Joe Pierce -- BAD GUY

Well, here it is... the post I never wanted to have to write. It's difficult to believe that somebody who'd been an active and enthusiastic member of the cornsnake community could do something like this, but I guess it goes to show that even the "good guys" can go bad. Anyway, you can read this and judge for yourself...

Some of you know that I did a breeding loan with Joe Pierce this year. I loaned him Deathy, my Ultramel Motley het Golddust, with Joe planning to pair Deathy with as many of his females as possible in order to produce ultramels het for lots of fun morphs. The breeding loan was to be a straight 50-50 split. Joe had full control over which females he did or did not breed Deathy to, though he did accept my input.

Things went alright with the first clutches. We worked out a fairly even split and took into account who had customers waiting for what morphs. Deathy and the first group of corns shipped to me just fine. There were a few problems (1 ultramel motley was kinked, 2 amel mots het butter never fed for me, and 1 golddust motley was mis-sexed... Joe had a golddust mot that died on him), but nothing that couldn't be resolved with the results from the second clutches.

Unfortunately, when we went to split up the second clutches, that's where things went bad. First, when Joe finally gave me the tally of second clutch corns to split, he'd already marked some as sold and shipped to Europe. Now... I don't know about everybody else out there, but most people I know consider it a big no-no to sell snakes from a breeding loan before the clutches have even split. I called him on it in my responses, and suggested what I thought would be fair compensation -- splitting the monies from the sale of those corns and then splitting the remaining corns from the breeding loan evenly. The response I received from Joe Pierce was rather angry and accusatory, suggesting that I had no place in questioning his selling those snakes, given the "loss of production" he suffered from this breeding loan.

That response, on Sept. 27th of 2006, was the last I heard from Joe. I have sent him several private messages to try and resolve this deal, even to the point of agreeing with whatever split he liked, just to get it all over and done with. He has not read any of them, despite having been logged on and active in the forums since they were sent. I have attempted emailing him, and have received no response. I have attempted to call him with what I believe to be his phone number, and have left a message on his answering machine. No response. It has been a full 2 weeks since I last heard any communication from Joe.

Given the above, I'm left with the distinct impression that Joe no longer has any intention of sending me my share of the second clutches. Just to put a value to the snakes, based on some calculations using earlier numbers I'd been quoted by Joe, my remaining share of snakes from the breeding loan would total somewhere in the neighborhood of $3000.

I'd sure like somebody to prove me wrong on all this, because the whole situation sucks. But from what I can see on my side of the table, Joe Pierce is really looking like one of the Bad Guys.

-Kat Hall

Sorry to hear about this Kat. For two reasons, one you getting what sounds like the short end of the stick and second the disappointment of someone like Joe pulling something like this.

I have heard somethings from at least one other member here about Joe but I won't speak of it. Maybe the other member will post here.

You may want to post this over on Fauna on the BOI also.

Sorry to hear you've had to go through the trouble and monetary/animal losses you have had. I hope for your sake it gets resolved...

Hello Kat,

I had never expected such a story... I'm a little surprised..

Well, I think I must be one of the guys from Europe which bought some of Deathy's offspring(which were from the first group, I guess)

My experiences with Joe are good, he always answered my mail pretty fast... and payment and delivery all went well...

I don't know what to think about this, I refuse to believe Joe is a "bad guy", and I am really sorry to hear so... Joe seemed like a neat corn breeder to me, my delivery was perfect, and he had some surprises I really liked seeing...

Joe, please tell us you're just a really busy man and things will get right ...

Regards

Robin Heinen

Well, I think I must be one of the guys from Europe which bought some of Deathy's offspring(which were from the first group, I guess)

If they were from the first group, then they were fair and split... the following are what were sold without dividing up first (quoting from Joe's PM):

2.1 Butter Motleys (Sent 2.1 to Europe)
2.4 Ultramel Motleys het Caramel (Sent 2.0 to Europe)

-Kat

I guess that must be us, "the dutch dudes" ordered 2.0 ultramel motley het caramel... not myself, I have an ultramel motley het anery, which is a son of deathy too(so poss het caramel too)

Well, I agree, it is not correct to do that...

I just hope he will come up with some agreement

Really not cool. I'd sure like to think that someone wouldn't run the chance of totally destroying their reputation over a breeding loan and $3,000.

Agreed, Joe... though I'd be just as upset if it were a bunch of regular old normals.

-Kat

I am so sorry this happened to you.
In 2 years (or maybe 1 for the 2 males) I will need to prove out a reverse trio of possible bloodred motleys. I will be looking for someone with a pair or trio of bloodreds to test breed them since I don't have any bloods that aren't het for motley. Even though I am more interested in finding out if my reverse trio are bloodreds for sure, I hope this doesn't happen to me.
Guess I know who to avoid, eh?

Ugg... thats ugly... I hope it gets worked out.