I wasn't sure where to put this, I hope it's in the right place.
I'm going to start off by saying that this is not intended to start any kind of argument on the board. I'm just a big believer in letting others know when I've had good or bad experiences with buying orchids, not only to spare others what I've gone through, but also so all sellers out there know that their orchid business is like any other and they need to treat their customers kindly, be as transparent as possible, and sell quality products.
To that end I wanted everyone to know about a horrible exchange I just had with the eBay seller
southerstarorchids.
I bought a Phal stuartiana from them for $34.95 which I thought was an alright price, and forgot to look at the shipping until it was time to pay. Turns out the shipping was $23.95, which is really very high for one plant that's being shipped within the US. I asked the seller why the shipping was so high and they didn't give me a straight answer. And even though they then lowered their shipping price (by $5) for the remaining orchids, they didn't give me any sort of refund because I had already paid. I thought "oh well, for that price I'm sure it will at least come quickly and be packaged well". I couldn't have been more WRONG.
I bought it on April 8th, and it arrived on April 16th. Not only did they send it the SLOWEST and CHEAPEST way possible (there's no way it cost them anywhere near $23.95), it was delivered on a Tuesday, meaning that over the weekend it just sat somewhere.
When I opened it the pot was completely empty because they hadn't taken the care to secure the media into the pot and the plant wasn't wrapped in any way. Meaning that the media was just floating around the box and the plant was knocking around every which way and exposed to the cold. They used some kind of torn up pieces of foam for the filling but it wasn't enough to fill the box so it was essentially useless. Because it was basically a bare root phal in a box for over a week in the cold, the roots were all shriveled and some completely dessicated. I soaked it in water for an hour and they didn't plump up. I'm genuinely worried about it, I have no idea if it will survive this. Here is a picture of what the roots looked like.
One more thing, in the picture of their eBay posting they have a "representative" plant that has mottled leaves and the one I got is not mottled. It says it's not the exact plant, but I feel that if the picture is mottled and the ones they're selling are not, it should say this in the listing.
Needless to say I wrote the seller and told them my concerns, but instead of trying to make things right they basically blamed it on the post office (I've gotten tons of plants from other sellers that weren't in this condition) and whined about eBay charges and how they can't write EVERYTHING in the description (even though other sellers seem to have normal shipping charges and accurate descriptions).
When I wrote back pointing out some things that didn't make sense, they wrote me another email telling me: "Obviously you know little or nothing about this business and about growing orchids." and "We will no long be able to do business with you." (as if I would ever buy something from them again).
Anyway I hope this helps someone before making a decision to buy a plant from this seller at some point.
Have a great day.
Awful eBay seller
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