When is it okay to demand a refund?

[CALM Pythons]

Well all I can say is at least he is answering txts.. for now anyway... Like i said im sorry this happened.. Ive gotten taken too before. Tuff lesson especially when thats a lot of money especially for younger people


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[Lizardlicks]

Nobody keeps all there money in Paypal.

Incorrect. I know PLENTY of people who's sole means of access to money is via Paypal. They set up a Paypal account to receive money via youtube, patreon, commissions etc. Paypal sends them a debit card, and they do all their business AS IF Paypal were a bank, even though it isn't. Not everyone has a 9-5 paycheck and direct deposit in a regular bank/credit union, especially if their credit is crap or they have over draft stuff from previous accounts etc. It's not smart BECAUSE Paypal is a private company that sets terms and conditions on their use, and they can and WILL freeze your account, and every penny you have is just -poof!- gone if you do something wrong. But people still do it either because they don't know any better or they don't have a choice.

[redshepherd]

Okay, but I did find something out. I'll update tomorrow.

[Lizardlicks]

Actually, if the guy is this irresponsible with his financing (not having enough to build a new cage/not being able to refund out right and wants to simply repair the broken cage to save on material costs leads me to believe he's mismanaging his business costs) and customer service, I'm betting that he was keeping all his money in Paypal BECAUSE he's got over draft fees from his bank that he didn't want to have eaten into.

[CALM Pythons]

Incorrect. I know PLENTY of people who's sole means of access to money is via Paypal. .

Your right and i should of explained all that but i was just trying to give a quick response and not confuse her after all this craziness hahahaha.
What I should of said is that anyone that keeps all their finances with Paypal is most likely someone nobody should do business with. Several people do use Paypal like you said Lizard and for the reasons you said.. Its to bad but we all have to be defensive & very careful when doing business in person and online. To many people have problems that become our problems otherwise. I was one of those that always gave people the benefit of the doubt or second chances and that never worked out in my favor. Unfortunately it makes you a little hard but it also keeps you from getting screwed.


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[redshepherd]

I think it's a good time now to reveal that his name is Mitchel Lack of Outlaw Exotics, and he is absolutely a bad guy in my situation. I'll update what has happened tomorrow.

[zina10]

I think it's a good time now to reveal that his name is Mitchel Lack of Outlaw Exotics, and he is absolutely a bad guy in my situation. I'll update what has happened tomorrow.

I'm so sorry this has all gone down to "crap" the way it has.

What I would like to say is this...do NOT blame yourself. This is not your fault.
He is being a crook, that is all there is to it. He is taking advantage of you and jerking you around. So what if you paid friends and family. It might leave you unprotected now, but you DID PAY.

HE is the bad one here, please keep that in mind at all times.

Crooks will be crooks. Even when you do everything right, or try to protect yourself as good as possible, crooks find ways to screw you over.

What it sounds like is the typical situation of "spent the money" and then didn't have any to buy materials to make the cage. Finally got more money for more cages, so spent some of "their" money on your cage, hastily putting it together. Now its broken, which can happen, so he "should" take care of you. But he doesn't, because once again he has spent all funds, and not where he should have. He should have received that cage back by now, and he should have received money from FedEx.

Most likely he is waiting on new orders, so he has more money coming in. Which he will spend on whatever, but not on those peoples orders. If you are lucky, some may come your way.

He is just stalling. I don't believe for one nanosecond that he even HAS funds in paypal.

Instead of applying the funds he gets towards each order, making sure the order is filled in a timely manner, shipped in a timely manner and NOT spending the profit on it UNTIL everything went well and the transaction is closed he is "borrowing from Heinz to pay Kunz" like we say in Germany. Meaning taking money from one person to pay back another, and so on and forth.

I bet he runs his entire business like that. Which is as crooked as can be.

No matter what I sell, I ALWAYS always hold on to the funds until the buyer gets back to me, letting me know they are happy and everything went well.

Once again, do not feel guilty, or like you did wrong. You did right. He did wrong.

You will just learn that you can't trust hardly anyone and that you have to protect yourself as good as you can. Sad fact of life, to many crooks out there, or at least people with not ethics.

[KWAddict]

Well, I'm sorry this has happened to you but I think you were more than right to expose him. I just found the "Outlaw Exotics" facebook page. I saw a negative review left about an hour ago. It appears you aren't alone in this matter or the community is taking up for you (unless it was your comment I happened to find, haha).

Best of luck going forwards. I really hope you are refunded soon! I will continue following the story.

[Jhill001]

Having read the initial post and the rest of it from what I understand it's really not either you or the sellers fault at least initially. Fedex broke your cage.

Yeah, its his fault for asking to send money as gifts and not having the necessary capital to easily replace a broken item, but like you said, its a side business. He should have immediately taken the issue up with his shipping company.

[KWAddict]

Having read the initial post and the rest of it from what I understand it's really not either you or the sellers fault at least initially. Fedex broke your cage.

Yeah, its his fault for asking to send money as gifts and not having the necessary capital to easily replace a broken item, but like you said, its a side business. He should have immediately taken the issue up with his shipping company.

But that's not what happened. I'm not trying to be rude but it's obvious you didn't ACTUALLY read everything in this thread. It has been stated many times the money was never requested to be sent as money/gift. The buyer did this to try to help the seller out. She has also been lectured about why this is a bad idea and gets it. It was immediately taken up with the shipping company. There are many reasons why many believe it to be the sellers fault. Let's go through the events again.

- Enclosure paid in full ($325) on 2/7/17.
- Enclosure estimated timeframe ~ 2 weeks. We'll call it 2/21/17.
- Enclosure not completed until sometime between 3/20/17 and 3/27/17.
- Enclosure arrived 4/3/17 damaged. It may very well have been FedEx's fault BUT the package was very poorly labeled.
- Refund immediately requested on 4/3/17. Seller persuades buyer into allowing him to immediately build a new one and have it shipped out to her.
- Shipping claim filed immediately as FedEx picked the enclosure back up on either 4/4/17 or 4/5/17.
- Seller takes it upon himself to decide not to immediately build a new enclosure and to wait for old one to return to use scraps because he has blown all of his funds.
- As of 4/23/17, a refund has been requested many times. He has not even begun to build a new enclosure in lieu of a refund. He has claimed to have no way to give her a refund. FedEx still (supposedly) has not delivered enclosure back to seller.

The bottom line is it has been two and a half months since an enclosure was paid for, in full. Side gig or not, this is irresponsible and just plain wrong. If you aren't building quality enclosures that can be shipped, provide horrible customer service, and don't know how to manage your finances well enough to right your wrongs when you do mess up, you don't need to be taking money from people.

OP, do you know if there was any shipping insurance placed on the enclosure? I don't imagine this to be the case but some people even abuse shipping insurance. He sends a subpar enclosure that he can recycle materials from. Enclosure is "damaged" in shipping. He gets enclosure sent back and cashes in from the shipping insurance. He "fixes" the enclosure as cheaply as possible, ships it back out, and not only makes money on the enclosure but probably tucked a couple extra hundred dollars in his pocket from the insurance check FedEx gives him.

It also sounds as if there is more incriminating evidence coming from the buyer's most recent statement.