29/07/2025
Post for public awareness about Geckos Are Us
Last week myself and another shop owner decided to place an order for jumping spiders, millipedes, mantis and tarantulas with this person. They contacted me on the shop page and all seemed well and legit.
As the week progressed postage was delayed twice due to not having time and the system being down at the post office and then a post office closure. Not completely unbelievable.
Wednesday the seller claimed to have tried 4 post offices and none were open. This didnt sound right but it was too late to fix anything that day.
Thursday morning I insisted the spiders be posted so that we had them for the weekend as our customers were now waiting on this stock. Before they could reply I rung a post office in their local area and confirmed there were no system issues, no closed branches to their knowledge and they weren't aware of any issues earlier in the week with closures.
I was then told "well ill try but I can guarantee they wont be open" so I called them out and gave them the branch name I had contacted assuring them they could post them there.
Thursday night received a message saying they'd been held up at work or something similar and missed last post... well yeah, it was already 8/9pm when this message arrived. I was starting to suspect we weren't getting these animals.
So i asked for them to be posted first thing friday or we would have to consider cancelling the order.
The seller was concerned about saturday delivery so I checked with post office website and confirmed rhat they offer saturday guaranteed for an extra fee. I said when the animals are in the post I will send the extra postage fee. Trying to be reasonable with a younger seller.
I was told that a note was left with his mum to post the animals and she didnt see it so he was super mad at her and worried we would cancel the order. So we agreed one last shot for monday postage. Getting suspicious but not a total loss just yet.
Monday rolls around, 2 messages asking if he'd managed postage with no acknowledgment or reply.
We then put feelers out in the invert community and discovered this situation wasnt unique and that this seller has in fact done this exact song and dance several times to several keepers and businesses.
I demanded a refund and threatened to contact the police, because let's be totally honest this was now fraud/theft. I dont care how young you are, you know this isnt right!
I received a quick response agreeing to a refund. This seller and family members (i am led to believe) are well known in the community and even sell at invert shows, not sure how thats been allowed if they're so notorious for this behaviour.
I have my money back, I have dozens of disappointed customers and from a purely business stand point the potential profit is lost too.
This went on longer than it should have, because knowing he was younger I gave him benefit of the doubt. Won't be doing that again.
Im not sharing endless screenshot of messages, but we do have them.
Thanks for reading and hopefully this will prevent anyone else from paying for stock that doesnt even exist.
