Quote Originally Posted by John1982 View Post
10-20% nonrefundable deposits are pretty common these days. Basically made for customers like this that make you pull ads for weeks only to back out in the end. Did you tell him before he paid that shipping might not be possible for a while? If not, and he's new to mail order snakes, I could understand him getting cold feet.
This. Also, since you don't have a Terms of Service I'd suggest you look at the ones from a few other breeders and make one of your own, and include that some percentage of the payment is non-refundable.

Personally if I were purchasing a reptile from someone in New England I wouldn't expect it to be shipped out until late March at the earliest due to weather.