New addition to the betta family...Male or female?

So, I got a new betta today. I paid for a female betta, but I'm more than sure I got a juvenile male. I don't have any pics yet, but I'll try to describe him as well as I can. Maybe some of the betta peeps on here can helpe me out with his/her sex?

First off, he/she is TINY. His/her body is *maybe* an inch long. He/she is smaller than even my smallest female (which would be my crowntail female and she's about an inch and a quarter long). His/her fins are a lot longer than any female I've ever seen and shaped more like a male's (more flowing and pointed at the ends).

Secondly, he/she is brilliant crimson and his/her color didn't fade when I put him into his new tank (the color on my females always fades when they get stressed out, like when they are moved between tanks for cleaning or what-have-you). I have a crimson female and she's more bronze-colored in the body usually with deep crimson fins. The new betta looks more like an exact miniature replica of my crimson male.

Thirdly, I don't see an ovipositor anywhere on him/her, but I do see the "beard" that is usually associated with males.

Here's a pic of my crimson male...just picture him, only smaller (my crimson male is about 2 inches long):

And here's my crimson female for comparison:

 

Yeah, I know. :-( Sucks not to have a camera.

And you don't have to tell me about the vivid colors females come in. Victoria (the crimson female in the pic) is the least colorful of my seven females. All the others have very vivid colors.

A betta breeder I talked to on another site said he sounded like maybe a plakat/veiltail cross.

 

It was a male. Sadly, he died rather unexpectedly last week. :-( I honestly don't think he was eating because I was constantly having to skim leftover food off the top of his tank and I wasn't feedhing him that much. He wouldn't even touch the couple of brine shrimp I gave him and all my other bettas go NUTS over those. *sigh*