Poor customer care from seed companies

[Jeanied]

And one of the plants that your wife would adore would be Pinks - best propagated by cuttings anyway!

[enrich100]

And one of the plants that your wife would adore would be Pinks - best propagated by cuttings anyway!

she does love pinks, she would be happy with one plant from a garden centre I have to admit its me that want to grow them from seed, I still love propagating from seed + I think it means more,
I think the 2 large electric propagators gives this away that I have a seed propagation problem as My garden is not really big enough to justify one. my friends and neighbours like it though as they get their tomato plants and chilli plants and bedding plants for free from all my left overs

[Hilary B]

If you got the e-mail acknowledgement of the credit/debit-card payment, then with normal systems it had gone through (just like in the supermarket when the receipt starts printing out). Can you check with the card issuer before cancelling, in case they are confusing your situation with some-one else's?

[enrich100]

If you got the e-mail acknowledgement of the credit/debit-card payment, then with normal systems it had gone through (just like in the supermarket when the receipt starts printing out). Can you check with the card issuer before cancelling, in case they are confusing your situation with some-one else's?

I thought that the e-mail acknowledgement would mean that the payment had been taken sadly thats not the case

The Final Chapter

Due to the fact that I could not source the same seeds elsewhere I decided I would give them the opportunity to prove they could supply a simple order
I emailed stating that I was unwilling to send my bank details via post but I would give the details over the phone if they could complete the order without any more fiascos and also sugested they didn't charge me P&P as a good will gesture.

day 14 I received a responce saying that they would be willing to take my detail over the phone and give me free post and packaging, I phoned customer care and was told they didn't know how to give me free P&P but said they could refund the P&P once the order had been processed, I gave my bank details and was told my bank details had been accepted however they could not confirm if the payment had been taken or not

day 18 checking my online bank statement I could see the money had not been taken out so I gave them a phone, as I thought it could be a issue with my card I offered a different payment however their system showed the order had not yet been processed but the order would be processed by the next day

day 20 Finally they took the payment from my account, I started thinking about planting the seeds think with in the next couple of days that my seeds would finally be on their way

day 23 I receive a email saying that the P&P has been refunded again thinking the seeds would be though the next couple of days

day 27 I receive a letter that the seeds are on the way and and a gesture of good will heres a £5 voucher

Today day 28 the seeds arrived, I never thought it would take 5 emails 3 phones calls and a month to supply 6 packets of seeds' at least they got the order right

The only question is will I use their service again
I think you can guess my answer

[smallblueplanet]

Lol! You were warned.

You gonna use the voucher - it can be used online I suppose?

[Alison]

I've checked that it was the company I thought and it was. Stopped using them by mail order a few years ago as I find them a faceless big boy who doesn't care about service. To be honest the seeds I'd had off them were OK but their small plant service was worst than terrible in that they were very late, broken stems and the wrong varieties and it took about 15 calls to get any kind of answer and even then, not one I was happy with. Suggest you use one of the other suppliers next time. There are a couple of better ones listed above.

[Jeanied]

I think the answer for us is quite simply

"avoid the seed company - established 1855 - because they have lost touch with the seed buying customers!!"

[Alison]

I do my mail order off Kings and this year they forgot one of the packs. I e-mailed them to complain and they were very apologetic and sent me the ones I was missing and 3 packs of herbs for free which I thought was very good. Yes, they should have got it right in the first place but all it took to sort was a single e-mail and 2 days later it was all sorted. I will be using them again next year.

[ginger ninger]

I used there free £5.00 voucher last week, I ordered Runner Beans & Broad Beans, they arrived this afternoon, I had to get back in touch with them (via the phone), to tell them that some of my Broad Beans had the dreaded Beetle holes in them, I can't really complain about them because they said they would, 1. Send me some new seed. 2. Refund me the cost of the P&P.

[nerdgas]

How very apt that the ad at the bottom of this thread is T&.........

I'm finding Mr F pretty good at the mo. They delivered some garlic with some damaged cloves. I emailed them to let them know and they sent me a replacement order FOC.

[OllieMartin]

Experience proves that out of 2 companies' products (A & B)

A - provides a product that never fails for its lifetime
B - provides a product that fails, but is fixed extremely quickly

90% of consumers will buy from company B. Faults happen, but customers stick with a company they can rely on to help them out when things go wrong.
I'm still waiting for my 3 Polka Raspberry canes from the same company, I've e-mailed, but have as-yet not received a reply.

[enrich100]

How very apt that the ad at the bottom of this thread is T&.........

I'm finding Mr F pretty good at the mo. They delivered some garlic with some damaged cloves. I emailed them to let them know and they sent me a replacement order FOC.

I sure most people have a good service from them if the process goes through properly.

What lets them down is when things go wrong and their system fails