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Post by H2O on Jun 9, 2015 16:42:56 GMT -5
Although the vast majority of us are very generous and trustworthy, there are unfortunately a small number of members and vendors that do not hold our same values.
We've decided to make this thread to highlight members that should not be dealt with and should be avoided at all cost.
The first person to be added to this list is the main reason for the creation. Hopefully we won't have to use this section very often.
Cole is one of the most trusting and generous members of our forum and he has been ripped off by one of our members, Matt Graziano, and there has been no attempts to fix the problem.
Please avoid Matt Graziano
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Post by paulkoop on Jun 9, 2015 17:22:25 GMT -5
Thats sad iv only ever seen good feedback on here
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Post by lloyd on Jun 9, 2015 19:59:47 GMT -5
People like this are actually bad for the sake of being bad. If they were decent they'd get more in the long run, not to mention the good will they're missing out on.
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Post by roraima on Jun 10, 2015 12:56:52 GMT -5
I totally agree with others here about how unfortunate this is, but I also know how many incredibly generous people there are here too. It's all the more reason to be diligent in routing out and exposing the greedy liars, and scam artists.
I have profound respect for Cole, he's an amazing grower and truly one of the nicest, most generous people around. We should be very thankful to have access to Cole's plants/sales here on the OCPS.
That said I believe Rick (aka. M-A-Zingcarnivores aka. Prairie Exotic Seeds) is a complete scam artist who happened ironically to get scammed himself by mattgraz. Many of us know M-A-Zingcarnivores showed up here out of the blue awhile back. He wanted to acquire Cephalotus plants (mostly likely so he could just flip them for a profit to an inexperienced grower, which he is) in exchange for his wide selection of ancient, complete unviable, "CP" "seeds" none of which he grows or harvests himself. We gave M-A-Zingcarnivores many opportunities here on the OCPS to answer the myriad of questions about his business, intentions, and experience. Instead of replying to our thoughtful inquisitions he hid like a coward and reposted the same absurd "want ad" a few days later as if we were all too dumb to realize it was him again.
M-A-Zingcarnivores sells his junk on ebay and it looks like his reputation is finally starting to sour. One of the absolute worst things about him is that he obviously targets newer growers, and when t when someone actually leaves (-) feedback because the seed he sold them is complete junk he blames them for being inexperienced. Why people want to make they're money by consistently disappointing and ripping people off is just so sad to me.
Blacklist M-A-Zingcarnivores! now rebranded as Prairie Exotic Seeds!
My rant is over....
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Post by WillyCKH on Jun 10, 2015 13:48:17 GMT -5
I strongly support this thread. Many people like myself are new to CP and need to be warned about certain sources and scammers. I almost bought some seeds from M-A-Zingcarnivores on ebay a while ago.
I'm not sure if it is just me, but I want to complain about 'Rare Seeds' on Amazon. I bought from them were before I joined this community, the Drosera seeds, namely Aliciae, Venusta, and anglica have 0% germination. Not to mention that the seeds are over-priced and take forever to arrive. I think CP growers should watch out for this.
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Post by lloyd on Jun 10, 2015 15:26:22 GMT -5
We've debated about Rare Exotic Seeds before. A number of people here think their seeds are generally not viable. I've occasionally had success with RES. Still I sometimes refer to RES as Really Erratic Seeds. I think if you buy common seeds that don't lose viability with age that RES is Okay. I don't think they are scammers. I've bought tons of seeds from all over with LOTS of failures, likely for many reasons.
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Post by bonfield on Nov 18, 2015 19:08:04 GMT -5
Before you make any sort of transaction with Zak Van Schaik "eithan0693" aka "C&E Plants" or Deanna Haggith "deejean" aka "Deanna Jean Ring" of Peterborough, Ontario, I suggest you PM me. Caveat emptor.
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Post by Dennis Z on Jan 17, 2016 22:45:17 GMT -5
I thought I'd just quickly share a very bad experience I had from a "customer". Hopefully it'll make sellers a bit more weary on who they're dealing with and know when to stop a sale.
Not too long ago, I received a text from a person, wanting to buy plants you can't commonly find at a nursery and I was happy to send him a list to help his collection on. He calls and tells me he wants everything, which is a LOT of plants and a decent amount of money. Being the person I am, I put my trust in him and went ahead with his request. He also wanted everything potted.... We agreed for a pick-up date and I had a friend come over and spend a few hours potting everything, labelling, sorting, and packing. Time comes when he is supposed to pick-up, everything was ready along with a nice line of bonuses. Deep down, I didn't think he was going to come. Well if you guessed it already, it was a no show. It took me a long time of repeated texts and a few calls to get the story, in which he tells me the weather didn't allow for him to come. Fine.
After painstakingly trying to communicate with him for another pickup time, I get absolutely no texts until I finally mention that I would be voiding the deal as I was very busy and tired of trying to get him to communicate. Some plants are sensitive and having them in a plastic bag in a box in the hallway wasn't doing them any justice. Finally we schedule another time, in which I cancelled some of my plans to accommodate the pick-up.
2nd time around, it's a no show again. Same process, the person is suddenly silent and only texted "I'll let you know" after the agreed time. After waiting for hours, I basically realized he is not coming. I once again, resume trying to contact him and I get no communication for a long period of time. Finally he tells me he was rear-ended and his phone and laptop were smashed. Fishy, but fine. He suggested that he will make a deposit by the next day so I can realize he's serious and that he'll definitely pick up the plants on sunday.
Next day. No deposit. No response. Plants are still all packed up and probably sulking. I'm still extremely busy. I go ahead and tell the guy I don't think he's serious and his mother texts me, reluctant on stopping the sale. I really didn't really care about the money, since this whole process has been very stressful on me and his mother is insisting that he isn't feeling well and that she wants me to call her banker or lawyer to get a deposit, also mentioning she wasn't computer savy enough to make a paypal. At this point, I just straight on told them, it wasn't going to work and for them not to try and contact or convince me otherwise.
This whole process lagged on for an entire week or so after the agreed date. I hope some of our popular vendors here will be more cautious when approached with huge requests with an addition of terrible communication. Sellers here should receive the same treatment as buyers, good communication and no "chasing down" for payment. I've done many local trades and sales, all of which were fast and both parties were very happy. Even if the buyer was serious in this case, he had terrible etiquette throughout the entire process and it just couldn't work with me. I will not be mentioning his name or personal information as there is always room for a person to improve without losing their reputation. I ended up giving some of my plants away for free to a friend since I potted all the divisions up, and they took too much grow space.
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Post by lloyd on Jan 17, 2016 23:39:48 GMT -5
Even people who love plants can be weird or dysfunctional. (No comments, please.)
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Post by Maiden on Jan 18, 2016 1:15:58 GMT -5
Pretty sad story Thats why i unpot n pack only when i got the money. In fact, i never touch any of my plants before i see the money. I only accept pickups for ppl i know or trust. I got cheated a couple times, and i learned a lot from that, like you i guess. Sorry for your experience bro :-(
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Post by H2O on Jan 18, 2016 2:46:20 GMT -5
This is sad to hear but thank you for sharing to give warning to others.
I typically go along the lines of Maiden. The most I do it move plants to the other side of a tray. If the buyer stops replying or doesn't pay within the week I just sell them to someone else. I'm pretty laid back and don't take offence if someone backs out, sometime life gets in the way and rather then force people to make stupid excuses I just let it slide.
I hope this situation doesn't stop you from selling in the future, you have some awesome stuff and I'm sure the vast majority of members would be awesome to sell too.
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Post by Dennis Z on Jan 18, 2016 14:56:01 GMT -5
Thanks for the advice guys. I'll definitely learn from this.
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Post by shelbykid on Jan 30, 2016 22:26:01 GMT -5
Late December I purchased 10 Sarrecenia Purpea seeds from Amazon.ca from the vendor nikstoreinus. The bane of Amazon is that it does not indicate where products are shipped before purchase. After some naivety on my part in trusting an Amazon - vetted vendor, I was distressed to find in my tracking number was from China
My bad expectations were met with seeds that are most definitely not Sarcs.
I have filed a case with Amazon, but as I am sure has been reiterated many times here, avoid anything from China and nikstoreinus on Amazon.
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Post by RuBisCO on May 12, 2016 22:58:05 GMT -5
I have been generally quite underwhelmed by my drosera orders from RES. Had germination of maybe 5 species of the 20 or so that I have purchased. Of those there was a very low germination rate within the species. Have nep seeds still going but really lots of real estate taken up under the lights for what I doubt will be a productive process. I have some Sarr seeds from different eBay sellers that I am hopeful for.
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