IMG Motley Anery or IMG Motley?

[boathusiast]

Unfortunately I left a positive review immediately after my transaction and on MM you can’t change positive reviews to negative ones. I withdrew my review but because of that the breeder still has five stars on MM. I’m the same as you with snake buying. I read seller reviews and did a quick google search of the seller, and everything looked good and reputable. I don’t expect to get anything back from the seller. I’m just worried now that someone else will be duped by the seller. I don’t think this thread will show up when googling the seller’s reviews, which are just as good now as they were when I bought from them.

Plus, I’m worried that if the sire of my snake isn’t Anery, as listed on the seller’s MM page, the siblings to my snake that were also sold as being Anery were mislabeled as well. So there are other people who had this happen with the same seller, though not as expensive of a mistake as I made.

[caron]

Just curious Do you plan on breeding down the road? If so you certainly are getting some ethical experience on becoming a seller!

[jawramik]

I seem to remember that there is a way to add an update to a review you’ve already published. I know I’ve seen reviews that had updates added later. Not sure how to do that, though, maybe @eaglereptiles could walk you through how to do that.

This story serves as a good reminder to read a seller’s store policy before buying. That policy of only giving a buyer 24 hours to verify genetics kinda sucks, especially given the fact that there are many morphs (like IMG in this case) that don’t fully reveal themselves until the animal grows and matures. And when it comes to hets, it could take months or years to verify that (either through genetic testing or breeding). I get that mistakes happen, some traits are difficult to identify in neonates and even very knowledgeable people can make honest mistakes, but I feel like a good, ethical breeder would make this right somehow, like by refunding some of your money to account for the fact that you basically paid an extra $2k for two genes this snake clearly does not have. The fact that he sometimes says the sire has anery and sometimes doesn’t also raises a bit of a red flag to me. Just seems like some crummy, dishonest business practices all around.

Your boa is beautiful, he’s certainly a lovely motley, it’s just a shame that he hasn’t turned out to be what you paid for and thought you were buying. And it’s even more of a shame that this breeder is unwilling to offer any acceptable remedy.

[jawramik]

@boathusiast

genetics on the parents are, supposedly, IMG Motley Albino het Snow x Hypo IMG het Moonglow.

Wait, if both the parents were IMG, then shouldn’t all the offspring be IMG? Your boa is clearly not IMG, so that couldn’t have been the pairing that produced him…right? (Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m still trying to get my head around boa morphs and genetics.)

EDIT: I was indeed incorrect, as explained below.

[smite]

Looks like IMG is considered a dominant gene, like hypo, so 25% of the litter could be non img

[jawramik]

Ah, gotcha, thanks for clearing that up.

[mattcookreptiles]

As to not confuse people, super IMGs havent been proven.

[smite]

Good to know. I’m surprised that hasn’t happened yet.

[boathusiast]

From what I can see, updates can only be added to negative reviews. I understand it as a way to protect sellers from angry customers/bad owners, but the downside is that it does allow for these sorts of dishonest business practices to thrive. They especially thrive off people who, like me, don’t know what they’re doing and take the breeder’s word that time is the only thing needed to develop the boa’s look. All I’m hoping for now is that I can have the ability to leave a negative review on the MM store page, so other novice buyers will be warned away from that seller.

[nswilkerson1]

@eaglereptiles is this something we could look at changing? The ability to change a positive review to a negative review, in situations like these? I understand the need to want to change from a negative to positive if the breeder was able to rectify an issue, but feel it should be able to go both ways, no?

Edited to add: I’m sure there’s a logical/reasonable reason as to why this isn’t currently able to be done, but figured it was worth asking anyhow!

[eaglereptiles]

@jawramik

there is a way to add an update to a review you’ve already published

Both buyer and seller can add up to 3 comments/replies per review, but they can not be edited.

@nswilkerson1

this something we could look at changing? The ability to change a positive review to a negative review

I understand the reasoning for wanting this to change, however, 99.9% (IMG is in that .1%) of issues that deserve a bad rating should be noticed instantly by the buyer BEFORE leaving the initial rating. Buyers have up to 90 days after the initial inquiry OR the ad is marked sold to create a rating, so there is a long enough window to make sure everything is as expected. Some even think this is too long, for example, in 90 days a buyer could have visited 5 shows and is now blaming the seller because they discover mites on the animal 70 days later.

If a buyer didn’t notice any issues on delivery, then proving anything is near impossible in a dispute situation, and the overwhelming majority of the time it will come down to something outside of the sellers control. Far too often do we see a failure to thrive due to a buyers care/setup/lifestyle and it be blamed on the seller 6 months down the line.

Trait wise, we believe in heavy research before purchasing an animal for breeding. If a buyer can’t tell if the animal they are purchasing is correctly IDed, how would they then ID their own offspring correctly themselves? If they can’t ID the animal from the images and linage a seller provides then they are taking a known risk.

Again IMG is a rare case in that its phenotype comes with age, but that is not the norm across the board. Even large breeders like Kinova do not guarantee Inc/dom traits:
“Due to the increasing complexity of Ball Python combos, incomplete dominant mutations are only guaranteed if explicitly stated as proven through breeding or shed testing.” ^[1]

Travis, who is a geneticist by trade, has a similar line in his policy:
“While I make every effort to correctly identify combinations, with the complexity of some of my combinations I cannot guarantee genetics.” ^[2]

In this specific case, the seller has been happy to help where possible, has offered a replacement immediately, or the option of joining a waitlist for future offspring with the same traits. Especially considering we are closing in on nearly a year since the initial purchase, and the majority of sellers would not even entertain this after the policy timeline, I think this can only be looked as an unfortunate and expensive lesson.

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1. https://www.morphmarket.com/stores/kinova/ ↩︎

2. asplundii Genetics - MorphMarket ↩︎

[boathusiast]

@eaglereptiles That’s fair. Thank you for your thorough reply.

@caron I don’t ever intend on breeding. I wanted to have one large all-white snake and one all-black snake. Boas fit the bill. I would have to save for years, but I thought it would be worth it. At least I hope others can learn from my mistake.

I am still not able to get into either Facebook group to share my experience-would anyone who does belong to Reptile FBI or Herpetoculture Feedback and Inquiry be willing to post my review there? I’m happy to send screenshots of the conversation as well.