Customers Pulling The Wool Over Your Eyes

Just curious, how many of you have suspected a customer pulling (or trying ) the wool over your eyes OR actually caught them doing it? By this I mean emptying traps and resetting as if nothing was caught (if prices are somehow tied to the number caught) or any other way of getting one over on you?


How do you avoid this (other than charging by the job rather than by catch)?


What do you do once you know there's tampering going on?

If this hasn't happened to an operator yet, it's because they haven't been in business long enough. If someone wants to act this way, there isn't much you can do. You can verify "unauthorized" activity and let the client know that your equipment has been modified to do so but the fact is that 99 out of 100 times, you'll be able to tell simply by the sight location if there was a catch or not.

If you think this is a problem, take a picture of the set once you have it in place. If you really want to get creative, you can do things like use tape connecting the trap frame to the door on a powered door trap so it breaks when set off or take a small piece of wire and wrap it around the door frame loosely (if you put it higher, you won't have many animals moving it) so that when the door shuts, the wire is moved (what you're looking at here is not where the wire ends up, but whether or not it was moved from the position you left it at).

When this happens, I almost always pull the traps and call it job done. The only time I won't do this is when it is for a commercial client. They get one chance as I tell whoever hired me of the problem and let them know that if it happens again the traps will be pulled. Also, if I have pictures and it is obvious that I had a capture (say coon), I can then take another picture and if it is obvious from before and after that the trap had an animal in it they get billed.

Put a small white paper condiment cup (http://www.webstaurantstore.com/genpak-f...CFQMaaQodhVgGQw) in the trap. Any animal that is caught in the cage will either crush the cup or at least get it dirty. A smear of peanut butter in the cup won’t hurt anything either.

I had a job where skunks were removed from a trap twice. It was really ticking the guy who hired us as he was paying good money. I happened to walk back to a trap for some reason and caught a person playing with the trap. I called the client and described what the guy was wearing. It didn't happen any more.

Yes, this has happened, Trapping Raccoons in a six flags park, an attendant at one station that was a few cents short of a dollar, heard I was trapping these coons, He would release them for fear they would be hurt at night after his shift, I would check these traps early in the morning, All I found was an empty trap that had held a animal. Well, After a few releases, They found him on a camera & released him.

I set all my mole traps in the same position with my flag i mark it with within an inch of the out of sight trigger rod...had to pull traps today from a nice older guys yard...last time was there 2 traps looked disturbed but still set...what do you know...no more damage this week...didnt contact him...just pulled traps and left...doesny happen too often but once in awhile and those customers get put on my black list

It could be difficult to know if this has happened. Fortunately it seems rare. If I've been had, as least I'm not aware of it. I heard a story from an older ADC trapper about when he was new in the business, hired to catch "raccoons." The client knew the trapper was only going to charge for the targetted raccoons. Non targets simply didn't count. The first catch was a skunk, no charge. The second day, another skunk, no charge. After a few more days the catch was 5 skunks, no raccoons. Guess the raccoons must have left. There was no charge for the job since no raccoons were caught, only 5 skunks. The point, there were no raccoons in the first place. After that the trapper adjusted his plan to charge equally for trips and catches.

I have always made it clear, that the "No Charge for Non-Target's", meant that I would release the catch, RIGHT THERE, RIGHT THEN!, but, if they wanted it gone, the "per animal price" applied.

It happens often enough to be a pain in the arse. I am sure that some trap manufacturer will come up with a simple one key fits all cage door lock. It's necessary and long overdue.

Jim puts a nice heavy spring on his. Double the tension and it would be just as good as a lock. You'd probably need a lever to compress it though.

Excellent point.

I let people know upfront before i even make the appt that non target catches can happen and that i will charge for every animal not just the target....

I think the comstock trap would be hard for a customer to reset, not just the spring tension but lining up the trigger and hooking up the doors.
Kurt Temple

I had 1 release out of a comstock. It wasn't reset.

Back when I used single doors I had a couple traps damaged by people trying to open them. They paid for the trapping service, not the catch.