Victims of the Dark Side of this Community

[Freakie_frog]

As a breeder I see nothing wrong with your questions. While this information is found on the persons website they missed a chance at what a salesman would have seen as a great time to "SELL YOU". To many times breeders may be great with animals make wonderfull looking snakes or lizards or whatever but they are crap when it comes to the human interactions that are needed to sell.. well anything other than Girl Scout Cookies, just say thin mints and my wallet crawls out of my pockets and will dump itself at your feet, What you've run up on is someone that hasn't figured out that there are people on the other end of those dollar bills and that in order to trade snakes for dollar bills the person on the other end has to fell like letting go of them. Thats where the salesman ship comes in I've had people call me and want me to drive and hour for them to look at 3 different 25.00 normals. I have to politely decline those kinds of requests due to the stress on the animals and lets face it 25.00 is less than what I'll spend in gas.

It's all about the human interaction it takes to sell the single animal to the single customer and even harder to keep that interaction going after the sale is complete. Go to any reptile expo and watch the busy tables it'll be the ones where the vendor is up and ingauged with the customers not sitting behind the table texting or off at the end hoping you'll ask about something.

[OhhWatALoser]

well anything other than Girl Scout Cookies, just say thin mints and my wallet crawls out of my pockets and will dump itself at your feet

All my snakes come with a free box of thin mints now.

I agree with all other points also tho

[herpvenue]

The OP is clearly intelligent and eloquent and can see both sides.
How refreshing is that in this day and age.
Stay vigilant my friends.

[JLC]

I missed an 's' and that is a misspelling and scam? I guess I won't debate the "kindness" as being indicative of a scam as I always thought it was standard operating procedure to be polite when conducting business. I refer to everyone as sir until I know them on a first name basis, at work or in social gatherings, just how I was raised - though again a change of the times.

It's not a reflection on YOU, or intended as a criticism of your way of doing business. It's just a reflection of today's reality. On the one hand, almost all business is conducted with much less formal language (especially in the not-exactly-professional herping world). On the other hand, foreign scammers have a very strong history of starting out letters with language that they hope will disarm their mark and make them look legit...formal greetings and lots of flowery compliments. Put those two realities together, and your ultra-polite greeting from a foreign IP automatically looks suspect. Again, not your fault, and not a sign of anything wrong with old-school manners....just harsh reality.

Solutions? How do you fix bad guys? If there was a way to prevent people from doing bad stuff, I think we would have implemented it thousands of years ago and our world would look a LOT different than it does today.

The solution won't be found in internet codes or policies. The solution is simply in doing all you can to protect yourself.

[zee-man]

I realize we don't live in a perfect world, but we shouldn't just give up and say "that's the way it is."


I think the situation is getting better, with Facebook pages and breeder ratings, but it doesn't hurt to brainstorm with more ideas. Like the references for example. Sure they can be faked, but if someone really wants to check they can, and then the scammer is caught red-handed.

I know IP bans don't 100% work, but like with World of Warcraft - since someone else referenced this game :-P - even though people could re-route IP's to continue playing the game, on a ban they lost their investment and time. If these marketplaces ban bad sellers for unethical business behavior, that person has to keep re-purchasing tokens to make fake ads. How long before they start losing more than they can make and its no longer "easy money." Most criminals aren't very intelligent or proficient - otherwise they'd be doing a higher method of crime or working a real job .



Our goal should be to always be ahead of the criminal, really that's what they are, and force them to adapt to the environment. The more painful it is to "decrypt" our business world, the more dissuasion from trying. It does bother me though that local jurisdictions won't get involved in Internet crime. If you provide proof and reference, stealing online is still theft.

Anywho, thanks for the replies and my apologies for the long silence, it was past my bed time at the point the thread starting seeing responses.

[JLC]

I agree with everything you're saying, zee-man...I just think it goes back to what I've already said...which is to squish 'em one at a time as soon as they pop up. AND that it's up to individuals to protect themselves. Ask for references, as you've noted, and then follow up on them. That's an individual's responsibility. And, while I can't speak for Kingsnake, I know that Marketplace will take all the steps it can to keep known scammers from participating, including IP bans. But that is a one-case-at-a-time situation as well.

It's fine to talk about this stuff. Plenty of newbies come into the hobby with a very naive outlook and think everyone with shiny pictures or a website must really know their stuff and be good business people. It's good to remind folks that is not always the case.

It just sounds like you're asking for blanket solutions to an over-reaching problem that has more to do with the human condition than reptile businesses. We've got laws in place. We've got legal and civil resources we can use if someone does us dirty. We've got public pressure that can be applied to flaky business people. And we've all got our own brains that we should probably utilize more than we do. A little common sense is worth its weight in rare morphs to protect oneself against the bad guys of the world.

[herpvenue]

zee-man,
I use to be a moderator over on faunaclassifieds. Spent years trying to squish them one at a time. The negativity gets tiring. Being exposed to that much scamming gets really tiring. I was losing myself quickly.

Just be careful. The hunt for the bad guys is gratifying but only at first. After a while it gets time consuming. Then you may end up acting like them. Not that you may end up scamming anyone. Just the over all attitude and demeanor rubs off on you. One of the many reasons I "retired" from squishing them.