Viewing post #1812157 by cwhitt

ediblelandscapingsc said:Even sellers with high feedback can't be trusted 100% although it is good to always check the sellers feedback. Feedback is often left as soon as seeds or plants arrive. A perfect example is the blue strawberry seed sellers. These people are a joke but uneducated gardeners get scammed every day by them. Since most semps are green at some point in the year many people will get a green semp and leave positive feedback without giving them time to grow. Same thing with the rainbow rose seeds, square watermelon seeds, blue watermelon seeds, rainbow tomato seeds, purple sunflower seeds, any dwarf fruit tree seeds, ect. I also see trees sold on there as named varieties that end up being only seedlings. Buyers get a tree, they leave feedback, and the seller gets another chance to scam another person. This can go on for years since feedback can only be left 90 days after the purchase date.
I remember when hirts garden first started selling on ebay years ago. Me and many of my friends purchased plants and seeds from them and almost everything ended up being something other than what we ordered. Their feedback stayed high but there was talk in the ebay community and online about many many people getting cheated over the years. They scammed thousands of people. Now they sell on ebay, amazon, walmart.com and many other sites and sell more legit plants since they have the funds to actually buy the stock they are selling but I was there when they scammed 90% of their customers to get where they are now.

Yes -- all of that is very true. But if it looks too good to be true, then it probably is. Some of the colors they show are quite obviously altered, and people should not be taken in by that. I noticed that a lot of those come from China, so if it looks too good to be true and also comes from China, buyer beware. I did buy some rare Amaryllis seeds from someone, but they are in California and have been around for a while. I e-mailed them and asked questions about the seeds I was buying, if the flowers would be true or not. He answered me back immediately and seemed to be very truthful - gave me actual details about his growing process and the seeds etc. The seeds take at least 3 years to bloom, and I have another year to go, but I fully expect the flowers to be exactly as he advertised. So long story short, e-mail the seller and ask for details if you are not sure - if it is a scam they will either not answer you, or give you a short canned answer. If it is legit, they will give you actual details.