This has been an ordeal many months going now and I have been a passive little lamb about it thinking being a nice person would get things fixed, but communications have been dropped for months now. The animal in question this post is about is now deceased. From what I understand he seems to be a well enough liked guy and so this may come as a surprise. I have emails on record that I can provide, however I am not sure if it is ok to do so, so until given an a-ok I shall refrain from posting them.
Many months ago before the summer (I forget if it was april or may) James put up 2 separate clutches of Red Blood Pythons as available on his website. Both were sired by the same father, a snake who is now dead. One female was a large red that was not the color I was looking for... the other mother, from which pairing only 2 snakes survived, was exactly the color I was looking for. I emailed him and we had several friendly exchanges, and arranged a payment plan for the only female of the 2 snake clutch.
Things got a little hectic. My payment plan was not going as, well, planned. I was very suddenly jostling between homes, internet availability and jobs. I did keep in contact with him and the snake was paid in full, just not in the original time frame. He was very friendly and understanding, and did not complain, working with me on it. During this time he asked me if I wanted a brother for less then the listing price. I thought it was the only other snake in the clutch who had been marked as sold, and immediately freaked out and said yes, yes I'll take him. However he apologized telling me he was referring to males from the other clutch, and I said never mind, I'm not interested in those ones. This leads me to believe he knew he made a mistake in snakes before the last payment was even sent.
The time finally came, I was settled in to my new address. He called me realizing I had never given him a new address and so I gave it to him. The next day the snake arrived. After waiting months to get her I tore in to the package.
What I found inside was the wrong snake. She was also very skinny. He told me she had gone in to shed, but she never did shed at all. She was just a skinny little brown snake that was 100% not the one I ordered. Worried that the addresses were mixed on the boxes, I contacted him and he got back to me via phone. He said he would search for the right snake and that it was his fault, and if he couldn't find her, he would make it up to me somehow. Sending her back for a refund, a free borneo stp baby, just something. He apologized profusely and I told him time and time again it was alright since he was working to make it right.
A couple weeks passed and he told me he could not find the female. He offered me a couple options to make up for it, one of which was offering me a surplus red. I asked to see pictures. All contact ceased to exist. I tried contacting him again and no answer.
Then, on Kingsnake, I found the correct female for sale along with her brother. I immediately emailed James and the seller, to tell James I had found her, and to see if the seller would work something out with the two of us. The seller replied shortly with a sorry for his mistake, they're for sale as a pair only. James still did not answer me back.
The snake, who I named Noodle in the meantime because she was so very skinny (and it was definitely just her, looking at the pictures of the snake I SHOULD have received was like a toothpick by a garden hose) was not eating. I could not get her to eat at all. I went to check on her this morning, mouse in hand, telling myself she either takes it this time or gets assist fed, and I found her belly up dead.
I paid for one snake and in its place received an entirely different one that starved itself to death. He has refused to give me any form of contact since. I'm out $350 and I've been 100% had. He had to have sold the female I purchased with her brother as a pair knowingly. Instead of stopping this madness and telling me he no longer had the snake on hand, since he obviously knew, he figured he'd send me his last crappy feeding female to get it off his hands and keep my money. If it was a problem with my payment plan, he should have taken the deposit money and then given the rest back. That's what deposits are for, protecting the seller.
Sending me the wrong snake, one that was sickly and is now dead, and then dropping contact when he finally has to make due for his mistake is in no way a justifiable action.
Many months ago before the summer (I forget if it was april or may) James put up 2 separate clutches of Red Blood Pythons as available on his website. Both were sired by the same father, a snake who is now dead. One female was a large red that was not the color I was looking for... the other mother, from which pairing only 2 snakes survived, was exactly the color I was looking for. I emailed him and we had several friendly exchanges, and arranged a payment plan for the only female of the 2 snake clutch.
Things got a little hectic. My payment plan was not going as, well, planned. I was very suddenly jostling between homes, internet availability and jobs. I did keep in contact with him and the snake was paid in full, just not in the original time frame. He was very friendly and understanding, and did not complain, working with me on it. During this time he asked me if I wanted a brother for less then the listing price. I thought it was the only other snake in the clutch who had been marked as sold, and immediately freaked out and said yes, yes I'll take him. However he apologized telling me he was referring to males from the other clutch, and I said never mind, I'm not interested in those ones. This leads me to believe he knew he made a mistake in snakes before the last payment was even sent.
The time finally came, I was settled in to my new address. He called me realizing I had never given him a new address and so I gave it to him. The next day the snake arrived. After waiting months to get her I tore in to the package.
What I found inside was the wrong snake. She was also very skinny. He told me she had gone in to shed, but she never did shed at all. She was just a skinny little brown snake that was 100% not the one I ordered. Worried that the addresses were mixed on the boxes, I contacted him and he got back to me via phone. He said he would search for the right snake and that it was his fault, and if he couldn't find her, he would make it up to me somehow. Sending her back for a refund, a free borneo stp baby, just something. He apologized profusely and I told him time and time again it was alright since he was working to make it right.
A couple weeks passed and he told me he could not find the female. He offered me a couple options to make up for it, one of which was offering me a surplus red. I asked to see pictures. All contact ceased to exist. I tried contacting him again and no answer.
Then, on Kingsnake, I found the correct female for sale along with her brother. I immediately emailed James and the seller, to tell James I had found her, and to see if the seller would work something out with the two of us. The seller replied shortly with a sorry for his mistake, they're for sale as a pair only. James still did not answer me back.
The snake, who I named Noodle in the meantime because she was so very skinny (and it was definitely just her, looking at the pictures of the snake I SHOULD have received was like a toothpick by a garden hose) was not eating. I could not get her to eat at all. I went to check on her this morning, mouse in hand, telling myself she either takes it this time or gets assist fed, and I found her belly up dead.
I paid for one snake and in its place received an entirely different one that starved itself to death. He has refused to give me any form of contact since. I'm out $350 and I've been 100% had. He had to have sold the female I purchased with her brother as a pair knowingly. Instead of stopping this madness and telling me he no longer had the snake on hand, since he obviously knew, he figured he'd send me his last crappy feeding female to get it off his hands and keep my money. If it was a problem with my payment plan, he should have taken the deposit money and then given the rest back. That's what deposits are for, protecting the seller.
Sending me the wrong snake, one that was sickly and is now dead, and then dropping contact when he finally has to make due for his mistake is in no way a justifiable action.
I'm afraid I'll have to say no to the second male. I'm a bit interested but it was the first mother I really liked, and this morning I found one of my ball pythons that had managed to escape has a respiratory infection, so I have to tend to that emergency vet bill before I go buying other snakes.. especially since this particular ball was my very first snake, she comes before all else. 
