizards we had we got bad info. and they died. We saw your care sheet and got another pr at a show we were told were c.b. Your care sheet has them thriveing. I thank you. If we would have had any contact before this you would probably like us to. All i can say is we are sorry
Arnie Thompson
Marcia Bradley Re: ThompsonsDEN
3836.html Posted At 21:31:39 05/28/2001

Chances are that you are correct. As I said in my letter to you, I was very impressed with your standards, i.e., the fact that you care enough to send care sheets with your animals and the community stuff that you do. Upon reading through your site initially, I was very impressed and was considering contacting you to see if I could get pictures to see if what you have are really A. armata as I am looking for some. Even when I contacted Cheyanne Day about the care sheet, I was still considering checking on the animals to see if I might be interested in them. Once the e-mail started coming in, I changed my mind. That was the reason I posted here!

I don't like to make snap character judgments and know that some people are not aware of the fact that copying others web stuff is against the law. I believe Cheyanne stated that she was initially going to let this drop, but when it got nasty, she changed her mind, and so did I. I am not one to fight, but I do fight back.

I know that you have removed the care sheet, and anything concerning that is between you and Cheyanne. But I don't feel I deserved to receive attacks for letting her know you had used her stuff! I wasn't looking to start a war. The only other time I ran across this, I asked a friend if she had asked permission to use a particular picture. She had not, but then she asked, got permission, and has the pic on her web page. All is well.

I guess that is what I had hoped would happen here too. I do hope you will continue to provide information and help to those you sell animals to. But I suggest that you consider setting up a link page instead of copying and displaying the information on your site. Maybe you will even find that someone will let you print out their stuff to send with animals you sell.

I do not wish you harm, and don't aim to try to destroy you, I just wanted to put an end to the attacks and especially to not receive another virus. Maybe that wasn't deliberate, it is a virus that sends itself to random lists from the email address book and sent & received folders. So on that count, I have to give you the benefit of doubt. But, I can say beyond a doubt that I did not infect you as I was infected on the 21st, the day you were back on-line after cleaning up after your infection!

I will put this in the past, and I hope you can too. Maybe we can meet on better terms in the future.
Chris Thompson Re: ThompsonsDEN
3905.html Posted At 12:58:40 05/30/2001

I would like to say thank you for this being over. Marcia I dont know what happined (bad day or someting, on my part) I normaly dont get so snotty (cant spell that one) I do want to say sory for all of it and I do know I was wrong for what I have dont to Cheyanne Day. I never thought about the trouble and work one goes through in creating such a great care sheet. I have been working extencivly on my care sheet site and can asure all I will not be a theaf ever again.
thank you for the leason.

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