 My name is James P. Madonna of Megalife21 Progressive Discussions, Megalife21 Live and Megalife21 Hard Hitting Podcasts. This show in particular is about the exotic pet industry. I have first-hand experience for many years in the exotic pet industry, so has my brother-in-law, Jerry, and based on our personal experience, I would like to expose the industry, expose the many cons, the pitfalls, the flaws of the industry. It is a form of retail. Retail in the United States is very underhanded and sleazy, in my opinion. They lie profusely, they take a little bit of truth, they embellish, they blow it out of proportion, they give you all the pros to why you should purchase a certain item, but they withhold the cons. They do not tell you everything. I can go on and on about all dishonest forms of American retail and capitalism like fine jewelry, infomercials, products from infomercials that are inferior in quality that do not work based on false advertisement, but right now this show is going to be about the exotic pet industry, which includes arachnids, insects, different sorts, lizards, reptiles, which they call herpes, herpetology, and such. Of course, there are many YouTube videos that discuss the proper care of such exotic reptiles. Some of them are qualified professionals, many of them are not. The people that you find on forums are basically punks, amateurs, haminagers that do not know their ass from their elbow. They just like to stick their two cents in, just like they do on social media, on Facebook, giving their opinion, giving you the impression that they know what they're talking about when they really don't. I have been misinformed by such punks on forums many times, and I have had my exotic pets perish on me because of the misinformation by these young people that pretend like they're experts, they pretend they know it all, they pretend they have the answer when they don't. And I've, to trial and error, mostly coming from the misinformation available on the internet and lying retail pet shop owners, managers, who try to sell you to Brooklyn Bridge pretty much when you walk in there. They try to sell you items that you do not need for the pet, okay, just to make a sale. Overpriced, obviously, items that are just not necessary that often breeders don't even use, but aesthetically, it looks nice, it looks pretty, and it comes at a high price tag. And they'll just load up your shopping cart with things that you don't need, and it ends up costing much more than the exotic pet itself, whether it be a reptile, a rachnid, or whatever. And this is all part of the underhandedness of sleazy American retail in our capitalist system. And that's just how it is, I mean, it includes car dealers, infomercials, and such. But we're going to stick to exotic pets. Now the photograph that you see right now in this podcast is a photograph of a baby Cuban red scorpion that was purchased by my brother-in-law. Actually he purchased six of them from a company called Swift Invertebrates. Kelly Swift is the owner, and in my opinion, these baby scorpions should not have been sold to the public. They're too young, they're way too small, and too vulnerable, okay. But hatchlings of any kind, newborns of any animal, any exotic pet, even lizards, should not be sold to the public because of their vulnerability. They should be kept, and of course they should be eating, putting on some size, and then when they're proven established healthy animals that have enough size that would prevent a high mortality rate, then they should be sold. They should be not sold as nymphs or tiny tarantula slings that are newborns, and in this case newborn baby scorpions that most likely have a high mortality rate. And sure enough, at $35 a pop, my brother-in-law lost, I would say four of them, four died on him prematurely, and they were in ideal conditions receiving appropriate size pinhead live food, and they still died. And I believe he has two left that are alive, that made it, and at $35 a pop, that adds up to a lot of money, especially since many of these online companies force the overnight $40 shipping fee, which for an arachnid is not necessary. A two-day priority, United States Postal Service shipment is sufficient for an arachnid. If you have to add a heat pack when the weather's chilly or a cold pack during a warm spell, a heat wave, then you do that. But to force the $40 overnight shipping, it's ridiculous to pay $40, which far surpasses the cost of the animal. And the shipping for surpasses the cost of the animal. It doesn't make sense. A lot of these companies use FedEx only, and FedEx is pricey, DHL is one of the most reasonable, but I would say the best would be United States Postal Service. A two-day priority shipping is only like $6.40, but these crooks jack up even that price because they have to make a profit on every fucking thing, even the shipping they have to make a profit on. So they jack up the price of the shipping, so they're making a profit off of the animal, making the shipping, but that's a whole other scam, shipping and handling. What the hell is handling? You know what I mean? Of course they have to handle it, but they got to charge you for every damn thing, like the medical profession. Okay, so they're ripping you off by jacking up the price of the shipping beyond what it really is. The creature is way overpriced, but my biggest complaint is online companies that sell animals that are way too young to the public because of the high mortality rate. Now that being said, I had a personal problem with a company called Reptile City, which is in Texas. This happened years ago. I purchased an Australian blue tongue skink, a young juvenile, not a baby though. I had no idea that this blue tongue skink was wild caught because it was not specified by the company, okay? It should really be capped of bread. Always go with capped of bread. Anyway, it wasn't specified where it was. It ended up being wild caught. It was infested with internal parasites. The animal refused to eat. I was hit with very high veterinary bills, okay, because the animal ended up being sick. Long story short, it died. So I emailed Reptile City and my answer was, really? That's the only thing the owner said to me was, really? What a question mark. He did not apologize. He did not give me store credit. He did not give me any restitution for selling me a sick wild caught blue tongue skink, okay? Similar rotten attitudes and contempt for the customer is shown also by companies like Backwater, Reptiles, Ken the Bug Guy, I swear, when you see this dude, this dork in his videos, he's got a douchebag written all over his face. Ken the Bug Guy sold my brother-in-law, for me, a young, it was a young, let me see, vinaigroon, which they call it a whip scorpion. It has no stinger, okay, a vinaigroon, all right? It shoots like acetic acid when it's threatened. Anyway, it was a nymph. He didn't specify the size of the nymph. It was the size of an ant, for God's sakes. The thing didn't eat. It was so friggin' tiny for the cost that he was charging and plus the shipping. Size of an ant, it died. Ken the Bug Guy insisted that, oh, it was eating a lot when I had it. It was packing away the insects, it was healthy, it was this, it was that. How could his description of a friggin' nymph that small, the size of an ant, be a healthy arachnid that was eating profusely, like he put it, okay? According to him, he's another one. The customer's always wrong, he's always right. You don't sell anything that is a newborn. The thing was the size of an ant, it was a newborn. I highly doubt if it was packing away the food like Ken the Bug Guy said, okay? You just don't sell anything that tiny. Only an expert can raise a nymph that small, okay? Only an expert would be willing to deal with fruit flies and pinheads as feeders. And that's another racket. Selling fruit flies, these retail scumbags want between like $18 and up to $20 for a jar of stinking fruit flies. You can put a mushy banana in a container outside your house and attract your own fruit flies. They actually get that much money for fruit flies to have a short lifespan. Absolutely incredible rip-off. The best all-round feeder has to be the Red Runner Turkistan roaches. Keep them warm and they will reproduce. You will have pinheads. They grow fast, the adults are much larger than jumbo crickets without any of the drawbacks of crickets. Of course, dubia roaches are outstanding. They don't climb, they don't jump, they don't stink, they don't die off on you. They have a relatively long lifespan. They breed fast. It goes, the same thing goes for the Turkestans, but don't, crickets are absolute waste in a rip-off. Crickets die off fast, they stink to high heavens. They crawl out and escape, they jump, they make a lot of noise. Just way too many drawbacks, okay. My brother-in-law had ordered from backwater reptiles, they mysteriously, the exotic pets, the arachnids he ordered, mysteriously died. They were living in the best of conditions, okay, all of his pets are in the best of condition, okay, the environment is perfect. They mysteriously died within a few days of arrival, okay. He tells backwater, backwater gets nasty with him, they have an attitude, like they don't want to give him a refund, they don't want to give him store credit, they didn't even apologize, absolute scumbags. This seems to be very common in the exotic pet industry. There's a pet store in my town called New Jersey Exotics, okay, the manager in charge, your name is Megan, and I've given her so many things, gifts that I, you know, items that I didn't need. I had surplus, I had extras, so I gave it to her. Over the course of the years I've given her things. She said thank you, she took them, but you know, any time I had something alive for, that she could resell in the store, she won't give me store credit, she won't give me any money, not one red cent. Not one red cent, not a store credit or trade in or nothing, she wanted it for free. Her excuse is that everyone gives her animals for free, so therefore she can't give me anything. But it's okay for me to give her other things that she can use as gifts. She's a millennial, she's young, and just like millennials, they feel entitled. They know it all, they have all the answers. They show no remorse in their selfishness, almost like a form of a sociopathic personality, very self-centered, and it's typical retail. Retail stores, usually you cannot bring anything to them and expect money or store credit. They will not respect you as a return customer. I don't care if you've been a customer of theirs for 20 years. They want everything for free. So this includes all retail stores in the pet industry. They all are scumbags. All retail is sleazy and underhanded. Oh, by the way, reptile shows. In my state of New Jersey, I can't speak for other states, but reptile shows have the nerve to ask for a cover charge over $7 to get in. Now, you're going to a reptile show with the intent of looking around and possibly purchasing something. So you're a potential customer. Why should a potential customer have to wait on a long line and pay a cover charge just to walk into the building if you are a potential customer that might be spending money there? Their excuse was what Megan told me was they have to pay for the lease of the building. They have to pay for the leasing. Yeah, but don't they receive rent money from the vendors, from the breeders that set up tables at a reptile show? Don't they make a profit from... Don't they pay for that leasing and many times over from all the rent that they collect from vendors? Hey, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck. I'm a very slick street smart person. I know they collect money from the vendors. So that leasing is paid for with lots of money left over. Okay, so the whole concept of a cover charge is just simply greed, arrogance and being a downright fucking crook. Okay, so I have to disagree with New Jersey exotics and Megan about the reptile show. This reptile show in particular, I believe was in Teaneck, New Jersey. I went there, I saw the long line, I learned about the cover charge and I turned around and I left the premises. I did not go inside at a principle. At a principle, I'm a potential customer. The vendors are paying rent. The breeders, the vendors are paying rent. So don't tell me that you need $7 or $8 from the public to pay the leasing on the bill. Fucking crook, okay. But how much is really honest in the state of New Jersey anyway? I'm from here and I know there's a sleaze bag on every street corner, a lying sleaze bag. And if you're in business, of course, never trust what a CEO tells you. Okay, you can't even trust what the government tells you. So getting back to the beginning of the show, which is a reflection of the photo that you're looking at, you see the baby Cuban Red Scorpion that was sold by Swift Invertebrates. And then you see it next to a coin, a penny, I believe. And you see just how tiny it is. $35 for that? Are you kidding me? $35 for that? Plus he wanted $40 FedEx overnight shipping for a tiny little ant-like baby scorpion like that with a high mortality rate. You're a scumbag, you're a crook. I don't trust, and rightfully so, I don't trust anyone in retail. The pet industry is a rip-off just like fine jewelry, just like infomercials, just like car dealers. Okay, and I mentioned some people, some individuals, I name names, that all have been inducted into the Progressive Discussions Chisler's Hall of Shame, and rightfully so. Okay, you know, at a good will, if you're a steady customer, and you're bringing something of value that your store is going to make a profit, a decent profit off of, at a good will towards a steady customer that has been giving you things, at least give the person's store credit. Don't make up an excuse that you can't give any money and you want, you're willing to accept it, but for free, you know? That's like spitting in the face of a customer who's been going to your establishment for a long time. The same thing happened with my brother-in-law, and Swift invertebrates. He's made so many purchases from them, spending that damn overnight $40 FedEx shipping. Okay, paying all kinds of money, ordering many, many tarantula slings, scorpions, whatever, what have you. Okay, the guy showed no respect for that fact that he's been a long time steady customer, no store credit, no apology, no refund, nothing. Okay, total contempt for his customers, and my brother-in-law spent a lot of money dealing with Swift invertebrates. And from what I understand, there are many people that are very angry at backwater reptiles. If you're in business, you have to do the right thing, that's all. But getting back to people like Ken the bug guy and Swift invertebrates, even if it's a baby, a hatchling lizard, you do not sell any newborn creature to the public. Because the mortality rate is high, you do not know genetically how strong that baby is going to be. If it's going to survive, you have to get it to start eating and put on size before you sell it. And please do your research, do not go to forums. There are a bunch of kids there, a bunch of punks that think they know it all, they don't know shit, I've caught them in many lies. Do sufficient research from reputable websites, from people who know, like herpetologists, and listen to the experts. Okay, I'll give you an example, instead of spending a lot of money on a flimsy plastic critter keeper, you can go to Walmart and buy a sterile storage container and burn holes in it. And they make perfect, very, very cheap critter keepers. Okay, and just make sure that even with creatures that need humidity, make sure that the humidity is not too high. You should not see condensation on the side of the enclosure, because what will happen is fungus will grow, bacteria will grow, and then you'll end up with fungus gnats. And bad things will happen, all right? Before I forget, Ken the bug guy kept on telling me after I asked him what is the ideal and proper environment for the vinagrum. He told me to use the coconut fiber substrate and keep it very moist, very damp, until it appears like used coffee grains and maintain it that way. Well, guess what? The vinagrums died. The giant vinagrums, which were not full grown, they were juveniles, they died from the excess humidity because Ken the bug guy insisted to keep their enclosure very humid. Oh, they need humidity. I'm thinking to myself, how could they need so much humidity if they come from the American Southwest, if they live in deserts? Even the ones in Florida borrow near dry sand, okay? So, I don't know if he said that, so it dies on me and I have to keep on ordering more from him. Because I also receive the same misinformation from the owner of Air Plant City, because I'm also a Talancia enthusiast. And every time the woman owns Air Plant City would give me advice, the air plants would perish. So, you gotta be careful when it comes to advice from people that are in the business of selling anything alive through a retail business. Anyway, that wraps it up for this Megalife 21 hard-hitting podcast. We'll see you next time on the next topic.