What would you do?

[kc261]

OK, I'm REALLY frustrated right now.

I've been negotiating with a seller for 13 days. There were various excuses as to why the pics & weights I asked for were never sent to me.

Finally, I just got an email stating the seller has decided to keep the animals in question.

The ad is still active, although I don't know if anyone digs through ads that old.

In many circumstances, I would have long since decided I needed to back out of the deal (if it takes so long to get pics & weights to email, how long will it take to actually ship them out?), but the person in question had all positive feedback on the BOI (not a lot, but all positive), and also mentioned at the beginning of the 13 days that they had just had surgery, so I was giving the benefit of the doubt.

So what would you do? Just forget it? Try to push the seller to honor the deal they offered? Post on the BOI about the situation?

[wilomn]

Push.

What have you got to lose?

Publicity often helps.

Who's the seller and what's the deal?

[kc261]

I'm not going to post the name of the seller until I decide what I'm going to do about the situation. I feel I should give them a chance to "make it right" before I drag their name through the mud.

[West Coast Jungle]

In my experience if the beginning of the deal isnt going well the outcome will probably not be to my liking either. If you are not getting cooperation now, how much will you get if things dont go well.

If you have been burned before that ugly bile taste in your mouth is not one you would like to re-live. If not, trust me.

I would move on.

[frankykeno]

Personally if I'd invested 13 days into a deal and was asking for what amounts to quite normal things (weights, recent pictures) I'd be unhappy too. There's no reason that if they can respond to you that a deal is off they couldn't have taken 10 minutes to weigh and photograph an animal. It's not that big a deal and is an expected part of selling a snake over the internet.

I'd be hesitant to go forward with a deal, however, if the seller is this non-compliant with a standard request for information on a snake you wish to purchase. They may well have a good rep on the BOI but I'd be questioning myself whether I wanted to do business with a breeder that has so little respect for a customer (or what certainly appears to be that, surgery and other issues aside).

While it is the seller's right to deny a sale to anyone, this certainly doesn't speak well of them. However, since we don't have their side of it (not assuming you've done anything wrong Casey but fair is fair) I think it's right you aren't mentioning their name at this point and only looking for some input from the membership as far as how they might handle this sort of situation.

[LadyOhh]

Granted you have spent this much time and effort with this person, but knowing that the seller is no longer interested in selling the animal, pushing is really not going to get you far in terms of getting the animals in question.

Putting it on the BOI is out of the question, really. You did not exchange funds, and although you were told that this was the deal, the person in question does have a right to do what they will with their animals, and you will be told that ad nauseum if you post it on the BOI.

I think you should move on with your money, and make sure to note that this person does not deserve your funds from here on out. There are plenty of other fish in the sea.

[Serpents_Den]

Granted you have spent this much time and effort with this person, but knowing that the seller is no longer interested in selling the animal, pushing is really not going to get you far in terms of getting the animals in question.

Putting it on the BOI is out of the question, really. You did not exchange funds, and although you were told that this was the deal, the person in question does have a right to do what they will with their animals, and you will be told that ad nauseum if you post it on the BOI.

I think you should move on with your money, and make sure to note that this person does not deserve your funds from here on out. There are plenty of other fish in the sea.

I agree.

[kc261]

To clarify, I was not thinking of posting on the BOI with one of those threads that seem like the poster is asking/expecting the community to force the other party to follow through on a deal.

I did think it might be appropriate to post more of a "this was my experience" type of thing, not expecting anything other than that others could use it as one piece of their decision making process if they are considering doing business with the seller in question. Is this still inappropriate? I sort of thought the whole point of the BOI was to share this type of information? Or does it only count once money has exchanged hands?

[LadyOhh]

To clarify, I was not thinking of posting on the BOI with one of those threads that seem like the poster is asking/expecting the community to force the other party to follow through on a deal.

I did think it might be appropriate to post more of a "this was my experience" type of thing, not expecting anything other than that others could use it as one piece of their decision making process if they are considering doing business with the seller in question. Is this still inappropriate? I sort of thought the whole point of the BOI was to share this type of information? Or does it only count once money has exchanged hands?

If you feel the need to do so, make it clear that even though no money was exchanged, that you feel that people need to know that this person is a flip-flopper, and wasted your valuable time.

I don't see why you shouldn't do it, if that is what you'd like to do. Just make things crystal clear about what happened, and prepare to defend yourself if questions arise.

Some people don't think that it would be BOI worthy... It is on you to decide.

[Serpents_Den]

Well I think 13 days of negotiating is un-reasonable for either party. Of whomever couldn't get you pictures or weights in a reasonable amount of time then you should have moved on and looked elsewhere. As a sellers point of view we all have people waste our time, back out of deals etc but I wouldn't think about hurting there reputation by posting a thread. Maybe it's better the deal didn't come through like Raul said earlier in this thread.