Royal Orchid Club (Bill) - Just the Facts

[seabead22]

I wanted to make a post about my recent experience with Royal Orchid Club. I have read some of the other posts about this vendor and only want to give you the facts here so there is an objective review of this vendor for people to make their own judgment upon.

Order placed on June 6 for:
1 x SV59 Orchid Plant Vanda Memo Som Jit X Tessellata BS
1 x C346 Orchid Plant Blc Keowee X Schom Splendida BS
1 x X425 Orchid Plant-S Den Sun Chuli ()
1 x OC112 Orchid Plant-S Onc Noel Schamrock - Josephine X Noorah
1 x X543 Orchid Plant Den Nopporn Starbright BLOOMING SIZE

I took advantage of 35% off discount as well as a free plant offer. My total for shipping was $25.35 and I live in the same state as the vendor.

I received word from the vendor on June 20th that the order had shipped which followed their shipping cycle. The order arrived on June 23rd in a brown box. Each plant was wrapped in paper and there was shredded newspaper padding in the box as well. The box did not weigh more than 3 pounds.

The S-small plants were indeed small, just out of flask it appeared. The blooming size plants appeared to be of sufficient size for this, but were not of established size. One plant arrived in bud and the Vanda in bloom (more on that below).

All roots looked to be in a condition I expected. Most were about 80% brown, 20% viable but this is about the same as I get out of Home Depot and Lowes. I soaked the plants in water and sugar for 24 hours before potting and all appear to be doing fine now.

I did have 2 issues with the order.

First issue was with the Vanda which arrived in bloom and looks nothing like the advertised image. I have attached an image is the product advertisement and the second image is what I received. I sent an email stating the difference with images attached and received this response the next day: "Regarding your SV59; this plant is a Hybrid. The blooms of a hybrid plant are always different, similar but different. If you are looking for specific colors please look at our Mericlone plants which is specified in the description of the plant."

The second issue was with the blooming size Den Nopporn Starbright which arrived diseased. The plant had lost all but one leaf in shipping and these leaves had horrible black spotting. I have attached an image of this. I also emailed about this and the response was "I am very sorry to see that your plant X543 didn’t do so well while in transit. We will prepare a replacement to be sent to you in our current shipping cycle, and you should receive it on or about July 15th. We will send you a message once your replacement is on the way to you."

On July 11 I received an email stating that my replacement plant had been shipped on or before July 15th. My plant did not arrive by the 15th and so I sent an email asking about this. The response was "Our monitoring tracking system shows your order was delayed for a couple of days. The estimated delivery date for your order to arrive will be on or about July20th or 21st. Please Do not worry, our plants are well prepared and can be in the box for up to 2 weeks without any problems. Make sure you provide immediate attention to the plants as soon as you receive them, and please send us a message once you have received your package."

I was going to be out of town during this new arrival date so I emailed requesting a tracking number so I could monitor the situation. I was provided with the tracking number and discovered that Electronic Shipping Info Received, July 08, 2011 and Acceptance, July 18, 2011, 5:05 pm, MIAMI, FL 33152 which indicates the order had been held for 10 days by the vendor. The replacement plant did arrive a few days later on July 21.

A roomate was able to bring it inside and I opened the package on July 25th once I was back in town. Once again this plant had lost all its leaves and had horrible black spotting. I emailed again with images on July 25th and received no response. On July 31 I sent a follow-up email and stated that I needed to hear back or I would be opening a Paypal claim since the plants had arrived severely diseased and are now dead.

I received a response this morning from them stating "I am very sorry we can not replace this plant for you anymore. I am refunding the amount you paid for this plant back to your paypal account."

While I certainly have an opinion about my transaction I invite you to read about it and form your own opinion of this vendor.

[Daethen]

I have had my own experience with this vendor and have already formed an opinion of him. My mother taught me that if I couldn't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Enough said.

[RJSquirrel]

Ive seen too many of these post about Royal Orchid and Ill say your post was about standard. His pictures look awful damn good(if they are even his).. Kind of like going to Burger King and telling em you want a hamburger just like the one on the billboard..You are beating a

[golforchid]

For someone with whom no one wishes to do business, this guy certainly gets a lot of airtime.

[flhiker]

He has attractive prices. like those dollar store's. I keep telling myself "IF it seems to good to be true, well it probably is".

[RJSquirrel]

you cant warn people enough they dont listen and do what they want to do anyway

[cday2inflorida]

I just don't understand why people don't do their do diligence and Google a vendor before purchase. It is there for all to see....

[Wrebbitrocks]

they USED to be good. my first orchid was from them when they sold spiking plants for $4.50 and shipping 9.50 they used to show up healthy and the shipping schedules weren't as whack as they are now. they arrived in maybe 3-5 days like normal. mind you this was maybe 6 years ago but i still rememeber being very happy when the plants bloomed even for a newbie. when i ordered some seedlings they were big also, not the flask size some people have recieved. i rememeber reading somewhere that their greenhouse or something was destroyed by hurricane katrina and that the plants were cooked by the sun. so now they ship from like thailand or something. that being said, perhaps they were once a good company but now theyre too corporate to even care for the customer over their own convenience. the lady's name that replies to the emails is miriam and his name is william van vliet.