[Moderator's note: Several months ago Jerry and Marsha Crowell posted that
they had sent money for a ferret to a breeder, Kevin Gilbert, but they had
not received the ferret nor a refund. I received many notes from people
who have dealt with Kevin -- many people, though by no means everyone,
indicated they were totally satisfied with Kevin.
In any event, I agreed at the time to let Mr. Gilbert and the Crowells each
have one more post in a few weeks -- after giving each party a chance to
work things out amicably. I also called Kevin personally in order to hear
his side of the story and to urge him to refund the Crowells' money if he
hadn't already done so.
Well, here's the Crowells' final post on the issue. I invited Kevin to
respond but his only response was to unsubscribe from the FML with no
further comment. That doesn't implicate him, of course, but this story
certainly serves as a reminder that caution is always prudent, especially
in long-distance transactions. BIG]
The reason for the long delay in this final posting was to see if Kevin
Gilbert's statement in his post on Sept. 20th had any truth to having sent
our refund back - there wasn't - still NO refund. In a situation such as
this a professional, as Kevin claims to be, would have sent the refund by
tracable means such as certified mail if there was any intention of
refunding our money.
As our final post to the FML on this matter we want to clear up a couple
of misrepresentations that have been posted by Kevin Gilbert/Desert Moon
Ferrets. The Heat embargo in Houston and St. Louis, also the
communications issue.
HEAT EMBARGO:
We were fully aware of the heat embargo and the time limits for getting a
live animal out of these airports including Newark NJ. Although my e-mail
to him posted below was a result of confusion as to the destination of
flight 1171 from Newark (to Kansas City and not St. Louis) it does show
that as of Aug 18th neither Houston or St. Louis were in the flight
schedule. While in Kansas City, the morning of Aug 18th I was given the
reservation print out by the young lady that checked for the ferret.
This printout shows that the reservation was made on Aug 13th for a flight
on Aug 17th. I have since scanned this document and saved it to a file
for easy e-mailing.
On three (3) subsequent dates I called the Continental Quick-Pack office in
Phoenix to check if there was a ferret on flight 1963, other live animals
were on board, but no ferret. I did not want to make another 500 mile
round-trip to Kansas City for nothing. By checking Continentals web site
and flight schedule it will verify that this red-eye flight leaves Phoenix
at 10:00pm, arrives at Newark at 5:37am, then leaves Newark at 6:30
arriving in Kansas City at 8:33am. This is a total of 8 hours and 33
minutes of time including less than 1 hour layover in Newark. As we stated
in our post of Sept 19th, Houston was not a viable option for getting the
ferret to us. I seem to recall someone from Oklahoma City posting that
they had received their ferret from Kevin in mid-August of this year sent
by way of Newark.
There would have been no need for any of the posts to the FML on this
subject had he made good on his e-mails of Sept 9th and again on Sept.
15th and returned our refund to us.
COMMUNICATIONS:
We had numerous e-mail comunications up until Aug 20th which is the last
e-mail we received until Sept 9th when we were originally going to post to
the FML. We received another e-mail on Sept. 15th which also delayed our
posting to the FML. When neither of these e-mails were complied with and
we had still not received our refund we posted to the FML. I did reach
him on Aug 28th by phone in one last attempt to have him ship the ferret
kit that we had paid for on Aug. 7th.
Our e-mail address has been the same since getting on the internet while
Kevin is on his 4th address since we first contacted him in mid-June.
Our phone bill shows that we called and talked to him (once to Jennifer) 5
times and 12 more times where we just got his answering machine. He made
NO calls to us. I received a call from an acquaintance in Arizona on Sept
19th concerning our post to the FML and I also have a sister who lives in
Arizona so I know it is possible to call us from Az.
Subject: schedule
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1999 22:40:12 -0500
From: Jerry & Marsha Crowell <[log in to unmask]>
To: Kevin Gilbert <[log in to unmask]>
Hi Kevn, the flight schedule was correct to go from Phoenix to Newark to
Kansas City. Flight 1963 gets it to Newark then flight 1171 from Newark
to Kansas City, where I was this morning. St Louis still has a heat
embargo, must arrive before 10:00am. I expect to hear from you in the
morning. We may have no choice but to go by way of Kansas City.
Thanks, Jerry & Marsha Crowell
We did receive our pet carrier on Sept 20th. It appears that us receiving
our refund is as remote as receiving the ferret kit that we purchased from
him. As of the date of this post, it has been 100 days since his post
stating that the refund had been sent.
If you had intended to send us our refund you could have spend $3 and sent
it by certified mail as we did when we paid for the ferret kit and the cost
of shipment.
We believe that Kevin Gilbert sold us a non-existant ferret making it
impossible for him to ship. We also believe that he never had any
intention of returning our money.
It really doesn't matter how attractive Kevin's breeding stock is, or how
well he cares for them, IF a person purchases one of his ferrets and does
not receive that ferret or their money back.
Once again we would CAUTION anyone doing business with Kevin Gilbert/Desert
Moon Ferrets. You may get what you pay for, or like us, get no ferret or
refund. There are reputable ferret breeders available to do business with
where you get the ferret(s) that you pay for.
This post will not help us in getting our money back but hopefully it will
dry up this source of Kevins' income.
Still waiting,
Jerry & Marsha Crowell
[Posted in FML issue 2912]
|
