I saw this story too! Except it was on Yahoo.

I dunno, if a dude wanted to sell me a large snake he had in a van, I think I'd be pretty skeptical of how legit it was. Plus they probably didn't even have a setup for it and just stuck it in a room if it was an impulse buy; friend walks in and has a nasty (and very foul-tempered, apparently) surprise. The snake strikes at him and the dude overreacts and says it was trying to eat him.

Because, y'know, snakes can eat anything, regardless of how big it is. (I've met WAY too many people that have that mindset, unfortunately...)