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Another amazing new plant...

My N. hamata Katopassa came in today. Looks great, huh ?

Here's what I saw upon opening the bag.
<a href="http://s1109.photobucket.com/albums/h434/Nepenthes138/?action=view&current=deadhamata014.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/h434/Nepenthes138/deadhamata014.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

And, upon further inspection....
<a href="http://s1109.photobucket.com/albums/h434/Nepenthes138/?action=view&current=deadhamata015.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/h434/Nepenthes138/deadhamata015.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://s1109.photobucket.com/albums/h434/Nepenthes138/?action=view&current=deadhamata016.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/h434/Nepenthes138/deadhamata016.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
<a href="http://s1109.photobucket.com/albums/h434/Nepenthes138/?action=view&current=deadhamata017.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1109.photobucket.com/albums/h434/Nepenthes138/deadhamata017.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

This in conjunction with the previous order I received assures that I will NEVER buy plants from this bozo ever again.
 
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Really sorry about your plant. And a hamata too :(
 
:0o:

Maybe if you contact him and explain what has happened, he can refund your money and/or send you a new plant? Kinda does look a bit on the tiny side though... IMO he should really grow the plants out to a much larger and healthier state before shipping them across the globe.
 
I don 't want a new plant. I don't ANY more of his plants.
 
He needs to get his crap together this season! I have been waiting on the Canadian group order for a month and a half! He is going to lose a lot of future business for sending out tiny plants, and sending them slowly...
 
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sry to see such a sad plant arrive to you :( sure doesnt make me regret canceling my order. Hope you can at least get your money back?
 
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Send him those pictures and he'll replace it 100%.
 
Aww that sucks. :(
Please make sure you're not giving any sort of review or a vendor... Positive or negative. Mentions of the vendor's name have been removed.
thx
Andrew
 
jeez sorry to hear about that. . . I guess thats the risk buying lil' plants out of TC. . . many of the plants I have gotten from him have had this "black syndrome". Luckily, it was only on the leaves.
 
  • #10
This wasn't a TC'ed plant, It was seed grown.
 
  • #11
First time order.
 
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  • #12
hm.
 
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  • #13
There was a shipment I got maybe two years ago that everything didn't look quite that gone, but I did hear it suffered in transit and I'm guessing I had something like 75% losses. I had a Heliamphora parva that looked pretty awful, but ended up surviving, but he sent a replacement anyway. I ended up having two parvas, one of which I got the chance to put up on the NASC auction here. The website guarantees that the plants will look good and will definitely survive, so in this case, I would email him and leave him to his good word to replace/refund or whatever is necessary. If you continue to make passive-aggressive threads like this, all you're doing is making yourself look bad, and not really bringing the issue up with him. While I would document if your plant looks bad (and if it looks good too - records are always a plus), I would suggest a more respectful tone to them.
 
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  • #14
Wow that's heart breaking! =( As with all misfortunes, just wait and something TRULY GREAT is going to come your way! =D
 
  • #15
also agree with Thez, if the person you're mentioning is the same one i am thinking of. He had notified me of upcoming complications regarding this--plants were held longer than desired in customs for no apparent reason. told me to send photos of bad plants and they would be replaced by the end of this month. pretty reasonable to me...hang in there cthulhu, you'll get a decent replacement from him. this is the first time i ever received plants like this also (N. campanulata)---yeah, shattered heliamphora pitchers in the past, but that's kinda expected due to their fragile nature.
 
  • #16
Agree with Thez, Amp & C12. As I commented in the other thread in the Nep area, the plants are going to be small - that's to be expected (& I believe he will share the sizes upon request). As with any international shipments, the time it takes to get from one point to another can vary greatly as can the conditions along the way. Given those variables, some plants in poor condition are inevitable. However, from what I've seen on all of the boards is that this seller stands behind his plants.

Heck, when I'm dealing with growers in Central & South America, I don't think I've gotten a package in less than 2 weeks & 3 is more the norm. Since the seeds I receive degrade quickly over time, I've yet to get rare utric seed that germinates. Aaargh.
 
  • #17
It should be standard protocol to first give the merchant an opportunity to address issues of dead or damaged plants before issuing complaints on a public forum. That only seems right to me. That doesn't mean I don't understand or appreciate your frustration, but there is a right way to deal with a problem, and a less right way. Its not that the merchant supplied crappy material, the problem undoubtedly lies in the (mis)handling of plants in transit.
 
  • #18
I find this thread bothersome and I would like to address some matters here.

First off, I am the US Distributor for the source of this plant. The owner of the forums can vouch for me if you wish to question the validity of this.


I will be the first to admit that there were problems with this most recent shipment, however the attitude being taken here is, quite honestly, childish and immature. And the wrath is being directed at entirely the wrong person.

So let me set some things straight.

Typically, these shipment leave their point of origin shipped via UPS International Express on a Monday, are processed through UPS and delivered to USDA where they are inspected and released and then FedEx'd to me and arrive either Thursday or Friday. I package them over the weekend and then ship them out to individuals on the following Monday. This is the usual time frame.

This past shipment however was fraught with problems beyond the control of myself or the vendor of these plants. The main shipment was sent out from the point of origin on May 21st. The shipment arrived in the US on May 22nd and was then held by UPS for a full week with no explanation. After this, the shipment was delayed a day in its delivery to USDA where it was held for an additional three days, again with no explanation. The shipment finally left USDA on Friday, June 1st and the vendor had the palnts sent from USDA by FedEx PriorityOvernight with Saturday Delivery to ensure they arrived with me with all possible haste. I packaged everything up and delivered all the orders to the post office on Monday, June 4th.

The above information should not be new to someone who ordered directly from the vendor because I know for a fact that he sent out the following email to every customer:

Dear …,

I think you should have received your plants by now.

Plants were delayed both in US customs and at US dept of agriculture and after I had a few reports of dead plants, I feel they were not treated too nice as well.

As you know, I fully guarantee for healthy arrival of plants I ship to the USA and 100% stand behind this promise.

In case any plant you received was not in good health, please send me a picture and I will either refund or reship with the next shipment due in late June.

I'm very sorry, but both US agencies did not give a reason for delaying and in the end released the plants without any objection.

I guess, these things just happen but luckily this was the first significant delay I had in the last few years. Usually the import procedure runs very smooth.

So all I can do is to fix the problem by reshipping plants that were affected.

Honestly, it's sad to see a picture of a plant completely black, that was recently growing nicely here and was packed perfectly healthy with lots of care. It's also frustrationg to pay a lot of money for express shipments of plants that suffer from sheer neglect later during the inspection they have to go through...

All the best

As you can see, the vendor was fully aware of the poor shape these plants may be in and explicitly said that he would replace plants lost due to the delay. I have known many others that would not be willing to refund/replace items because they claim they cannot be held accountable for problems caused by forces outside of their control. But this vendor is a stand-up individual and he wants to make it right. He is doing a good thing and should not be hauled over the coals.




Now, I have reason to believe that the OP has not been fully honest about matters regarding this plant.

You see, I made all the USPS labels using Click'N Ship so I am easily able to go into my records and see that there were only three orders that were delivered to the state of Massachusetts, none of these shipments was to Boston, however. Click'N Ship also provides tracking for free which allows me to say with 100% certainty that those three packages were delivered to their destinations on the 6th and 7th of June. I also have the packing lists for all the orders and none of the Massachusetts orders contained this plant. In point of fact, there were only two of these plants in the entire shipment and they both went to California (and that package was delivered at 11:45am on June 6th).

All of these factors taken together indicates to me that in all likelihood the OP did not order this plant directly from the vendor but instead had someone else order it for him. Based on the OP not receiving the plant until the 13th it is also obvious that the "proxy" took an additional five days to ship the plant out. I also think it quite likely that this "proxy" did not bother to inform the OP of the email that was sent out by the vendor so the OP was totally clueless as to the delays that had occurred and why it was that the plant was in poor condition. It does not take a genius to recognize that the additional five-day delay incurred by the "proxy" on top of the two-week delay simply pushed a weak plant over the edge. It is also a rather short step to see that the most likely reason the OP is not willing to contact the vendor is because the vendor will have no record of selling this plant to the OP.

So, taking all of this into consideration, as has been brought up by numerous people, this passive-aggressive, highly public bash-fest is, quite simply put, completely uncalled for and wholly inappropriate.



To the OP, I recognize that you are upset about the loss of the plant. I would suggest that you contact your proxy and have him report to the vendor the loss of this plant. Or perhaps you yourself could try contact the vendor and explain the situation to him and see what he says. I seriously doubt that he will be evil or antagonistic about it. I honestly do not know what he will say if the situation is as I have speculated but you never know until you try. And it is the more adult way to handle the situation to be perfectly honest.
 
  • #19
Hello all,

as I'm the only one offering this plant, I think it's obvious that I'm the vendor, so I do not wish to make a secret out of this.
Even more as I know what were the problems during shipment which were absolutely not in my hands at all.
As my distributer already pointed out, there were two delays during the last US shipment:

  • The first happened at UPS but to be precise from my understanding was not caused by UPS. They have to wait for a formal "Go!" by US customs before they are allowed to continue carrying a shipment. This "Go!" took several days to come. By law, US customs have all time in the world to inspect, or just hold and there is NOTHING in the world either the shipper or the carrier can do!
  • A second but shorter delay happened at USDA.

Both agencies did not give any reason for delaying.

I did not have any significant delay within years, so this is a rare occurrence, which is quite annoying nonetheless.
The last shipment to the USA I had that was messed up to a comparable state was back in 2002 - about 10 years ago. It had cost me several sleepless nights and I'll never forget this one either.

As has already been pointed out I guarantee for healthy arrival for shipments to the USA.
I'm not stupid and am in the business for more than 20 years. The reason I can do so without going bankrupt is simple: Most plants arrive in good shape and I only have to replace a very small number.
Of cause, there are smaller problems from time to time, such as a single dead plant or a parcel to a customer that gets fried on the doorstep in the sun (which I'm still covering under my guarantee!!!) but nothing comparable to this huge issue that had happened here.
However realistically, one messed up import issue every 10 years is not so bad, I feel.

Saying that I hope that nothing has changed at US customs. If these transit times were becoming the norm, I certainly would stop shipping to the USA very quickly, but I do not have any indication to that. Right now I count the whole as a matter of bad luck. The problem was not caused by me, but I'm the one who has to fix it and will fix it, it's that easy!

However I can only fix issues, I'm aware of. No dead N. hamata Katopasa was reported to me, so how can I know I have to replace?
I sent out an alert to ALL customers in this shipment, explaining the problem, and assuring them that I would reship any damaged plant that was reported to me. Of cause I meant reported to me via an eMail and not via this forum....!

In addition, I find the way Cthulu138 presents the whole here very disturbing. I treat my customers fair and respectful - always! If there is a problem, I'll fix it and I have a guarantee that covers ALL shipping issues, no matter if they are my fault or not. What else could I do? I'd be glad to be treated a little respectful and fair as well. Calling somebody a "Bozo" in a public forum, Is not what I'd call a respectful tone.

All the best

Andreas
 
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