BUYER BEWARE – Noah’s Ark Couriers/Jonnyboy/Craig Ford

[kenneally1]

Originally Posted by Nic B-C

I didnt read the thread starter as already stated but I have now still dont think it makes a jot of difference to what I typed above other than the part about calling straight away

and that is what i pointed out!

[Ssthisto]

Originally Posted by Meko

unfortunately they were the first ones to come forward; then all the others came creeping out later. If people had come out with the same speed Ssthisto did then there wouldn't be as many people in the same situation.

Exactly, Meko.

It takes *one* person to stick their neck out and take the flack before other people are willing to step up next to them.

We decided to stretch out our heads in the hope that even if we *did* get slated, maybe we could stop other people getting scammed. If someone else had known about Craig Ford - and that he was Jonnyboy - before we did, and had said something about undersized snakes, we'd have been two snakes fewer but £860 better off.

I had actually read SOMETHING about Jonnyboy having some issues... but not knowing that Craig-is-John-and-John-is-Craig made all the difference. If I'd known about the link between the two, I probably wouldn't have bought without photos of the snakes on scales.

As for forums and confrontation... some folks don't cope well with any criticism when they're already feeling vulnerable - i.e. they've just been scammed; some folks won't have tried weighing the snakes so they won't know there's a significant difference (especially if they aren't breeders with plans for the animals) ... and yes, there will be some people who were just so thrilled to have gotten their first morph/etc that they didn't question it.

It's just his bad luck that he happened to sell five animals to two different people who DID have breeding plans for the animals AND knew what they were getting - without being so new to morphs that "oooh pretty" would override "damn, that's half the size he said it would be."

My Bob Clark royals were small when we got them - but then, they hadn't been sold on the basis of their weight, they were "the pied male in X photograph, a pair of ghosts" etc. The fact that we had a 500-gram female royal to compare to the "500-gram" female yellowbelly just pretty much cinched it.

[StuW247]

Now that is a thread and a half. Always nice to be informed of our choices of whom we buy from.

[hard rocka]

Its Freakin despicable what these people deem reasonable conduct!..they takinjg advantage of a niche in the market which isnt really publicised alot and scamming people that care about the animals. They also false representing weights, which bumps prices to line their own pockets!
Ive added the link to my sig in the hope tht ppl become aware!

[samhack]

I read the whole of the original 4000 word post while i was at work using my mobile with a 2 inch screen. Needless to say it was hard work but thanks for the warning and great work. I'm sorry to all who were scammed and feel sorry most of all for the injured or deceased animals.

As soon as i work out how to add a link i will.

Once again thanks for putting all of this together.

Sam

[samhack]

The monkey word out how to grind the organ.

Link added

[Lostcorn]

Originally Posted by BigC90210

Hehe, you've just revealed 99% of the small breeders on here are criminals

Dont you believe it

99% of small breeders on here dont make a penny profit from there animals.

Just the opposite in fact

[Ssthisto]

I have to agree on that, Lostcorn - even if I beat the odds with my Granite X Coral Snow poss. het Bloodred and the 18 eggs I have successfully hatch out 18 granite corns this year AND I can sell all of them for £50 each... that's still only £40 more than I paid our friend Jonnyboy for the snakes we got from him (and we've still paid for food, equipment, other snakes, etc) = no profit this year.

[cappie49]

Sorry to hear about whats happened, its the animals that suffer. I haven't had anything to do with jonnyboy in person just a few PM's mths ago but something wasn't right. I also didn't know he was noah's ark, which I nearly used a few weeks back.Lucky for me Darren came thru from G and D.
I sold a snow corn to Tango a few mths back, to what I was told was a forever home. I dropped it at his house and he is only maybe 18-19 and very immature. Anyway it was back up forsale with 3 weeks as a greenblotch, not saying it wasn't a greenblotch as the person who bought it must have thought so,but I didn't think so.

[scooby.ben]

Originally Posted by Fangio

What exactly would you like us to do? At the end of the day all sales are done privately. The mods aren't there (and never could be) to inspect/weigh/sex every animal (or any) so have NO way of knowing unless sales are reported with evidence. The iTrader system is there for people to leave feedback but a lot of people don't use it it seems.

It is difficult to use though. It's not an obvious service to use. If it was made more obvious on the User CP then it may be used more often.