hey guys… i hate to have to post it here… but after months of email exchange with this breeder. I don't know what i should do...

Heres the story

back in august of last year. i was made aware of this beautiful 3 gene male that was hatched out but by the breeder. we exchange emails and settle on a price of 2400$. i pay him a $500 depost at that time. due to my financial situation at the time i was not able to pay it in full, however the breeder allow me to take as long as i want to finish the payment. During this period he has sent me around 2-3 photos of the snake.

fast forward to december of 2013. I have completed the payment, at this time i ask for the snake to be shipped. however the breeder told me that he is afraid to ship because it negative 10 degree where he is and he has had dead snakes when he shipped like this (red flag no1: i have receive snakes by heated cargo through air canada in similar weather and it was fine if it was package properly)

so at this point i give him the benefit of the doubt, and told him i would wait as he did waited patiently for my payment.
One month later, i email him again asking if it is save to shipped. At this time he reply with saying that he is now oversea dude to family emergency. soooo no shipping….

ok I trust him again, during aug to dec while i was making payment to him i had a family emergency too and that led to me not being able to pay the full payment, so i feel like i should give him the benefit of the doubt. At this time he said that he has an assistant watching him snakes while he is away and would tell the assistant to shipped the snake when the weather permits. at this point i ask again for a picture of the snake. He said he will get me picture when he comes back but did not give me solid date on when he will be back home. Here i got a little impatient and press for picture as i know he has a caretaker for the snake. he claims his caretaker does not own a cellphone or a camera. When i press further about when he would be back in town. he wrote me an email basically saying all this shipping delay is my fault, if i had paid way back in aug i would not have this problem and that he would not be back in town unless the weather get hotter. he said since i took 4 months to pay i should at least have the patience to wait the same amount of time.

I was quite furious at this point, but i swallow it alright i pay a lot for this snake, and i have plan to breed it and he is right i did took 4 months to pay. i really want the snake, even though at this point i have way overpay for him, the price for this combo has come down and i have already miss crucial breeding time with my females.

so i waited a full 4 month from when i made the last payment, email him at the beginning of april. Here i appear to have good new, he told me he will be back next thursday (that last week) and that he will shipped immediately when he gets back. i waited for that thursday, no email. waited 2 more days, no email. So i email him back yesterday asking when i will get my snake.

heres what he told me: he came back to his facility and it was a disaster, he had electrical problem and the snake was not heated for 2 weeks, he had many sick and dead snake. he will sort this out and ship me the snake asap.
(red flag: WHERE WAS HIS CARETAKER!!! even if he doesn't know the heat is off, wouldn't he have notice the dead snake?)

at this point i'm very worry, that
1. he will keep on giving me excuse and never shipped the snake and i'm out of my hard earn money
2. he will shipped me a sick snake that either doa or very soon after, blame me for it. our of hard earn money…
3. he will shipped me a different snake than the one i bought…..


at this point i'm not sure if i even want to deal with him anymore. i put my trust in him because he suppose to be a pretty big breeder in his area. I didn't do a check on his feedback and it was not very good… many customer complain about his lying and general bad customer service etc but the health of his animal wasn't really a problem.

I would be happy right now to either get my money back or my snake (alive and healthy of course).

i'm not sure what to do. i give him my address at this point and waiting to see what he tell me about health guarantee at this point. I don't want to expose the breeder yet as this could still end well. however i also have a feeling he would be refund me the money if anything goes wrong.

This is the first time i have pay this much for a snake and i had so much hope breeding it. not this is making me very feeling very shady about snake breeder and breeding in general. at this point i realize.. if all goes wrong, this is no way of getting all or any of my money back…..

please if anybody have been in similar situation, please advice me on what to do?