Regal Reptiles (www.regalreptiles.com)

[mrderanged]

Regal Reptiles

Positive


I have dealt with Pat many times and have always received great service. His prices are great and his selection is as well. When I have questions for him he always takes the time to answer them to the best of his ability. I have never ordered from him online as I always make my purchases in person, so I cannot vouch for how his shipping is.

Scott

 

[Jeff]

Positive


I've had Pat Kane ship many invertebrates in the mail to me. They have always made it to me alive, and on time! Pat does a great job. I like dealing with Pat.
Jeff Smith
;D

 

[Code_Monkey]

Neutral


Between the infrequently updated stocklist, no online sales, and only mediocre listed prices, Regal Reptiles used to be pretty much near the bottom of my "dealers I'm most likely to purchase from" list. That changed when Pat Kane of Regal Reptiles came into an Arachnopet's chat and threw out some prices - these were much lower than the website prices. Plus, he said he hoped to get some G. pulchra slings in the following week - my curiosity was aroused. I requested and received a list of price quotes for species I was interested in. Although he hadn't got the G. pulchra in, I still followed it up with a phone call to place an order. Pat Kane wants to sell you a tarantula, or better yet, a bunch of tarantulas, and he's willing to offer some really great deals to do so. As an example, I only paid a little bit more for a beautiful 3.5" female A. bicoloratum than some vendors *cough* Hoke *cough* charge for slings less than an inch in size.

There were, unfortunately, a number of bumps with the order. The first bump was as he was getting ready to ship, he realised that the A. minatrix he sold me was actually an A. metallica sling and he had misread his shorthand. Notifications were sent, phone calls were made, and he substituted an A. moderatum*, B. annitha, and N. coloratovillosus - a nice deal but shipping was delayed a day. The second bump was he mislabeled the address - I live on Foxridge, he put down Boxridge. By the time everything was tracked down, I wound up having to drive over 40 miles to the UPS depot four towns away and kept a clerk (thanks, Ken!) there way after his normal hours to keep the Ts from spending the weekend in a box sitting who knows where. *The third bump is not so much a bump as scenic detour. When working out what I was going to get instead of the AWOL A. minatrix, one of the first things I ordered was a P. nigricolor but I immediately changed my mind because it was costly relative to my desire to get one. Well, I don't know if it was a flat out mistake, a subconscious attempt to make up for the messed up order, or the debilitating effects of the H. gigas bite he had just received before I called, but what I received as replacement for the A. minatrix was a B. annitha, N. coloratovillosus, and a P. nigricolor - I didn't get my Rio Grande Gold, but I effectively got a free Blue Bloom for all the trouble I went through. If I'd really wanted the moderatum this might have been an issue but I'd rank my desire for it on par with the nigricolor so I saw it as an unexpected bonus.

Everyone was alive in spite of the troubles albeit a bit dehydrated from their extended trip on a UPS truck. The A. bicoloratum is a truly gorgeous specimen and, in spite of the hassles, I'm very glad I got her. She's just a beautiful spider, the nicest looking thing in my collection at the moment by far. Sizes were all more or less as expected, some bigger than stated and some smaller - I've come to realise that's just how it goes.


The highs:
Extremely wide selection, great prices. The only dealer with a wider selection is John Hoke and his prices are easily two to three times Pat's for most tarantulas. On average, I'd say his actual prices are the best out there (although Arachnocenter and Swift's are certainly competitive). His shipping is the standard $25 rate and he ships Monday through Thursday so there is supposed to be minimal delay from when you order til when you receive your tarantulas. Packaging is good and specimens are as promised.

The lows:
Inconvenient to deal with. The stocklist is not updated anywhere close to often enough for the volume of tarantulas Pat buys and sells, and the prices listed are never more than a highballed approximation (the prices quoted were generally anywhere from 20% to 60% lower than list). You're going to have to either email and wait or make a long distance call to find out if you even might want to order. If you do want to place an order, you will definitely have to call as there is no option for online ordering. Fortunately, unlike Arachnocenter, I never had a problem getting through to Pat by phone. On the other hand, as my order is great testament to, phone orders can be much more problematic than online orders where everything is spelled out on a computer screen.

Not that attentive to details. Did I just have bad luck? I don't know. What I do know is that three mistakes were made with my order that should not have happened if the operation was as tight as you would hope.


Conclusion:
His prices were great and the specimens very nice. Pat, himself, was also very easy to deal with. I don't know that I would necessarily order from him again because price isn't everything, but I would definitely try to get a quote before ordering from other vendors. Until proven otherwise, I assume the bumps were exceptions and not the rule.

 

[savian]

Positive


Well I have not ordered from Pat, but I have dealt with him in person and I have been very happy. At the Whiteplains rep show I had got a New Guinnea orange from him and had a few problems (it was wild caught) any how after letting him know he told me that he would take care of it. Now I am the owner of a new P. Regals. On top of that I also ended up buying alot more stuff from him at great prices. I would saying that over all my experience was very good and I will be dealing with him in the future.

 

[JDS]

Regal Reptiles

Negative

This dissatisfaction is regarding an order I placed last September. I did quite a bit of shopping prices for Brachepelma species and ran across a posting from Pat with a great price when purchasing 4 or more. I called Pat to ask if female selection was possible for the 1.5 – 2 inch size I was interested in and I was told pretty good sex selection was possible based on visual coloration but not certain. When I later called in my order I requested all females though I gave the order to someone other than Pat. I thought his expertise on sexing should be fairly good and I should at least have a better chance at half or more females. Well after several molts I was certain they were all males. I felt that even with random selection I should have gotten 1 out of 4 as female. My suspicion is his great prices may be because either he's trying to move excess males or his suppliers offload males at a great price to him which is past on to his customers. I later heard from another person that has dealt with Pat a fair amount, that he commonly will send all males.

At this time I had a number of emails with Pat and was unable to come to any resolution, short of meeting with him at a show. Given that Iwas too far from the shows he was attending and any kind of exchange requiring shipping would be too costly, he left me without any resolution. I had suggested one resolution could be an offer for me to purchase one or two guaranteed females at a reduced price. At that time he said he didn’t have any available and I never did hear from him again.

My lesson when buying long distance is either buy very small so chances are the females will not have been filtered out or buy larger guaranteed females with an understanding of what resolutions are possible and how shipping costs will be covered.

 

[RegalReptiles]

Dealer Reply

Hi JDS,

I do not even know your name, sorry. I honestly do not remember any problems but who knows. I actually have the 2" red knees in again and if you are interested I can give you a good deal on a couple of smaller ones (1.5" at this size it is hard to sex them from a molt, but males grow much faster than females, so the smallest ones in the batch have a better chance of being female). Here is probably more than likely what happend, you call me ask if its possible, I say I can try but there is no guarentee. Then you call in the order I was not in the office and on the order form someone probably wrote down, largest specimens. Do you know if you told anybody to see if they could get larger ones? As I said males grow faster than females, so if I am looking for larger specimens, it is likely for them to be male. I honestly do not remember getting any e-mails about this, but either way drop me an e-mail at Pat@regalreptiles.com, or call my cell phone at (401) 339 4593. I am going to be in and out of the office for the next 5 days as I have an expo in PA, aswell as some other things. I do have the nice 1.5"-2" Red Knees in stock again.

Thank-You,

Regal Reptiles
Patrick Kane / Invertebrate Department
www.RegalReptiles.com / Pat@regalreptiles.com
Ph: 401 277 9000 Fax: 401 351 0235
"Americas #1 Source for Invertebrates!"

 

[nitrotek]

Positive

good to go with Regal I drove up and Pat had just sold the scorps I was looking for that morning but he gave me some good deals on some other stuff and I left happy

 

[Haploman]

Thumbs up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Positive

I highly recommend to buy inverts from Patrick

 

[Fuggrur]

Excellent

Positive

I got my order today around 10:30 Am.. You would think there was some priceless artifact inside the way things were packed.
"Lots" of newspaper.. I even read some of it Hehe. The smaller Vials were surrounded by paper towell and packed inside a larger container.. That container was wrapped in paper towell.. wrapped in newspaper ( which was sealed using packaging tape ). Then there was more crumpled paper all around that..

The vials were all clearly marked with both common and latin names on each.
All sizes were as I had expected.. ( One was larger than I had thought ) The T's are active.. and some of them have already eaten. And the Scorp is BEAUTIFUL.. Absolutely perfect coloration.. I wish I had a Digital Camera..

Bottom line:

Overall he is a good guy.
I dont think I will use any other dealers as long as Mr Kane is around. He has great prices, excellent packing, a large selection.. and is constantly getting new things in. Why go anywhere else?

 

[Solar Dart]

Positive


Aside from my very first scorpion, I have bought all my inverts from Regal Reptiles, and have absolutely no complaints whatsoever. In fact, I'm going back down there next week. Oh the excitement!

 

[Tony]

Positive

Just got a box from Pat, and I know I am his friend and all, but it was packed very nice. It was also an oversize box and that can cost extra. He replaced a chaco that turned male (heck I thought it was girl too) and that wasnt something I expected. He saw my male chaco post and dropped me a note inquiring about its source.
So all in all, it was pretty darn good
Tony

 

[RegalReptiles]

Dealer Reply

Ok,

Last week I shipped JDS (Joel Stanfield), 2 G.pulchra 1" , and 1 B.smithi 2" free of charge. I charged him $20 for shipping (less than my typical $25.00 - $35.00 charge).

As we know, it is nearly impossible to successfully sex 1" slings. I wish you the best of luck that the new slings are female and hope you are satisfied with this resolution.

Thank-You,

Regal Reptiles
Pat Kane / Invertebrate Department
www.RegalReptiles.com / Pat@RegalReptiles.com
Ph: 401 277 9000 Fax: 401 351 0235
"Americas #1 Source for Invertebrates!"

 

[JDS]

satisfaction at last

Thanks to this site I have resolved my dispute with Pat. After my negative posting and Pat's response I got back in contact with Pat. I started by sending the original email history to Pat since a fair amount had past, and this began my resolution. I suggested a resolution with Pat and as of last Thursday I received my replacements. This did take several phone calls and even more emails but it did lead to being satisfied with a fair resolution.
Thanks to Pat for resolving my order problem.

 

[Dasgre0g]

Positive

I have dealt with Pat many many times now and he has always provided me with exactly what I ordered, and exactly
what I was looking for.

 

[Alonso99]

Positive

Pat has to be one of the coolest and best dealers out there. I ordered on friday morning to get a saturday deliver I had my order in less than 24 hours at my door. The T's were in great condition, and I would not even question that they arent females. Pat is a great guy, I suggest that everyone should order from Pat at least once.

 

[Code Monkey]

Second (well, technically, third) time's the charm

Positive

Although Pat is no longer doing individual sales, after the events detailed in my earlier review he made a point of seeing that he made it up to me. While it didn't go off exactly right on the first try, Pat did come through in the end and I have to give him props for genuinely making an effort to seeing that the customer was happy.

For my birthday, I initially ordered nine tarantulas and a centipede from Pat. Although Pat got the address right this time, UPS still somehow managed to boof up the delivery again. One has to love the joy of spending an afternoon yelling at incompetent people to get them to deliver your package correctly. Strangely enough, this actually worked out in my favor in the end.

Somehow, although I had him read my order back to me so that I knew he knew exactly what I ordered, it still got messed up somewhere in between the ordering, packing, and billing stages. He didn't charge me for two slings that I ordered but sent them anyhow, and did charge me for the pede and didn't send it. That pede was one of the top desired items in my order, so although I was technically ahead in the money dept if I had let things stand, I wasn't exactly happy since I had really been looking forward to the pede.

The short version of what happened after this is that there was a little song and dance about resending the pede, some forgotten phone call returns, and a grumpy monkey. However, I managed to catch him with a PM here on the boards. We cleared up misunderstandings and worked out an acceptable deal, with Pat even calling me after midnite to do so - that impressed me. I ordered seven more tarantulas just because I'm stupid that way, and he sent them and the pede without charging me for shipping. This time UPS managed to actually get things right and I'm now the owner of another 16 Ts and a new pede.

The Highs:
Pat had almost everything I wanted for my birthday the first go round. The bizarre serendipity of the dual mistake of his and UPS actually let me get everything I wanted. In the intervening days before he resent the pede, he got B. boehmi, G. aureostriata, and H. maculata in stock - that fulfilled my birthday checklist 100%. The highlight of the order is a beautifully marked female B. emilia juvenile that really made all of this hoop jumping worthwhile. As before, Pat was pleasant and friendly to deal with (although I was subjected to his humour repeatedly )
Plus, I've got to commend him for really trying to see that I was happy - I can fault him for not always getting things right, but I can't fault him for not genuinely wanting to provide good service.

The Lows:
Well, as before, it's the attention to little details. While it worked out in my favor, there were mistakes made on the order. Regardless of the fact that we were able to work everything out, it shows room for improving the tightness of the business at whatever level Pat chooses to sell at.

Conclusion:
I'm glad I gave Pat a chance to make things right and show me his stuff. The combination of selection and price really made for a great tarantula laden birthday present to myself

 

[jwb121377]

Positive

I have delt with Pat Kane on multipule occasions, and must say he has the bigest stock, and best prices out there. I will most certainly buy from him again.

 

[looseyfur]

Pat Kane

Lucky for me I do happen to live about 45 mins from Pat. Pat is a hugely busy guy, but seems to make time to help me out every time I make the trip from boston to RI. He has phased out his retail aspect but I would suppose if you could catch him at Regal he would be more then happy to help you. You have to understand how demanding this business is when you have tons of orders to fill and tons of insects which depend on your care. I have bought several T's from Pat and time willing I will buy several more from him. I strongly suggest him if you are thinking of buying in bulk his pricing and his selection rule as mentioned in other posts.
I think I will fill my christmas wish list with Pat @ regal and I doubt he wont be able to fill my order. In time he and those concerned at Regal hopefully with have a strong retail side again and you will have the chance to do business with him and enjoy all he has to offer as a dealer.

happy hunting
Looseyfur.
Ed.

 

[RegalReptiles]

Amun Ra's Issue

Hello,

I would like to start off by saying if you go to our website, and click on the e-mail button, it says clearly that we sometimes cannot get to our e-mail as we recieve 100-200 e-mails a day.

It also clearly states that if your inquiry is at all urgent to call us voice. You have never called us once.

Also in your post you stated that I told you it was on its way; I never once told you it was on its way. The last e-mail I sent was yes, 4 days ago, and that e-mail said I'll reply later.

I am a very busy person, and sometimes there is just not time for me to answer my e-mails. I am sorry. It has nothing to do with your order being small, it is a huge time issue.

You have overreacted throughout this entire ordeal; also you have not been waiting "weeks" as you put it. It also takes 2 weeks for the check to clear. The bank may show your funds have been taken; however that does not necesarily mean that we have recieved them yet.

We have however now recieved your funds, and we will ship on Monday.

As it stands, I am writing you an e-mail after I finish this; we will ship monday with a few freebies for the delay. I would also like to say that in any future dealings if your going to place an inquiry call me voice do not use e-mail. This one post has taken me 10 minutes to write, if this was done on the phone it would take 20 seconds to explain.

If you have a reply to the e-mail I am going to send you call me voice at 401.277.9000; call me collect if you want.

Thank-You,

Regal Reptiles:Invertebrate Department
Patrick Kane

 

[Mad Scientist]

Re: Amun Ra's Issue

Originally posted by RegalReptiles
Hello,

I would like to start off by saying if you go to our website, and click on the e-mail button, it says clearly that we sometimes cannot get to our e-mail as we recieve 100-200 e-mails a day.

Actually your website says it takes 3-4 days to reply to somebody and one of my letters is now going on 7 days unanswered. (dated: 04/04/03)(today: 04/11/03)
here's the link

Also in your post you stated that I told you it was on its way; I never once told you it was on its way. The last e-mail I sent was yes, 4 days ago, and that e-mail said I'll reply later.

Funny I still have that E-mail... and after you posted this, I checked it twice and it DOES say it's coming. I will forward the E-mail message back to you, since you have obviously forgotten what you wrote.

I am a very busy person, and sometimes there is just not time for me to answer my e-mails. I am sorry.

Funny it didn't take you but a day to respond to this letter in arachnopets.com but took as much as a week to respond to my mailings at your site. I guess the only way you will reply to me promptly is to publicly write to you in this forum.

You have overreacted throughout this entire ordeal; also you have not been waiting "weeks" as you put it. It also takes 2 weeks for the check to clear. The bank may show your funds have been taken; however that does not necesarily mean that we have recieved them yet.

Weird, your site says it takes 7 days to clear, but now it takes 14 and YES it has been three weeks.

quote from your website: "Checks can take up to 7 days to clear"

We have however now recieved your funds, and we will ship on Monday.

I will believe it when I see it. So excuse me if I don't say thank you just yet.

As it stands, I am writing you an e-mail after I finish this; we will ship monday with a few freebies for the delay. I would also like to say that in any future dealings if your going to place an inquiry call me voice do not use e-mail. This one post has taken me 10 minutes to write, if this was done on the phone it would take 20 seconds to explain.

You must have forgot to hit the Send email button becuase your last post was 5hrs ago, and I still haven't seen the email you were talking about. Oh, and about those future dealings......don't worry about it.