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

[Caz]

Scott:
Craig Ford Pythonman is also Jonnyboy and is also Noahs Ark Couriers. CFPM sold some snakes as x weight but they were under half the weight when they arrived.
Courier 'Noahs Ark' delivered snakes.

It would seem that the above 3 are infact one person, real name:
John McCulley hence the 'confusion..' over the new courier company user name JM Couriers..

It appears that John McCulley makes a habit of being a low end conman. It would also appear that several RFUK users from the same area (North East) either know or are connected with John McCulley.

Thats it really - a civil matter re the underweight snake sales, a Revenue and Customs matter re- hobby or business & tax owed and a silly deception re who runs Noahs Ark and who is Craig Ford etc.

WHAT I can't understand when you have his address have you not been round and stuck a bat up his nightdress?

[Onissarle]

Originally Posted by Scott W

Sorry but can anyone give an abreviated post of what the actual problem was?

Was there any problems with Noahs' Ark Couriers? (i.e. service, keeping to their word etc).

Hi Scott,

The first the thing you have to keep in mind is that Noah's Ark -is- John McCulley. There is no distinction between the two.

He has been trading as a pet shop without a license.

He has set up multiple, fraudulent PayPal identities and operated under at least two aliases we know of for the sole purpose of selling animals through deception. He has lied about their age, size, origin, how long he's had them and about their feeding history and reason for sale at the very least.

He has previously been banned from RFUK under another identity and has been aiding other members that have been proven scamming (and been ruled against by PayPal to that effect).

He has horrifically mis-treated animals and repeatedly sold animals that were in terrible (and fatal) condition through fraudulent methods. He has then refused any sort of compensation or refund when animals have required medical care or in one case, died a few hours after purchase.

He has been running a scam for some time where he is buying in undesized '08 hatchlings from Bob then -deliberately- advertising them under false weights (more than double what they are) to get better prices. He has changed identities to repeat this scam after being caught and even approached other people to repeat the scam for him.

His has publicly and privately lied about his identity and aliases, even pretended to be someone else on the phone to me. He has pretended to be an impartial third party as a courier while actually delivering his own snakes.

He has broken agreements with and ripped off couriers.

He has ordered and received equipment but refuses to pay for it.

In private messages he has even been bragging about the scams he's running and laughing about how he's been getting away with it.

Come to think of it, of the dozens of times he has contacted us as his alias 'Craig Ford' and as 'Noah's Ark' I am finding it difficult to find an instance where he didn't outright lie or deliberately omit information to deceive us.

Another point is that John had runs booked with another courier even after 'Noah's Ark Couriers' suddenly appeared. It seems to have taken about three days for Noah's Ark Couriers to have popped into existence. As I've said, I suggest people ask to see his animal transport license from DEFRA and the relevant insurance documents required for that sort of courier service. Noah's Ark isn't a registered company and as the person running it is a known, habitual scammer (that has tried to hide, and lied about, his identity since starting the courier) who has no regard for animal welfare, I am highly suspicious of whether Noah's Ark Couriers is operating legally or not.

I had to write to huge essay to actually back up and justify all our claims so people would know we were just making things up and slagging him off because we weren't happy with out purchase. We also wanted to show people it's not just us that he's scammed, he's been at it for quite some time, hence all the quotes and people that have posted on this thread since saying they've been victims too.

[Scott W]

Originally Posted by Meko

Scott..

the issue is that Jonnyboy sold some snakes as x weight but they were roughly half the weight when they arrived.

Sadly this is the case with many sales when people are more concerned about buying CHEAP as opposed to buying from proven, reliable sources.

Originally Posted by sparkle

they arrived at 4am at someones house... who was extremely unhappy.. they said it was down to another customer keeping them waiting.. whether this is true or not noone knows.. however there have also been several complaints of very cold animals... and extremely bad communication.. again you would need to talk to the people who had used noahs ark courriers..

I know personally I would be wanting now to make sure any service I used was above board legally...

I must admit the runs did sound like they would be very hard to plan and pull off in the times required, I guess when trying to get a sensible courier price things like that are inevitable although certainly no acceptable.

As for the DEFRA transport certificate, I can't comment on who has or hasn't one but want I would say is that it is a 100% pointless piece of paper that guarantees NOTHING when it comes to the care reptiles in transit. YES if the law say's you must be registered then yes you should be registered, no excuse (especially when it's just a tick box form to fill in).

Originally Posted by Caz

Thats it really - a civil matter re the underweight snake sales, a Revenue and Customs matter re- hobby or business & tax owed and a silly deception re who runs Noahs Ark and who is Craig Ford etc.

Again, I think when it comes to buying high end snakes, there are NO SHORT cuts to quality and service. As for the Taxes etc, you don't need to be a registered business to have to pay tax on any income, even a bedroom breeder that earns from his leopard geckos should pay tax on any profit

Originally Posted by Onissarle

Hi Scott,
I had to write to huge essay to actually back up and justify all our claims so people would know we were just making things up and slagging him off because we weren't happy with out purchase. We also wanted to show people it's not just us that he's scammed, he's been at it for quite some time, hence all the quotes and people that have posted on this thread since saying they've been victims too.

No worries, I was a little lost at first as to what the problem was, although as I said I did rather scan read. Certainly sounds like someone was trying to make a quick profit from the Clark stock, although not suprised really and was kinda inevitable that someone would do it.

I have to say that I was interested about all this as I had made Noahs' Ark Couriers a sticky on the CaptiveBred Forums before I heard of any of this, bascially as the hobby is in desperate need of a courier service with realistic prices, this was what on paper they were offering. I have NO affilation with this service, have not used it and have not been offered any deal in order to make it a sticky on my site, it was all done purely to try and support what looked like something the hobby needed (not even me as I have a TNT account that works fine).

[shikari]

i know im going to get jumped for this but i still believe this kind of courier would do the site a world of good, anywhere in the uk for £40, none of this set areas etc

i will deffo consider if he can show licences and promise to keep them warm...

i know im going to die for this but hey ho...

[Caz]

Originally Posted by shikari

i know im going to get jumped for this but i still believe this kind of courier would do the site a world of good, anywhere in the uk for £40, none of this set areas etc

i will deffo consider if he can show licences and promise to keep them warm...

i know im going to die for this but hey ho...

No I think many other people are perhaps thinking the same thing - as Scott said above really!
Perhaps this whole thread might be an example of no advertising is bad advertising

[BigC90210]

Originally Posted by Scott W

As for the Taxes etc, you don't need to be a registered business to have to pay tax on any income, even a bedroom breeder that earns from his leopard geckos should pay tax on any profit

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

[Gzus30]

Originally Posted by Meko

Scott..

the issue is that Jonnyboy sold some snakes as x weight but they were roughly half the weight when they arrived.

Jonnyboy is also Noah's Ark Couriers but that has nothing to do with anything as far as i can see; just people wanting gold badges for their detective work.
So far the only problem with the courier side of things that i've seen is that some silly tart messed them about telling them to come back later and then the next day. As they do multiple drops this resulted in everybody else being messed about.

Agreed.

[Scott W]

Originally Posted by BigC90210

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

Well no not really, I'm just stating a fact that if you make a captital gain, you have to pay tax on it. I have no idea who actually makes a captital gain out of breeding / selling reptiles or who pays tax on any money if they did

[Ssthisto]

Originally Posted by Meko

just people wanting gold badges for their detective work.

If you think we posted it to get kudos for ourselves, that's your perogative. Maybe you don't have the same sense of community spirit that I have and think we should have quietly sucked up the loss of the money, given the animals back in the hope of a refund "someday" or gone and beaten the snot out of Jonnyboy instead, but kept our mouths shut so we didn't clutter the forum with long posts.

No, we'd rather make sure that he can't play the same game with other people without their *knowledge* that there could be a problem.

Want £40 courier costs anywhere in the country? Great. Contact someone with a TNT account who's willing to do a remote collection and delivery and you'll get equivalent care and attention to your animals in transit.

[midori]

Originally Posted by shikari

i know im going to get jumped for this but i still believe this kind of courier would do the site a world of good, anywhere in the uk for £40, none of this set areas etc

i will deffo consider if he can show licences and promise to keep them warm...

i know im going to die for this but hey ho...

But there is already a courier company that offer this service, JM Couriers, who have apparently, got a good reputation.

I would never, ever, in a million years trust my reps (buying or selling) to someone who had sold a beardy in the condition of the poor girl mentioned earlier on in this thread. That suggests no care for animal life, and I would not trust someone like, or anyone who had anything to do with them, that with my animals.