I'll have to agree with that.
I have bought fish from both US/Canadian background and from Thailand.
Several of the fish I bought on AB from Thailand were slightly ..em...mistrepresented.
I have one..that the picture showed him to be a brilliant yellow..with no other coloration, when I got him his tail is black on the edges. After seeing the fish in person and going back to the picture on AB I see what they did..they enhanced the brightness to where the black washed away and left only the brilliant yellow (could or could not have been done on purpose..but who am I to make that decision. They could have doen it to make the fish show up better...or they could have done to try and decieve, who knows). He also cannot keep himself upright for long periods of time either. He is the one I have tht floats vertical 80% of the time (head straight up at the surface and tail straight down at the bottom of the tank), that wasn't mentioned in the ad either (and I doubt it's SBD, because he has no other indications of the disorder..just seems he can't hold his fins up like the other fish...he's not as strong as he should be, he's kinda a "frail" looking fish imo).
I have another, that was sold as a bi-colored fish. The AB ad only showed the right side of the fish, as is in most cases..you get one good shot of the fish on the auction listing to go by (who would think to need more, you know lol). When I got him..he is actually a marble. The entire left side of his face is clearish/white, and he has several clearish/white patches on that side as well.
I don't hold that against all Thai breeders though, as I still think the fish are beautiful, and so does everyone else. Honestly...I'd probably still buy from those breeders as well...I'd just make sure to ask some more detail questions about their auctioned fish if I decided on one of theirs in the future.
I have bought several fish from BCBetta and they are all as described, with the exception that one turned out to be a butterfly..but he was very young when sent (2 months) and it had just started to show up (which is fine with me..I love butterfly's). When I e-mailed about it she appologized and said that several were startig to show up that way.
I say if you ask any breeder a question and they are dodgey, get angry or short with you, or don't answer you back for long extended periods of time- over 2weeks + (sometimes people do get very busy, you know (and things beyond their control do pop up from time to time too, you know
...so always give the seller the benefit of the doubt for a reasonable time frame) then you probably won't be satisfied doing business with them, regardless of country/region of origin.
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If you spot a fish that you love..and there is only a few minutes left to bid..and no one has bid yet....you can always e-mail the seller with your questions and offer to buy the fish afterwards for what it was listed for, but not bid for. I have gotten several fish that way, usually the seller wants to sell the fish and will answer your questions and then sell you the fish ...
IF you ask lol.
/www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auc...tasd&1104930300
