I reported a seller on MorphMarket who was listing photos of snakes that were not actually available. It’s not even like he was stating “this snake pictured is just a representation of the snake for sale. Actual snake not pictured”. At least that would have been honest. I suspect they were either snakes that had long since sold or photos used from the web without authorization. How I found this out was that when inquiring to buy a gorgeous snake I was told to search for it on his own website only to discover it was nowhere to be found. Then the seller stopped responding. A representative of MorphMarket said they would not ban him “because this was not a felony.” It shouldn’t have to be; it’s deception AKA fraud. As a buyer this left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I actually ran into two of his listings like this.
I wasted alot of time looking through this person’s listings, as he had a ton of them, just to reach a dead-end when I found something I really wanted. Even though I had not paid him anything that was not the point.
Fake listings absolutely should be grounds for a ban. Potential buyers will have more confidence in the marketplace itself if they feel that fraud in any form is not tolerated.
@giftbearer I went back to try to find this exchange you’re referring to, and read through several lengthy exchanges that we did have but could not locate what you are referring to right now. I don’t think we responded to you with what you quoted us as saying above.
We do require sellers to use their own photos of the animals for sale, and we strictly enforce this rule when we are able to detect a transgression. And usually when someone is stealing photos, it’s reported to us and they are banned within a few days of creating their new seller account, but not always before some uneducated buyers have sent them money as I mentioned above.
Please forward to our email the discussion you are referring to and I can give a more specific response.
After 5 days, I’ve moved this out of the protection/fraud thread because it’s not clear that the situation involved either. But we are happy to respond further if we get more information.
Depending on the circumstance, I am not sure you can call this fraud.
If it is a breeder that is intentionally posting snakes they do not have to try and pull traffic to their own site I could see this as being dishonest.
However, there are some very large scale breeders/sellers that use MorphMarket and it is entirely possible that they have sold a specific animal and have not been able to update their listing of over 500 animals to remove that one snake. That is not being dishonest, that is just being over extended.
In these examples, the prior certainly deserves to have their hands slapped and possibly their account suspended. But to claim that the latter is no different than the former is really an apples to oranges comparison.
You are certainly welcome to be frustrated with the seller’s business practices and you can express that simply by not purchasing from them. Demanding they be banished to suit your frustration is going a little too far though. Would you demand your local grocery store be permanently shut down just because they ran out of the one thing you drove there for?