has anyone bought from Tawian/Thai Ebay dealers?

[lepanthes89]

Hi;
I keep seeing these lots from Taiwan and Thailand based orchid dealers on Ebay,and I'm tempted!
Things like Nervillias,Zeuxine,Spiranthes etc. that are almost impossible to find in the US.
They claim its no problem to ship to US;has any OB member have any experience with these folks?
I'd be interested to hear your stories.
Spiro

[Jerry Delaney]

I have not purchased anything from these dealers so I can't comment of quality of plants. I will give you a quick heads up that nearly all of these transactions are illegal!!! In order to legally import from any foreign country (with an exception or two), you MUST possess an import permit. I personally know of 2 orchid hobbyist that had shipments from Thailand confiscated. Both received letters from APHIS stating while no action would be taken for the confiscated shipment, any further shipments to them without proper permits would result in a minimum of a $1,000 fine for each occurrence and that would include past violations. It can also result in a prison sentence. An import permit is not difficult to obtain and is free of charge. Simply go to the USDA web site and submit online the proper ppq form.

[lambelkip]

You should also read the item description carefully. I just purchased an orchid on ebay that said it was in Georgia, and recieved notification that it shipped - from China. It's against ebay policy to mis-represent the item location, but some sellers will still do it. I'm waiting to see if my plant makes it through customs. If I had read the description thoroughly, i would have skipped buying the plant.

an important note is that even if you have an import permit, the seller must also provide CITES and Phytosanitary certificates, or your plants may be confiscated. Many of the plants you mentioned are wild collected plants, and certificates are not available for them.

[camille1585]

Ebay UK is now flooded with planted from Thailand. It's nearly impossible to find the plants from EU in the middle of everything.
I have been very tempted to get some plants because they are so cheap, but I don't want to encourage the selling of orchids illegally (no papers of any sort). The other thing that bothers me is the shipping time. Most of those Thai sellers have shipping that takes 2-3 WEEKS. What state are the plants in after that?? And they also say that there are some countries they don't ship to (like USA and Germany for example) because many plants never arrive at their final destination.

[jsauger]

Thanks for posting this Spiro, I've been looking at some plants on eBay myself but have not yet purchased for these very reasons.

What about buying flasks from Asia? I assume I still need the import and Phytosanitary permits, but what about the CITIES certificate?

Also, what about importing from Hawaii? The info I have found leads me to believe they treat import from Hawaii to the contiguous 48 less like regular mail and more like a foreign import. Am I correct in this assumption?

[rastafouni]

Here my experience : I sent plants from Thailand to Europe for Christmas to my familly. In what states were the plants ? I sent from Bangkok to La-chaux-de-fonds in 3 days with EMS and (it was winter in Europe) the plants even didn't lost a single flower. Make sure the dealer use an express way of delivery.
The first thing that they looked at the Bangkok CITES's office was to make sure that the plants didn't come from the nature. Don't except to get a CITES certificate in any country in the world with wild plants : But the Thai dealers know that and I don't think they sell plants from the wild, hudge amount of orchids are availble now from farms and all the orchids that Ive seen for export were ok. Hybris are, of course, ok too.
But I don't mean that you should buy with ebay as I don't know those dealers and as you don't know how are the plants.

Good luck !

[lambelkip]

camille, scroll down to preferences on the side of the ebay window, and under location select "UK only" or select "choose more", then "European Union". there will still be a few that list the wrong location, like the one I purchased, but it will filter out most of the foreign ones.

[camille1585]

Originally Posted by lambelkip

camille, scroll down to preferences on the side of the ebay window, and under location select "UK only" or select "choose more", then "European Union". there will still be a few that list the wrong location, like the one I purchased, but it will filter out most of the foreign ones.

Thanks for the tip! That really helped, the list went from 609 down to 239. That's much more manageable! I don't shop of Ebay much, so don't know all of these little tricks.
Except some people cheat. One plant has iten location listed as UK. Then below in the plant description the seller writes that it is shipped from Thailand.

[rogerman]

Originally Posted by jsauger

What about buying flasks from Asia? I assume I still need the import and Phytosanitary permits, but what about the CITIES certificate?

If you are wanting flasks from here.....Please PM me and i'll tell you where to get them from legally. They are still cheaper than what you'd get in the states etc and have all the papers required.

[phearamedusa]

Being in Canada, I've inquired with a lot of eBay sellers about CITES, photosanity and various other permits. I've got some pretty amusing responses... eg. I'm one man band and don't have time to get those, had no problems sending, takes at least three weeks. Others just say that they don't ship to Canada because the cost is so very expensive for the required paperwork. I think I found 2 or 3 sellers willing to ship here with the necessary paperwork at a fairly reasonable cost(less then $100).

Unfortunately, Canada doesn't seem to have a lot of eBay orchid sellers, last time I did search I got lots of sellers in Asia and Thailand. I did make a purchase from a seller on west coast, but he's since disappeared/no longer has orchids. They were well packed and came in in good condition, bareroot. I'd buy from him again if I could.