Payments, Deposits & Cancellations

All orders must be paid in full before shipment. Payments can be made using your credit/debit card via PayPal. All credit/debit card cancellations are subject to a 10% fee to cover our cost of transaction expenses.

All animals are offered for sale on a first come, first served basis (determined by the date/time stamp of the email). No animal is considered sold until payment is received; however a "pending" status will be put on animals awaiting payment. If payment has not been made within 48hrs the animal will be put up for sale again. An animal can be put "on hold" status for one (1) month with a 25% non-refundable deposit. If full payment is not received within one month, the deposit will be forfeited and the animal put up for sale again.

Reservations are accepted for any of the animals currently breeding and they are considered in the order they are received. Once those eggs have hatched you will be notified and given the opportunity to add that animal to the "on hold" status with a 25% deposit. Once those babies are ready to be shipped, you will be contacted for the remainder of the payment and to set up shipping arrangements.

Payment plans will be considered on a case by case basis. Conditions of the payment plan will be confirmed via email. If a payment plan is approved then a 25% non-refundable deposit is required and the normal duration of the payment plan is four (4) months. If at any time you can not complete the transaction, your payments will be refunded minus the initial 25% non-refundable deposit.

** Prices are updated periodically and are subject to change without notice.**

Shipping

Once payment has been made, we will contact you via email to arrange shipping. Please note that we don't just automatically ship, you must respond to our email indicating you accept the proposed shipping date, understand the terms, and will have someone present to sign for the package. All shipments will require that you be present to sign for them, please arrange to have someone available to sign for the package upon arrival otherwise the guarantee of live delivery does not apply.

RidgeTop Reptiles is a certified reptile shipper with FedEx. All shipments will be sent via FedEx Priority Overnight. Because I do work a full time job we prefer to ship out all orders on Tuesday for Wednesday delivery due to our remote location (90 miles round trip), however for special needs we will ship Mon-Wed. FedEx's actual time of arrival varies by location, but is next day by 10:30am - 12:00pm (noon) in most areas or by 4:30pm in rural areas.

FedEx clearly states that they offer no guarantee of any sort on live animal shipments. Due to these restrictions, please do not file any claims with this carrier, they will not pay them.

As has been stated, Quality comes first in everything we do. Our shipping is no different. RidgeTop Reptiles goes the extra mile to make sure your animal arrives safe and sound. While other breeders are using the standard half inch Styrofoam insulation, RidgeTop Reptiles is looking to push the standards higher. We use a full inch thick Styrofoam to better help protect your new animal from climate changes and from shipping damage. We believe your animals are worth it.

The price for shipping your animal(s) overnight via FedEx is a flat rate of $50. There is no extra shipping cost per additional animal, unless there is a significant increase in weight or size of the box needed. We will contact you prior to shipping if this is the case. Unlike some breeders, we don't charge extra for the use of heat or cold packs in our shipping. They are INCLUDED! We only ship to the continental USA.

RidgeTop Reptiles reserves the right to delay shipment due to weather conditions (below 35* F or above 95* F). If you decide we should ship anyways, then our Live Arrival Guarantee is no longer valid and is null and void.

Failure to accept shipments within 30 days (unless caused by weather or agreed to in advance) will be considered abandonment, and all monies will be forfeited to us. In the case of multiple specimen orders, we will hold animals until your order is complete and all can be shipped together.

** We can ship up to 10 neonate snakes or 4 leopard geckos in our standard size box. We do have larger boxes if needed**

Guarantees

All of our animals will be honestly represented, healthy, correctly sexed, and feeding. I will also guarantee live arrival providing certain factors are met. If you are dissatisfied with your animal(s) for any reason, please contact us immediately upon receipt of your shipment. After 24 hours all sales are final and I will assume you are happy with your new animal(s). After the animals are in the customers care my responsibility ends. The customer is responsible for their own husbandry after they take possession of the animal. I, however, have no problem providing advice to my customers on the best way to care for their animals.

Live Arrival Guarantee

As we can not guarantee that proper care is being provided once they leave our facility, we will only guarantee live arrival of your animal.

FedEx clearly states that they offer no guarantee of any sort on live animal shipments. Due to these restrictions, please do not file any claims with this carrier, they will not pay them. RidgeTop Reptiles, however, offers a Live Arrival Guarantee.

To qualify for our Live Arrival Guarantee you must meet the following:

Return Policy

Upon receiving your order, you have a 24 hour satisfaction guarantee. If for any reason you feel the animal(s) purchased does not meet your expectations, please contact me via the email address provided to you in your “Shipment Sent” email from RidgeTop Reptiles. We can then arrange a refund. A full refund requires the animal(s) to be returned alive and healthy in the original containers at your expense within 48 hours of receipt. Shipping is not refundable.

**Refunds may be made as cash, credit, or a combination of both at my discretion. If the animal(s) were paid via a payment plan, your initial deposit is non-refundable as agreed to in the terms of the plan itself. If payment was made via PayPal then the 3% transaction fee will not be refunded.**

Hets & Genetics

If you purchase an animal that is heterozygous (het) for a particular trait, the animal you receive will not look like the visual recessive trait with the higher price. The het carries the gene but does not show it. You will have to breed two het’s together carrying the same gene or breed a het to a visual to get the desired babies.

RidgeTop Reptiles guarantees all Hets and Genetics of our animals. If available all our animals are sold with feeding / record charts and genealogical data. Genetic documentation consists of a signed guarantee, color photographic images of the animal and lineage data. Color images of every animal sold are retained so that if the animal is re-sold, future buyers can verify the specifics of the animal directly with RidgeTop Reptiles. The only information they will need is the original animal ID number.

Sexing Guarantee

All animals are guaranteed to be properly sexed. However given the number of animals I produce on an annual basis, even I make an occasional error while sexing neonates. If this has happened then I need to be notified within 72 hours of arrival. If an animal arrives incorrectly sexed, photos may be requested to prove the sex of the animal you received. We will attempt to provide a replacement of the proper sex. Should we be unable to provide a replacement, a credit or refund will be provided. RidgeTop Reptiles reserves the right to issue a refund in lieu of replacement solely at our discretion. In some cases we may ask you ship the animal back to us at our expense.

This policy is a tough one for me because I believe an incorrectly sexed animal is an incorrectly sexed animal. Regardless of when you find out, however many of the animals that I sell are only available a few times each year.  With this in mind it is important that I find out as soon as possible if there is a problem. In order to ensure that someone doesn’t wait several weeks or even months to verify the sex of an animal, I feel this policy is for the benefit of everyone involved.  Therefore, if I am not notified within the 72 hour time frame our guarantee is null and void.

Our Leopard Geckos are only guaranteed as “incubated as” sexes. This means the sex of the animal is not known but the egg was incubated at temperatures known to produce primarily animals of a given sex.

Tips about geckos

Geckos can drop their tails, and often times for no apparent reason. This is a natural occurrence. As such, I cannot be held responsible for tails dropped during shipping. I have yet to have this happen but it is a possibility so I feel that it is important to be clear about it up front.

As geckos get older, their pattern and color will change into their adult colors. Depending on factors such as environment and stress, their colors can also change intensity.  When depicting my animals for sale, I go to great lengths to make sure the images are accurate. With that being said, I will never jack up the saturation to make a mellow yellow animal look hi-lighter yellow. My goal is for you to be impressed with your animals so if anything, the animals will look better than the photos.

Also depending on how you have your monitor set will depend on how the photos show up when you view them.  I process all my photography on my desktop because I have that monitor calibrated to accurately show colors as they would be printed since I also sell photographic prints. With this in mind, I can not offer refunds due to lack of or misinterpretation of color.

Additional Tips

Due to the stress of shipment and new housing, we can not guarantee that the animals will voluntarily eat as soon as they arrive. In fact I wouldn’t attempt to feed your new snakes for at least a week. This lets them settle into their new home.  For Leopard Geckos I would wait a couple days. All animals were voluntarily feeding before they left our facilities. If you are having problems please contact me via my normal email link

Turn off your email spam blocker, or put us on your OK list.  This way you will be able to receive emails from RidgeTop Reptiles. You would be surprised at how many folks write us but we cant write back because of this.

Don’t use multiple email addresses when contacting us if you can help it. Many will have a different email address depending on if they are at work or not. Doing this will almost guarantee our responses to your question will end up at your work email address when your at home or vice versa. If possible please only use one email address.

Thank you and if you have any questions that were not covered here, feel free to contact us