Man, this stuff is all just really par for the course. And it puts the seller in a "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" position. Generally you can tell the people who have been in this the longest by the length of their policy page on their website.
You can either choose to be open to someone taking far too much advantage of you, or you can choose to appear to be paranoid with your dealings with the public. It's rather difficult to find what you would consider as the perfect balance. Even something as simple as requiring a deposit involves more gray area than you would like to think about. And it apparently means something different to everyone who reads that term. If you keep the deposit, regardless of the circumstances, you may be REALLY subjecting someone to a hardship, but on the other hand, heck so many people will lie their asses off just to get their money back, and you really have no way of telling who is being truthfull or not. So you either assume everyone is lying and stick to your policy, or you might as well not even have the policy in the first place.
Heck, I recall someone begging off a deposited order claiming he was injured in an accident and later that very next day noticed him making inquiries on a purchase with someone else. Obviously with the extra cash now to spend on those other animals.
One fun little trick people will do is to tell you that they want a handful of animals and ask that you hold them while they think about it a bit. While they are doing the same thing with a few other sellers, trying to negotiate the best deal and decide which animals they really want. Doesn't matter to them that they are tying up YOUR sales in the process. Which is one reason I never offer to send people individual photos of my animals for sale. They will want several so they can pick the one they want, which means in the meantime I am expected to hold ALL of them back awaiting their decision. Believe it or not, I have actually had people ask me to send photos of ALL of a particular cultivar I have available, so they could pick out the ONE they wanted. Like my time was completely without any value and inconsequential to their wants.
Heck, I remember in the old days where I would actually maintain a list of people claiming they wanted something and ask me to contact them when they became available. Boy, was THAT ever a waste of time and effort. I got tired REAL quick of hearing excuses of why they couldn't buy them right now. So that is something I don't do any longer.
Generally speaking, I don't even pay attention to anyone saying they want something until money has crossed the table. Got tired of hearing the excuses and lies.
Basically what it all boils down to is to not commit yourself to anything unless the customer is willing to commit as well. And I mean FIRMLY commit, not just SAY they are committing. It just discourages me to see how valueless many people treat their WORD these days, yet they fail to understand why other people now place so little value on what they say.
