Just won this on ebay!!!

[Marty]

I'm one of those that tends to take few single instances with a grain of salt...I'm not just saying that because Machiela Orchids is one of our sponsors, but if you look at at the feedback on ebay, he's got 2575 feedbacks, is a power seller with 99.6% positive feedback. These aren't bad numbers. If there really was that many unhappy customers, I'd expect the feedback to reflect this. I'd also expect people that do complain to leave the feedback for him...unless they complain on forums without actually buying anything from him. Again, I can't say, 'cause I don't know the specifics.

as a side note, I do sell quite a bit online and every now and then I do get a customer that no matter how hard I try, I can never satisfy. I'm not saying that Machiela is a saint (I'm personally not familiar with the issues ppl had with him) Online reputation is extremely important and the few instances that I experienced myself, I virtually gave away the products to make my customers happy, yet I still got a slap in the face later for doing so and zero appreciation. After a while, you tend to ignore few 'un happy' customers and simply go on doing what you're doing. In other cases, people paid full price and were 110% satisfied and left me great feedback.

Just my 2 cents

[Oscarman]

Very cool plant Sue - congratulations. That was a steal!

[Ross]

You are right (IMO) Marty, but you aren't e-bay. Judging from this quality of this board, you are a class act. While there are also "class acts" selling on e-bay, there are lots of hobbyists, make-a-quick-buck artists and the like there as well. I find businesses with some sort of store-front presence (web included) more attractive to me. Sorry to have diverted this thread in the first place. It wasn't fair for me to do this and I appologize to Susanne.

[cb977]

No apologies needed among friends, Ross

[Marty]

Ross by no means am I saying that you'll always get a great buy on Ebay. Personally, I don't pay attention to few negative opinions when a buyer has high positive feedback... in fact I sometimes buy stuff from ppl at much lower feedback levels, but that's typically when I can't find the product elsewhere (I am known to be a very impulsive buyer) Caveat emptor ! When buying on ebay especially, I tend to accept the risk that I can get screwed out of my money, hehe... My wife tends to be very cautious with online deals... I always tell her, if you can't handle it, buy retail locally as for me... I just ordered one of those electric toothbrushes and bunch of floss... at 50% off local retail... Go dentaldepot.com

[Ross]

[mnh3281]

I've purchased from this vendor before (bostonorchids) and have been thrilled with my orchids. He has wonderful masdevallias and paphs! Great buy!!

[Tony]

After their recent attempt to sell a falsely labeled plant, and reading about prior photo theft and other shady practices, I'm going to steer clear of Machiela's.

[Oscarman]

We sure can get some good feedback here at the OB.

Good or bad, that's what great about being human....personal choice!

[Mahon]

Tony,

The mislabeled plant has not been proven not to be the actual cultivar. The plant was not bought from Antec by Machiela himself, but from another grower. The picture of the flower is representative of a Paph. roebelenii, not the actual flower of the plant for sale. I haven't heard anything on photo theft from Machiela, as he usually posts pictures of the actual plant for sale. I think the whole auction was a bunch of hype, but who am I to say... I just bought that Paph. phillipinense var. roebelenii 'Candor Streamers' (the "scam" plant )... I am somewhat hoping it's not 'Candor Streamers', as I don't care for that shape for the species... ttyl, (are you on chat?)

-Pat