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Hello Forum Family,
I just wanted to share a few reflections, feelings about two past experiences I had buying and trading tarantulas online for delivery.
Recently I traded a MM I had for some slings as well as purchasing a few more Ts online. Please bare with me as I might come up as candid and by all means feel free to share your input. So recently I traded a MM someone was looking for (I do not feel comfortable selling my Ts as we are attached to them but I was happy to trade him for a few slings in order for him to fulfil his life mission and for the slings to supplement our collection). We had agreed on two different slings for the MM and I sent him right away. I was thrilled he arrived well and delighted that we also received some pictures of him settling down (this was awesome to show my son as he is always a little sad to see one of our Ts go). The slings shipped a few days later but unfortunately the delivery happened several days late, to nobody's fault except the carrier. One of the slings was DOA, The other one was lethargic but with some warmth and a lot of gentleness and TLC it started to show some sign of improvement the next day and was back to normal and feeding after a few more days passed. I remained in contact with the person who sent the slings during the whole ordeal and the gentleman went out of his way to ensure we were happy and that my son wouldn't be sad about his first experience trading one of his T by sending us another sling to replace the one that didn't make it. A few days later, I saw on the forum that he was starting a website and I can't wait to give him some business whenever I can. With my hospitality background, I am very appreciative of people taking pride in what they do and who are going the extra mile for their customers to have a great experience and I am a faithful client.
My second experience was with one of the "Big seller" advertising on this forum with hundreds of Ts and other invertebrates for sale on each post. A promotion was offered and I spotted quite a few Ts I wanted. I put my order together and place it after contacting the seller through his website. A few days later he reached out and mentioned one of the Ts I selected didn't make it out of its molt and asked me to select something different within the same price range.
Side note, my son and I are very specific about only purchasing CB Ts as we are against WC even when it is sometimes more difficult to raise slings than big juveniles or adults and the fact that you'll never know if you are getting a female or male. When I got my first Ts 24 years ago, they were all wild caught and I have been thrilled coming back to the hobby and getting to witness how well it developed and how many species would have been lost already without the large amount of CB brought into the marketplace.
So back to my "Big seller", I found another interesting T on his website, a sexed adult, a little bit more expensive. I offered to pay for the difference in price and we were ready to go. Needless to say that when I received them, I was quite disappointed that the adult female was WC as stated on her label. As this seller list both CB and WC for sale, I made sure only to order Ts listed as CB. I reached out to the seller to explain the situation and my frustration. What was surprising was the "schooling" I received in response. After acknowledging the mistake (as I provided pictures from his website and from the T's label) due to the seller has hundreds of listings, he fell short of an apology and gave me a lesson on the fact that all CB Ts for sale are from wild stock parents and that I should be happy I got a nice healthy spider. As most Ts reach sexual maturity around 3-4 years old (or even sooner for some) I am wrong to believe there should be already on the market several generations of CBs from CB parents, grandparents, great grandparents.... as 24 years ago I already had friends starting to reproduce our wild caught specimens (not really any domestic Ts available in France, so everything was WC and shipped over). Was I wrong to call the seller BS and lame excuse?
The answer I got was pretty much that this is how the whole trade works, out of wild caught used for reproduction and that I should have known that an adult female at the price I paid could have not been CB (even if it was listed as such).
All this to say, two very different experiences, one that gave me hope to continue trading the Ts I'll have maturing males (except for a few pairings of my own) with other people sharing the same passion and one that will prevent me moving forward from ordering from larger website and sellers. On this forum alone I was able to find many individuals, breeding, raising and selling Ts who genuinely care for what they do (a lot more than someone just trying to make a buck would). Some say they might be a little more expensive than big sellers/wholesalers, I say they are worth every penny and I'll go out of my way from now on to only order from these.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and letting me know if I am in the wrong here.
Cheers.
I just wanted to share a few reflections, feelings about two past experiences I had buying and trading tarantulas online for delivery.
Recently I traded a MM I had for some slings as well as purchasing a few more Ts online. Please bare with me as I might come up as candid and by all means feel free to share your input. So recently I traded a MM someone was looking for (I do not feel comfortable selling my Ts as we are attached to them but I was happy to trade him for a few slings in order for him to fulfil his life mission and for the slings to supplement our collection). We had agreed on two different slings for the MM and I sent him right away. I was thrilled he arrived well and delighted that we also received some pictures of him settling down (this was awesome to show my son as he is always a little sad to see one of our Ts go). The slings shipped a few days later but unfortunately the delivery happened several days late, to nobody's fault except the carrier. One of the slings was DOA, The other one was lethargic but with some warmth and a lot of gentleness and TLC it started to show some sign of improvement the next day and was back to normal and feeding after a few more days passed. I remained in contact with the person who sent the slings during the whole ordeal and the gentleman went out of his way to ensure we were happy and that my son wouldn't be sad about his first experience trading one of his T by sending us another sling to replace the one that didn't make it. A few days later, I saw on the forum that he was starting a website and I can't wait to give him some business whenever I can. With my hospitality background, I am very appreciative of people taking pride in what they do and who are going the extra mile for their customers to have a great experience and I am a faithful client.
My second experience was with one of the "Big seller" advertising on this forum with hundreds of Ts and other invertebrates for sale on each post. A promotion was offered and I spotted quite a few Ts I wanted. I put my order together and place it after contacting the seller through his website. A few days later he reached out and mentioned one of the Ts I selected didn't make it out of its molt and asked me to select something different within the same price range.
Side note, my son and I are very specific about only purchasing CB Ts as we are against WC even when it is sometimes more difficult to raise slings than big juveniles or adults and the fact that you'll never know if you are getting a female or male. When I got my first Ts 24 years ago, they were all wild caught and I have been thrilled coming back to the hobby and getting to witness how well it developed and how many species would have been lost already without the large amount of CB brought into the marketplace.
So back to my "Big seller", I found another interesting T on his website, a sexed adult, a little bit more expensive. I offered to pay for the difference in price and we were ready to go. Needless to say that when I received them, I was quite disappointed that the adult female was WC as stated on her label. As this seller list both CB and WC for sale, I made sure only to order Ts listed as CB. I reached out to the seller to explain the situation and my frustration. What was surprising was the "schooling" I received in response. After acknowledging the mistake (as I provided pictures from his website and from the T's label) due to the seller has hundreds of listings, he fell short of an apology and gave me a lesson on the fact that all CB Ts for sale are from wild stock parents and that I should be happy I got a nice healthy spider. As most Ts reach sexual maturity around 3-4 years old (or even sooner for some) I am wrong to believe there should be already on the market several generations of CBs from CB parents, grandparents, great grandparents.... as 24 years ago I already had friends starting to reproduce our wild caught specimens (not really any domestic Ts available in France, so everything was WC and shipped over). Was I wrong to call the seller BS and lame excuse?
The answer I got was pretty much that this is how the whole trade works, out of wild caught used for reproduction and that I should have known that an adult female at the price I paid could have not been CB (even if it was listed as such).
All this to say, two very different experiences, one that gave me hope to continue trading the Ts I'll have maturing males (except for a few pairings of my own) with other people sharing the same passion and one that will prevent me moving forward from ordering from larger website and sellers. On this forum alone I was able to find many individuals, breeding, raising and selling Ts who genuinely care for what they do (a lot more than someone just trying to make a buck would). Some say they might be a little more expensive than big sellers/wholesalers, I say they are worth every penny and I'll go out of my way from now on to only order from these.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and letting me know if I am in the wrong here.
Cheers.
I don't think you are in the wrong. It should not have been listed as captive bred if it was wild caught 
