Gardeners' Choice is a Rip-Off Which Leaves You No Choice
Written: Aug 17 '06 (Updated Aug 17 '06)
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Have you ever received one of those flyers in a Sunday newspaper or in a magazine that promises huge strawberry plants, watermelons, flowers, shrubs, or in my case, tomatoes? I’ve seen them for years but had never paid much attention because I believe that, “If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.” I was right.
However, each year my husband cultivates and fixes up a garden (tomatoes and green peppers this year) for my elderly parents. My dad (who is 82) loves to get outside and care for a small garden. He putters, waters, and over-fertilizes (loves that Rapid-Gro) and has a great time doing it. Well, this year in about April, he handed my husband one of these ads and said he wanted to try the huge tomatoes promised in the ad. So, my husband being a gardener himself had me order two of them for my dad and two for our garden. He figured it was worth a shot. BUT, the shot never even got fired.
I ordered the four plants in April. I used the mail-in form that accompanied the advertisement. I sent a check for about $15.00 (for which I could have bought a lot of tomato plants or tomatoes) and waited for the delivery. In the meantime, I checked out their site online. It stated there that plants are mailed to different parts of the country at different times because of varied growing seasons. That made sense to me and sure enough, the plants arrived about a month or so later which was when we should be planting tomatoes. So far, so good. The company is located in Michigan and we live in Michigan so we figured that actual shipping would only amount to a day or two, once they were sent. That worked out to be true. When they shipped, it only took one day for us to receive them.
This part is the not so good part. The plants arrived in a box which was delivered through regular mail. Inside the box were four scrawny, dried out, tomato plants. They were small. They were not good plants for any kind of tomatoes and especially not “giant” tomatoes. They were not even wrapped well nor had anything been done to the plants to try to keep them alive during the transit time. My husband really has a green thumb and when he saw these said that he didn’t think they were alive but would try. He tried and they did nothing. He put them into water to try to revive them but after a week he wrote out an obituary and buried them in the trash can.
So at this point we have this equation: +4 plants -4 plants = 0 plants
The only thing we actually paid for was a nice (but nothing special) box.
The whole experience ticked me off. First, I had to tell my dad that “if it’s too good to be true, it is.” Then I followed the instructions and let them know my letter that the plants were dead and that we’d like either our money back or some new plants. I also went online and emailed Customer Service about my problems. After waiting for the 2 or 3 days they listed it would take to hear back from them; I called the number listed in their ad and online. The number was out of service or was disconnected (so said the operator’s taped message.) By this time I was getting more than ticked off. Fifteen dollars is not a lot of money (we paid for all of them so at least my dad wasn’t out the money) but I started extrapolating how huge this rip-off was.
I started picturing this place out there with some guy(s) which advertises gardening goods for all states and a huge enough variety that something they offer would appeal to someone. If you could get an average of $10 from even a fraction of the people in the United States to bite just once, you’d become a rich company (or person). I have no idea if this is their agenda or not, but it could happen.
I decided since there was nothing I could do (because none of my attempts to reach them worked) that I would at least start an email campaign with their Customer Service Department. So, everyday for two weeks, I wrote them a letter complaining. They didn’t respond but I felt better (plus I was saving money by not using stamps). The other thing that I felt was in my power to do was to write this review and hope that others may benefit from my experience with this company. For a fifteen dollar rip-off it wasn’t worth any other avenues that are available but God how I wish I could get my mental image of some rich guy living off the profits of zillions of people’s $10 dollar contributions.
In their defense, there is none. The only good thing that they offer is their website. It is well done and professional looking. They offer a lot of good information on growing gardens and have one section that allows you to click on plants and flowers and get needed information for growing them. My advice is to stick to ordering your plants somewhere else and using the free information on the site to grow them.
I’m not sure if everyone’s experience with them is as bad as mine but when I was using Google to look up the website, I put in the name of the company and there were many people that had posted at a consumer site stating that they felt the place was a rip-off and that something needs to be done about their business practices. So, I know that I’m not only one person that had one bad experience and that there are many more consumers that had major problems with this company.
So, do I recommend them? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Prepoia
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Location: Michigan
Reviews written: 307
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I Love My Family, Teaching, Reading, the Internet, and Travel (and Epinions of Course)!
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