It's too bad I'm an honest person
Dec. 3rd, 2007 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkI'm reading this massive thread on one of the snake communities about a guy who pulled a huge scam, and then had it all come falling down around his ears. And it's really funny, because I found myself thinking about all the stupid mistakes this guy made, and before I knew it, I'd thought up The Perfect Crime. I could make SO much money, and nobody would ever be able to conclusively prove that I did anything wrong, and by the time anybody even suspected anything, I'd be long gone.
Sadly, the scheme involves outright ripping people off, so I can't do it. There's just no way on earth I could bring myself to.
But man... it would make so much money. If I were lucky I could get something like 100k over four years, for just 2-5K investment, and probably less than $1k in expenses, and I would even get most of the initial investment back when I closed down the scheme and vanished into the sunset. And I would hardly have to do any work, it would involve breeding just one clutch of eggs a year.
Now if only there were an ethical way for me to make that kind of mad profit. *sigh* Sadly there isn't. Although I do occasionally toy with the notion of getting into snake breeding, you can get a pretty decent return on a modest investment, but it takes at least a year, and that's if the snakes cooperate and actually mate, which sometimes they don't. And I don't want to have to screw around with incubators and cycling snakes and all that crap. Though at least I know how to figure the genetics. Upkeep isn't too expensive, you're out $150 to get a decent setup, and at 1 mouse a week, X 2 snakes = 100 mice, which is around $50 plus whatever shipping comes to, if you buy in bulk. But meh. I hate waiting a week to see if something sells on ebay! Waiting months, possibly years to see if I get a return on my investment? Urgh, no. No snake breeding for me. I mean, I suppose of somebody just walked up to me and gave me an expensive morph, I'd pretty much have to. (Particularly if it turned out to be the opposite gender from whatever Anthony actually is) but I'm pretty sure the odds of that are low. The kind of guy whose snakes get rescued and need to be rehomed is not the kind of guy who's buying $5k piebalds or fireballs or whatever. (Man, if somebody gave me a fireball, I'd be forced to breed, with a start like that. A fireball is money in the bank, no matter what you breed it with. You can make MAD profit with those things. Man... now I'm tempted all over again, but even with the Windstone money, I don't have the cash to get a fireball, they are not cheap.)
*ahem* Anyhow... yaysnakes! *wanders off*
Sadly, the scheme involves outright ripping people off, so I can't do it. There's just no way on earth I could bring myself to.
But man... it would make so much money. If I were lucky I could get something like 100k over four years, for just 2-5K investment, and probably less than $1k in expenses, and I would even get most of the initial investment back when I closed down the scheme and vanished into the sunset. And I would hardly have to do any work, it would involve breeding just one clutch of eggs a year.
Now if only there were an ethical way for me to make that kind of mad profit. *sigh* Sadly there isn't. Although I do occasionally toy with the notion of getting into snake breeding, you can get a pretty decent return on a modest investment, but it takes at least a year, and that's if the snakes cooperate and actually mate, which sometimes they don't. And I don't want to have to screw around with incubators and cycling snakes and all that crap. Though at least I know how to figure the genetics. Upkeep isn't too expensive, you're out $150 to get a decent setup, and at 1 mouse a week, X 2 snakes = 100 mice, which is around $50 plus whatever shipping comes to, if you buy in bulk. But meh. I hate waiting a week to see if something sells on ebay! Waiting months, possibly years to see if I get a return on my investment? Urgh, no. No snake breeding for me. I mean, I suppose of somebody just walked up to me and gave me an expensive morph, I'd pretty much have to. (Particularly if it turned out to be the opposite gender from whatever Anthony actually is) but I'm pretty sure the odds of that are low. The kind of guy whose snakes get rescued and need to be rehomed is not the kind of guy who's buying $5k piebalds or fireballs or whatever. (Man, if somebody gave me a fireball, I'd be forced to breed, with a start like that. A fireball is money in the bank, no matter what you breed it with. You can make MAD profit with those things. Man... now I'm tempted all over again, but even with the Windstone money, I don't have the cash to get a fireball, they are not cheap.)
*ahem* Anyhow... yaysnakes! *wanders off*
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 04:51 am (UTC)So this guy was selling normals as hets. But he did all sorts of stupid things. He didn't have photos of the parents, he was late with shipments, he sold the "last" animal of a particular type to several different people, he sold animals he didn't have at all, and then couldn't ship when he couldn't buy any new normals to send out as fake hets. Lots of dumb stuff. If he'd always been on time, always kept up with his ads and never sold the supposedly same animal twice, if he'd just had good customer service, nobody would have had a CLUE that his hets were fake until three or four years later, when people started breeding them and getting offspring, but as it is, his scam fell apart before the first egg from one of his hets ever hatched.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 04:58 am (UTC)by the way... all that talk of people giving away snakes made me look on petfinder for snakes... i was surprised there were as many as there are... but, yeah, they're mostly pythons, cornsnakes and easily attainable stuff...
what was that one you mentioned the other day... was it a ribbon? the picture here is terrible, but i saw some ribbons listed...
http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=9143392
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:03 am (UTC)I doubt I'd find a snake I wanted up for adoption. I adopted my cats, that'll have to do.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:05 am (UTC)i like the yellow ones and the orange ones... and the white ones with big orange spots... but i think the yellow one was humongous... so that's no good.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:07 am (UTC)http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=7471209
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:15 am (UTC)http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=7471241
http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=8144870
those are the kinds i like to look at... but i wouldn't know what to do with one if i had one... besides, we travel too much... it's one thing to travel with a cat... it's quite another thing to fill up your RV with snakes.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:17 am (UTC)The second is a Burmese, HOLY CRAP HUGE IT WILL EAT YOUR CHILDREN. Well, no it won't, but it gets big enough to eat a human baby. *grin* You feed them adult rabbits.
Three is another corn snake, and is probably as big in that photo as it will ever get.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:29 am (UTC)I think this is more my speed... http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=8971921
(bad pun... forgive me)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:35 am (UTC)do you know where I could get a saddle? (insert sarcasm font)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 11:22 am (UTC)http://www.newenglandreptile.com/available/showcat.php?cat=41
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 01:30 pm (UTC)But the whole 'what if they don't breed, or die' worried me too much. Not only that, but of course, I was an inexperienced snake keeper. I'm sure it couldn't be that easy.
The money to buy the starter snake (s) would have wiped out my savings.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-04 06:29 pm (UTC)