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Sobers Kennel, owned/operated by Bitte Ahrens and Pierluigi Primavera Of Italy, guilty of fraudulent business practices, scammers, will not deliver, Will not refund deposits, not to be trusted. Breeds, sells multiple breeds of dogs.
BUYER BEWARE!
DO Not Buy from Sobers a show dog Kennel owned/operated by Bitte Ahrens and Pierluigi Primavera of Rome, Italy.
Our complaint with Sobers is well founded and documented.
In 2006 My wife and I purchased two show quality greyhound puppies from Bitte Ahrens and Pieri Primavera of Rome, Italy. One puppy matured as expected and we are pleased with him. The other greyhound, however, a dog named Sobers Jett, did not mature into a show quality animal and we were promised a replacement puppy by both Pieri and Bitte.
Over the years, we waited patiently for the puppy that was promised us. Many litters came and went, and we waited anxiously. Our puppy never came. When I called Bitte, she would say that many persons had been waiting longer than us for a puppy where due first, but our puppy would surely come out of the next litter.
After a run of puppies not being available from any litter spanning years of waiting, we grew weary of this, it was now half a decade later and no puppy. In Feb of 2012 we informed both Bitte and Pieri that we were tired of all of the excuses and we wanted our money back. Bitte and Pieri agreed to refund our money In
February of 2012. In the meantime, we had learned about persons who bought puppies at shows (no wait if you have cash in hand) and Bitte and Pieri would go on expensive trips to other countries showing their dogs and judging (Bitte is an FCI judge) and yet not have the money to pay their creditors.
Communication has been at best, spotty and clearly Bitte is
avoiding us for emails had come only from Pieri. Pieri has a long history
with us of promises for payment that never came. Phone calls were never returned.
Now, here it is, six years later, we are still waiting for full refund of our money that we entrusted in good faith to Bitte Ahrens and Pier Primavera. We were due a refund of $1900--that was the purchase price of the puppy and the cost of shipping the dog was another $1000 which of course, was not their problem, and only after many many requests and broken promises by Pieri, we have only recently received a partial payment of $615.22 in December 2012.
We have purchased show greyhounds from Bitte Ahrens in the past and experienced no difficulty. The dogs where as represented and shipped in a timely manner.
We advise persons looking to buy show greyhounds to look elsewhere as Bitte and Pieri are not to be trusted. They are all too eager to take your money but do not deliver. As evidenced by all the broken promises of a replacement puppy and then non-payment of our refund, they are clearly
not people of their word. They have taken money that we sent them in good
faith and failed to deliver. We have heard from multiple sources in the US and Europe that our experience is not an isolated event, that other people have been similarly victimized.
And pity if they owe you money, good luck on getting it back, we haven't.
The link to their web page is : http://www.greyhounds.it/ so you know who to
avoid.
Buyer beware!
To all would customers of Sobers
An update and resolution has finally transpired with Sobers Kennel. On Jan
14, 2014, in a final attempt to collect the money that has been owed us for
almost a decade, we sent the following email to :Sobers Kennel---Bitte Ahrens Primavera & Pierluigi Primavera
***************************
Sender: "Kim Fritzler"
Subject: Charges pending.
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2014 13:39:05 -0700
To: "Sobers-Bitte Ahrens Primavera & Pierluigi Primavera"
Dear Bitte and Pierluigi,
Several months have come and gone without you people paying the money you owe
us.
We are now compelled to take further action. We will be filing charges with
the GCA and of course, all proceedings of this nature are published in the
Newsletter. We will also will be advising the kennel clubs in your area of
your fraudulent business practices.
Furthermore, our experience with you will be submitted to high profile
consumer complaint forums such as Ripoff.com.
It seems that we are not alone in being victimized by you. The copy below is
one of several notices we have received from other people that reflect your
unethical business dealings.
We felt it only fair to advise you of our intentions and give you one last
opportunity to refund the monies we gave you over EIGHT years ago in good
faith.
Regards,
Colin R and Kimberly A Fritzler
Windrock LLC
(Note: The email below from "S Wood" is the most recent communication from yet another party
victimized by Sobers Kennel-Bitte Ahrens Primavera & Pierluigi Primavera) We
have received many such messages:
"S-wood" has sent you a message on ComplaintsBoard.com:
I have had the same thing i wanted a whippet from one of her litters was a
really nice whippet i paid up front for the whippet as i was collecting him at
crufts as i was going then they told me his testicle never dropped with till
this day i dont think it was true!
Then i said il have my money back they said ok 3 months later i asked again
and she said Pieri would do it but he is away on business so he do it when he
got back then she said that they spent my money and they didnt have it to give
back to me il have to wait my husband was getting really cross so i emailed
her to as what greyhounds she breed and when she said not till 2013 but she
has this whippet here aka sobers palladian from sobers ingrid spoke to the
husband and he said take him as i dont think you get your money back. Me and
my husband drove to italy! to pick him up 11 hr drive for us as live in the uk
and when we meet up with pieri he wanted another 400 euro for him as he
travelled 4 hrs to meet us and i havent giving him the money when we got axel
he was skinny no stength behind he had a big puncher wound on his shoulder i
was not happy with this a dear friend of mine saw him the next day as she was
shocked by the stat of him as she has a sobers dog from her and she was in
great nick hope this help and you not the only one who has had this problem.
************************
Only after our email of Jan 14, 2014, advising Sobers-Bitte Ahrens Primavera & Pierluigi Primavera of our intent to
file complaint with the various kennel clubs, including the Greyhound Club of
America, did we yesterday (Jan 15, 2014) receive a international money
gram from Sobers in the amount of 1232.60. This amount does not satisfy the
entire amount we spent to acquire this dog--we are still out the cost of
transportation and the investment of several months care. Nonetheless, we are
accepting of this payment and consider it payment in full. Sometimes, in life, education is costly.
At long last, more
than 8 years after we entrusted these dog breeders with our money and confidence, has the matter has finally been resolved.
There are many good breeders of dogs. However, owing to our experience with
Sobers-Bitte Ahrens Primavera & Pierluigi Primavera, we would strongly
consider the consumer looking elsewhere.
The photo attached is the receipt of the moneygram from Italy showing the payment which we accept as payment in full.
The message from S-Wood was sent privately from Complaints board and never should have gone public. Our apologies to S Wood. (who is now posted as S Arnold) As previously stated. Sobers Kennel after more than eight years has refunded the money owed. We consider the matter closed.
I hereby apologize towards Kennel Sobers. What has been published under "S-Wood" was not a message from me for the board . It was published by by Kim & Colin Fritzler. The doubts and thoughts I earlier had by my mistake have all been cleared up and I have nothing against Bitte Ahrens & Pierluigi Primavera of Sobers kennel, since I'm very happy with the Whippet boy they gave me." Kindly Bitte
sorry should read Thank You Kindly Bitte for the Beautiful Dog at the End appolgies for the grammer mistakes
To all,
I have been following this for quite some time and the first thing people
should realize that if you are in business and experience a problem, you
should do all that you can to resolve the matter before people get angry
enough to file consumer reports. Once posted, these negative reviews are often permanent.
Eight years duration of non payment or replacement is totally unacceptable.
This problem should have been resolved long before then. Let me say that I am
familiar with both parties and I these are my observations.
While Sobers has good dogs and are prominent in the dog fancy, many of their
business dealings have been at the least, unethical. Complaints of not
receiving puppies or slow refund, or non payment at all, is fairly common knowledge. I know first hand of several instances where this is the case. Some of the grievances have been resolved, others have not.
The Fritzlers paid for and imported a two greyhound puppies. One puppy turned out not to be show/breeding quality and both parties agreed upon a replacement. The other puppy sent was one named Sobers Ippolito, and from what I have seen, a fine example of a greyhound. Sometimes puppies do not mature as expected and
that is the fault of no one. These things happen. That said, to not refund the
money or have an acceptable replacement within a reasonable time frame is
courting trouble. A wait of a couple of years is acceptable. A payment eight years later totally is unacceptable.
I suspect this entire difficulty could have been avoided had Sobers addressed
the problem straight away and worked for a solution.
As it is, the offended party has filed complaints which are now a public record. Negative postings are extremely detrimental to reputation.
To S Wood, S Arnold or whatever alias you choose to assume. If you write
commentary about a party on the internet in whatever forum, expect that
writing to be shared. The internet is wide open, a person should not ever
post anything that they would not expect to go public. While the sharing of
private messages is at best an ethical issue, this action should not surprise anyone as it is apparent that the offended party used your message to further solidify their position that other persons have suffered like difficulty with Sobers. The possibility that your email might have been so used should not have escaped you.
This is a difficult situation to salvage. Words of wisdom. Happy clients don't write complaints. Keep your customers happy.
Well, to cut the story short... Kim and Colin NEVER gave us any news, in 8 years and though we asked several and several times, about one of the two Greyhounds exported, named SOBERS JETT. No prove that the dog was not good for shows, no pictures or videos. No address or name of the people who had him as a pet. Again, no picture of him. Given this situation, I always refused to refund any money until, just to avoid this continuous defamation, I agreed to wire the amount showed in the receipt. Some months ago, some years after our "payment", we got news from Kim Fritzler that the dog hid dead and finally an address and phone number of a person which we didn't bother to contact, since it should have been her to contact us. Now, give the real and actual FAME of Kim Fritzler and her kennel Windrock, made of denounces and trial in the court in USA from several puppy buyers and other dog breeders, I consider our payment just an EXTORSION of money. The reason why we did not go in with an international claim and trial against her is just because we don't want to spend more money and energy in a matter which is unfair and, mostly, untrue and fake. Defamation is a bad thing, but our reputation through the years speaks for itself. Please go on Google and see the long list of complaints towards Kim and Colin Fritzler: you will be stunned.
Pierluigi Primavera
PS in no part of the selling contract for these two puppies was agreed any refund for any dog, specially because there is NO PROVE that one of the puppy was defected and that the defect is depending on us as breeders. The puppy, when he left Italy, was absolutely perfect and in show condition. The "defect" was about an "ear wrongly carried". We think this was just a fake and that the dog had an accident at Windrock's place!
I wrote a long letter but it was canceled from here I'm wondering if the owner of this website can put it back
We had no news about the puppy for eight years and no news about the person Having the dog, though we asked several anf several times and got no answer from the Fritzler's. We just got news recently that the dog is dead and that this person should contact us, but we have got no emails or message, no photos and no evidence that the dog was with this person. Again, we think that this is all a fake from the Fritzler's! The so-called neutral part writing from England should know better facts before writing on a thing that clearly shows he knows nothing about!
I DO NOT think you are a NEUTRAL party, I think you are Kim and Colin Fritzler! Put down your mask!
Photo and article of Crash working as a therapy dog. He was placed with Pat Lewis and Sobers was made well aware of that and contact information was provided. Pat Lewis never heard from Sobers. Crash lived to be 12 years old and eventually succumbed to neurological issues, which Sobers were notified of. No communication was ever received acknowledging his placement with Pat Lewis or the receipt of his death notification.