Buyers beware!

[JLC]

Wow....I'm guessing it's been ssoooo long since we've had any serious drama here that folks just can't help themselves but to jump into something at the first opportunity. So many instant assumptions on all sides....so many ready (anxiously eager, even) to assign blame immediately based on nothing more than those same assumptions.

Personally, I'd like to see everyone take a step back and a deep, cleansing breath and calm down. But I know y'all will do what you want, regardless of my wishes.

WHY did the snake die? NO ONE knows. If the snake looked as healthy and lively as the OP described when it was purchased, brought home and first put into its holding tank...then why on earth should the seller have "known" he was selling a sick snake? From what we've been given to go by, the seller could not have known the animal was in danger of imminent death any more than the buyer could. So, the seller (so far as we can tell from the meager facts given) should not be held responsible for the untimely and mysterious death of the snake. He has not "scammed" anyone, and we don't have a shred of evidence to suggest otherwise.....according to the OP's own words.

How the seller chooses to handle the matter after being made aware of the snake's immediate death is another matter entirely. Anyone with an ounce of decent business sense would want to make things right with their brand-new customer.....and, again based strictly on the OP's own words....it sounded to me like he did just that. Granted, it wasn't an immediate fix....and I can understand the frustration in being forced to wait for something the OP obviously had been working hard toward for a long time already.....but I don't see anything wrong with the offer that was made to help make things right again.

I'm frustrated with some members who seem anxious to jump on the blame bandwagon. Picking apart the OP and grilling him on ridiculous issues of semantics like "quarantine" or his reasons for using a separate holding tank initially. Personally, I thought it was a smart move, and I had done the exact same thing with my very first snake purchase so many years ago. IF the snake had mites, I didn't want them getting established in the complicated set-up....so he went into a much simpler set-up until I was confident he was fine and mite-free. Why should such a move earn him darts thrown at him?

People also need to be more patient when asking their questions and realize that not everyone is on here all hours of the day or refreshing the pages every few minutes. If an "inquiry" thread gets busy and 30 people are suddenly flinging questions left and right, is the OP suddenly a bad guy because he's not logged in to see all that activity being thrown his way??? A lot of questions and thread activity does NOT equal a reasonable amount of time passing for a response.

This post seems to have caused a lot of consternation:

I could post them, but why?


He's already been told why the animal died and what he did wrong. So the subject is closed..he has a new snake and is very happy with it. Maybe later, he'll come back.

I'm going to go out on a very long, shaky limb here and see if I can get into broadude's head and guess what she meant. I believe she that because so many were so intent on throwing out reasons why the snake must have died and why it was automatically the boy's fault. "Y'all told him why the animal died and what he did wrong...so what else is there for him to say??? He has a new snake now and is happy and doesn't need the bother of these unreasonable accusations" <---- My interpretation of her words in that post.

All in all.....it's possible that the OP did something that caused the snake's death. Nothing wrong with wanting to get to the bottom of it by asking specific questions about heating methods in the 10g tank. But such questions don't need to be accusatory in nature. That doesn't help anyone learn anything.

It's also entirely probable that the snake died for reasons beyond any human control....either the seller's or the buyer's. So why all the heated finger-pointing??

To the OP......I'm sorry your snake died. I know that had to be very tough to experience. I hope you're willing to learn a little bit about communication on the 'Net and how to avoid getting involved in this sort of mud-fight in the future......and I deeply hope you're willing to closely examine your own actions and be willing to learn from them if you did make an error along the way. And I sincerely hope you'll stay around as a part of the community here to learn more and to make friends along the way. (Seems like you've already made a good one. )