Quote Originally Posted by Vasiliki View Post
The paperwork that was forged, in that case, did not have photographs of the animal and was not the legitimate NERD paperwork. Not even close. A little bit of research would have yielded that it was not the correct paperwork. Then buyer then found a thread started by the seller after the fact, contradicting where he purchased them from.

In that case, I think it's unfortunate for the buyer, but again, research is key here. A little digging and asking a few questions can go a LONG way in this industry.

On the matter of hets, paperwork would be a requirement of mine if purchased from anyone but the breeder (with confirmation of the paperwork's authenticity by a quick e-mail to said breeder), or no paperwork if I'm buying from someone I know and trust.
Even assuming it was legitimate paperwork, it would be relatively easy to Photoshop a new pic of a fake het in so I still would not trust correct paperwork with pictures from a third party seller. Someone could buy a het with paperwork from respected breeder, and then sell a hundred normal "hets" all with real actual het paperwork just with different pictures. You would have to contact the actual breeder for the het status, assuming they keep records with pictures of every snake and then have them compare the pictures. Better to just buy from the breeder in the first place if trust is an issue. If trust is there, then paperwork is just a nice extra.

The last two hets I bought came with digital PDF paperwork emailed to me which I thought was great. I don't know if PDF paperwork is common practice now but it should be. I'm sure PDF's can be doctored as well but it's probably a little harder and most importantly, there's the orignal email record.