Arizona Tortoise Compound TERRIBLE experience

ColleenT

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Jan 19, 2016
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Location (City and/or State)
Lehigh Valley Pa
Since ATC had so many great reviews, i called Andrew Hermes at ATC, and asked if he had any Three-toed box turtle females available. He told me he had one, and would sell her to me for $150 shipped. I was very happy. I had been looking for a long time and was not finding any. When Fedex dropped off the box, I cut it open and hoped to find my new Three-toed female. What I found was a larger turtle, which turned out to be a gulf coast female.

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Disappointed, I got the soaking container ready and placed her inside. Once she was soaking she came out of her shell and I was shocked to see a fresh bone sticking out of her leg.

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I looked into the cloth bag and there was her dried up leg.

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I got ahold of the nearest retile vet, who luckily specializes in turtles. rushed the turtle to the vet and was told the turle would need an amputation. Apparently something like a string or thread had gotten caught around the leg a while ago and this had cut off blood supply to the leg. the dead leg was covering the bone, but once inside the cloth bag for shipping, the claws got caught on the fabric and pulled the dead leg off the bone. The bone appeared to be fresh, but we later discovered it was dying. This surgery was going to cost about $500. The vet put her on morphine immediately and i left the turtle to be stableized before her surgery. I called Andrew, who seemed genuinely upset about the situation and told me he would reimburse me, but that his internet was down that day and he would get back to me. He had so many great reviews, i assumed he would want to make it right.

After the surgery i was given the bill and took photos and emailed them to him. days later i got a reply that he had reimbursed me for the cost of the purchase and the shipping, but that it was against his policy to pay a vet bill on an animal that had left his property.

I do not understand how someone so knowledgable about tortoises could have sent me the wrong type of box turtle in the first place. And to have the leg fall off during shipping makes me wonder if he was just trying to unload a defective animal. He has apologized about the leg falling off, but that leaves me with a gulf coast box turtle that i did not want, and a $500 vet bill that i did not want. If he had paid the vet bill, i would not have had any problem with him.

He either knew exactly what he was doing and wanted to unload an unwanted animal, or he didn’t know about the injury, which makes me wonder how he cares for so many animals if he did not know about this. Either way, i don’t think the vet bill should have been my responsibility.
 

dmmj

The member formerly known as captain awesome
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remember members only reviews good or bad and personal experience with the vendor is allowed in vendor review
 

Az tortoise compound

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Aug 2, 2010
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This was a huge mistake on our part..... Colleen T did order a female Three Toed and we did notice we had one available that was left over from a large shipment of other three toes that we acquired a few months back. This female was found hiding in our Black Mountain Tortoise enclosure. Some how she sneaked into that enclosure and alluded us for sometime. As per all our shipments, we soak the turtles or tortoises before shipping to ensure proper hydration. While the Three Toed was soaking, she stuck out her front limbs and head. Beautiful, robust, matured three toed with colorful speckling all over the head and front limbs. We really thought Colleen would be thrilled with her, so we shipped. A.T.C. was closed for a good week or so without any internet access. Colleen called and said she had some concerns. First was the concern about it being large like a Gulf Coast. I mentioned to her about the above and how we acquired her. From the region and the others in the group, it has to be a three toe. Then she mentioned the missing limb. It totally blew our minds, how could we have shipped her without noticing. Totally our fault and shame on us. We quickly told Colleen we would refund her in full for her purchase. Also mentioned to please bare with us as the internet was down. Soon as the internet came back up we refund Colleen in full like we stated. We then opened an email from her stating we needed to send funds for the vet expenses. As Colleen mentioned above we let her know that we are not able to and do not pay veterinarian bills. Veterinarian expenses are a variable that can fluctuate greatly from one to another. As per our terms we would have paid the shipping to have her sent back and be treated at our facility by our Veterinarians. Again we did make a mistake and took responsibility. We will still honor her the offer of another three toed female once available at cost. We can only hope to never have this happen again in the future. New rule being, during soaking ALL limbs will need to be visible before we package for shipment and will continue to strive to meet our high expectations of ourselves.
 

ColleenT

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Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
1,294
Location (City and/or State)
Lehigh Valley Pa
as far as the vet bill, what choice did i have? ATC basically sent me a vet bill. No mention was made to ship her back and let your vet take care of her and that in itself would have been unethical. there was a bone sticking out.

Should i have taken her outside and killed her? That would have been free. To euth her was going to be expensive also. This was a vet bill of ATC that was pushed onto me. To NOT want to do the right thing shows your character.
 
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Az tortoise compound

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Joined
Aug 2, 2010
Messages
681
Location (City and/or State)
Arizona
Sorry you feel that way about A.T.C.'s character and no, never just take it out and just kill it. That is horrible. If ever a situation like this happens in the future with another company, you should send the tortoise/turtle back asap. We would have been more then happy to pay shipping both ways and refund you for the purchase as we did. If we had any more available, we would have been glad to send a replacement but that was not the case this time. We still welcome you as a customer and hope next time around we will not over look an injury on a turtle like that. Thank you.
 

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