As everyone has already said, selling possible hets as normals happens a lot. And I've seen several threads where people have posted pictures of their new snake and have been told there's another gene in there (I specifically remember a firefly that was actually a firefly yellowbelly, and a butter or lesser that was actually a fire butter/lesser). For a breeder's reputation, it's definitely better to sell something they're unsure about as a normal, than to have a customer get an unpleasant surprise.

I believe Brian at BHB Reptiles has said that before they proved out the sunset morph, he sold a bunch of het sunset babies to local pet stores at the price of normals because he was convinced the morph wasn't genetic. So there are people who own het sunsets that were purchased as normals. And now they're selling for thousands of dollars

I remember reading a thread a few months ago about someone hatching axanthic clowns, and they had no idea that the male was het for axanthic, they were just trying to prove the possible het clown female to be het clown. Definitely a surprise I wouldn't mind Here it is: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...was-unexpected