Nov. 1 I sent Josh several cuttings of all my colors of 'Giant Turk's Cap' he wanted for 5 fresh cuttings of his 'Orange 'Cestrum. In his tree-mail conversation he said he worked at a plant nursery. I sent the cuttings to the address he sent at my expense of $8 postage but never got his cuttings or even heard from him again since. I wasn't sure how to report this on garden.org but having just read another post I felt everyone should know about this. Trudy

Trudy, there really is no reporting here on garden.org for the Plant and Seed Trading Forum or for the Classifieds and Group Buys Forum. We all just take a chance and hope for the best when dealing with other members in trades or sales.

The only activity ecological_gardener/Josh ever had on this site were the 5 threads he started the Plant and Seed Trading forum and his last post was September, 2019.

Sorry to hear that Trudy I hope your trade will get resolved soon.

Trading can be a nightmare.
I can offer this as a cautionary tale.
Years and years ago when I was very active on the old Gardenweb, I also belonged to a forum that was kind of a 'secret' invitation only forum for tropical plant growers. That forum went the way of the west years ago. Mainly because the owner of the site was a really piece of work. Anyway he, I and 2 other members had a very nasty parting of the ways...the 3 of us ditched his place in a very public argument and just went back to hanging on the old Gardenweb.

This guy was a tech person, that is what he did for a living and he was a master spoofer even back that long ago.

He started impersonating me and the 2 other members on Gardenweb and making trades under our screen names. He was very careful never to do it actually publicly ON the forums. He would contact the members privately impersonating us by our emails and online screen names. He would then arrange trades in our names that he never made good on. He had the trades he made in our names sent to a PO Box. Was careful not to use our real addresses even though he had them, that could have potentially gotten him in trouble for mail fraud.

It all fell apart when people started posting complaints like this one to Spike on Gweb and he checked into it. He was able somehow to see that we had never sent communications to the people complaining we had gypped them by looking at the ISP addresses. He basically exonerated us. Then he kicked the other guy off permanently. But it was a very nasty lesson. Its one of the reasons I rarely trade anymore.

Wow, that's quite the cautionary tale Gina. I'm glad the guy got caught and banished.

Some people are just horrible. I am glad that that guy was found out and that your good name was exonerated. The lengths people will go to.

It was the weirdest thing online that has EVER happened to me online. This guy was very vindictive. He threatened me and the either members who blew out of his forum with a lawsuit for slander if we ever 'talked bad about him online'.

The reason we left his forum was that he started cyberstalking my friend (another female) and sending her messages and emails saying that she should ditch her husband and meet up with him. He offered to fly her to his state and let her stay with him. It was pretty surreal.

There were also a lot of really super inflated egos on that place, people who were convinced they knew everything about everything and if you disagreed with them it was NOT pleasant. Backbiting, outright nasty reprisals...it was one of the most bizarre scenarios I have ever experienced for something seemingly as innocuous as a gardening forum site.

Especially in this day of widespread information theft and the like, anyone who is savvy enough can spoof ANYTHING or ANYONE. It happened to my daughter and s few other friends of mine on Facebook....trolls set up pages with their names, stole their photos, and started posting as them.

Thank God for the White Hats!

Gina1960 said:Trading can be a nightmare.
I can offer this as a cautionary tale.
Years and years ago when I was very active on the old Gardenweb, I also belonged to a forum that was kind of a 'secret' invitation only forum for tropical plant growers. That forum went the way of the west years ago. Mainly because the owner of the site was a really piece of work. Anyway he, I and 2 other members had a very nasty parting of the ways...the 3 of us ditched his place in a very public argument and just went back to hanging on the old Gardenweb.

This guy was a tech person, that is what he did for a living and he was a master spoofer even back that long ago.

He started impersonating me and the 2 other members on Gardenweb and making trades under our screen names. He was very careful never to do it actually publicly ON the forums. He would contact the members privately impersonating us by our emails and online screen names. He would then arrange trades in our names that he never made good on. He had the trades he made in our names sent to a PO Box. Was careful not to use our real addresses even though he had them, that could have potentially gotten him in trouble for mail fraud.

It all fell apart when people started posting complaints like this one to Spike on Gweb and he checked into it. He was able somehow to see that we had never sent communications to the people complaining we had gypped them by looking at the ISP addresses. He basically exonerated us. Then he kicked the other guy off permanently. But it was a very nasty lesson. Its one of the reasons I rarely trade anymore.

Although I love this site, I sure do miss old GardenWeb & Spike. He reprimanded me once when I was new - can't remember for what - but he was nice (but firm). I've often wondered if he visits GW now & gets as aggravated with it now that Houzz has it.

I loved Spike too. I had many private conversations with him. Remember getting sent to Disney? LOL. That was a hoot.
(getting sent to Disney meant that you had committed some infraction of 'the rules' and instead of being publicly drug across the coals as some mods and site owners will do, Spike would somehow make it to where everytime you tried to log on to Gardenweb, you would be automatically redirected to the Disneyworld website. Then when he deemed you had been punished enough it would just go back to normal.)

Was that an e coupon ride?

you betcha LOL. I got sent once, it was funny. I laughed. I only know of one person who was bad enough to get banned outright, someone who tried to sell plants on the main forums and use the site to promote their business on eBay

For a few years Ebay was sending forum posters to Disney.

I never got sent to Disney & didn't know what people were talking about when they would mention it in the forums until someone explained it. It was really funny when those with a sense of humor would say they just got back from "Disney".

I did a trade with Josh back in Aug. and he sent me postage through Paypal.
Hoping he's OK and will respond soon to you Trudy.

I traded with him in Sept. I hope he gets back to you soon.

Trudy,
I had a trade worked out with ecological gardener last fall, I sent him some nice plants, he stiffed me too. ☹

If I got sent to Disney, I'd just stay there and I wouldn't be returning.

Anyway, I am downright shocked at how many people have their facebook on public. Mine is all set on private. I can go to a complete strangers facebook and see everything about them. Where they live, who their kids are-they even put photos of their sweeties first day of school ect. Now if a stranger walked up to you and started asking those things, would you tell them? of course not, and yet they have no trouble putting their entire private lives on FB for the entire world of trolls, dirty old men and serial killers to see. I also block many people on facebook, if they are nasty I just get rid of them. Solves alot of problems and then they don't get mad at you or have any contact with you cause they are not engaged.

I left my Facebook site public because I have long ago friends that I lost contact with and would love to once again have contact with them. I only put enough so that a friend could ID me, but I put very little info on Facebook. I am frustrated with all the junk that I get on it from people I don't know, but they know someone that I know, or even someone else who knows someone that I know. so I may end up having to change that philosophy. You are right, to much is put on Facebook and I am surprised that so many people don't comprehend the danger that they may put themselves or their family in. Facebook once kicked me off because they said that I was contacting people that I didn't know. How they can decide who I know and who I don't know, is beyond me. We have lived in Many places in this country, Germany and Canada. I was contacting friends from a lot of those places. After that, I pretty much quit doing much on Facebook. They are infringing on our constitutional rights I for one am surprised that people just put up with it.

I know a lot of Christian conservatives are going to Parker (may have that misspelled).