Is Exotic Plant Company still in business?

[caffeine93]

Has anyone ordered from them since last autumn and received their order?

I've ordered a few times over the last year, last time in July, and it all arrived. However, my latest ordered was made on January 14th, so it's been 11 days now, no signs of it being shipped. Tried contacting Michael, the owner, no reply on mail so far.
Decided to sort the items by date on which they were added to their shop, seems like the last time some were added was in July, a bit strange.

 

[JayeL]

Hi

They are very much business. I placed and received my order at the end of 2022 (really great plants) and have since then been in touch with Mike on email. Have you got the correct email details?

Kind regards

JL

 

[JayeL]

They are very much business

Oops .... "very much in business"

 

[caffeine93]

Hi

They are very much business. I placed and received my order at the end of 2022 (really great plants) and have since then been in touch with Mike on email. Have you got the correct email details?

Kind regards

JL

Thanks for the reply I have his @yahoo address that I've previously communicated over half a year ago. Do you mind sending me the one that you have via PM?

 

[Mafate]

Hi, I talked with Michael yesterday on Messenger, so yes, they are still in business ;-)

 

[caffeine93]

Hi, I talked with Michael yesterday on Messenger, so yes, they are still in business ;-)

Interesting, I've made an order almost 2 weeks ago (January 14th), no information on it since then. Sent him an e-mail two days ago asking when does he plan to ship it and still no reply.

 

[TyroneGenade]

Caffeine93, emails gets lost. For some reason emails from my gmail account have a nasty habit of ending up in people's spam folders. I suggest you pass on your contact details to Mafate to pass on to Michael via messenger so he can contact you. I know Michael via the Cape Orchid Society and can't imagine him purposely ignoring anyone, let alone a client.

 

[caffeine93]

I've sent a reminder via e-mail and Michael has replied, he's out of country and will be shipping the orders in February. I'm perfectly fine waiting, I just wish there was some notice on the website to inform about the delayed timeframe, that's all.

Thanks for everyone who replied

 

[annica.jarvela]

Hi everyone,

As stated here earlier Michael Tibbs has his greenhouse(s) in the Netherlands. I received my first order at the end of last August, and the plants were gorgeous! I`ve already ordered more plants, but I asked him to send them first later in spring, to which he kindly agreed. He seems to be a very kind person. Let`s see how the weather progresses. They have heat packs but don`t want to risk them. Now February starts, and it can get really cold for a longer period if it wants to. It`s been very mild for now. It has both snowed a lot and rained even more.
E-mails can sometimes end in the litter box as mine did once even though I continued the same chain.

 

[Hegel74]

Hello I placed an order EPCCOM1343 for € 302,55, many Paphiopedilum. I contacted Mr. Tibbs through mail 3 times, no answer, I use the contact form in his site 2 times, no answer. The week before my order I use contact him with site form and he answered, After paid he disappeared. I think he stole my money...please someone can help me thanks. Unfortunately he accepted only credit card no PayPal so no way I can have my money back...

 

[caffeine93]

Hello I placed an order EPCCOM1343 for € 302,55, many Paphiopedilum. I contacted Mr. Tibbs through mail 3 times, no answer, I use the contact form in his site 2 times, no answer. The week before my order I use contact him with site form and he answered, After paid he disappeared. I think he stole my money...please someone can help me thanks. Unfortunately he accepted only credit card no PayPal so no way I can have my money back...

Well, now it seems to be a continuing theme....I might as well share my experience for the order I mentioned above.

Basically, I paid for the plants and they were shipped with like a month of delay, apparently due to cold weather, which I'm fine with, but still it would make sense to inform the customer about the shipping delay.

However, of the 5 plants I ordered:
- Paph. armeniacum was missing from the order (and on the invoice paper it was simply written "sorry, sold out" next to it)
- 2x Paph. Magic Lantern were heavily infested with mealybugs
- Paph. malipoense had a few large mealybugs on itself as well
- Angraecum was fine

So I sent the images of the plants to Michael as well as asked will I be refunded for the missing Paph. armeniacum. His reply was pretty much along the lines of "yeah, sorry, we try our best to keep the greenhouse clean but it can happen" regarding the mealybugs and also offered to either send Paph. armeniacum when it's back in stock (no date on when that would be provided) or refund me. I said I wanted the refund to which he replied, the next day, that he has executed the refund "but might have done it twice". I received no email from the shop or the payment processor so I found that strange to begin with, but still waited for 9 days....nothing, no refund on my card....I sent an email asking him if he can check with his payment processor....no reply. 2 weeks passed at this point and I send another email asking is he has checked with the payment processor why the refund was not processed, I also offered to accept a PayPal refund if he's having issues with his payment processor....again, no reply. 2 more weeks pass, no reply.

At this point it has been a month since he said he "issued the refund", I was steaming with anger so I wrote a final email demanding that he send me payment processor's name as well as transaction reference number so I can check the refund status myself with the payment processing company. I also said if he doesn't send it I'm both starting a fraudulent charge dispute with my bank as well as reporting it as online shopping fraud to the police....interestingly, it took him literally 5 minutes to respond to this after 3 weeks of silence. He basically said that he has "cancelled the old refund" (if you understand how payment processors work, this isn't possible if the transaction was actually executed properly, but whatever) and "issued a new refund just that morning"...still no refund confirmation from payment processor or the shop's email so I didn't reply anything. Finally, the day afterwards, I receive an official looking mail from the shop's address marking Paph. armeniacum as "refunded" and 2 days later the money appears on my account.

I have all email communication documented in case moderators want to verify the authenticity of my experience, however I would prefer not to share messages publicly since I don't believe it's a polite thing to do (although, neither is his apparent ignoring of messages for weeks on end, but I digress....).

I used to love ordering from this shop and have received great looking plants before, but after this experience, which is the worst one I've had in 10+ years of shopping online, I can not, in good faith, recommend this shop to anyone anymore.

 

[annica.jarvela]

Mr Tibbs has been very busy, as far as I know. He was selling plants at the Dresden Orchid Show, which lasted four days, plus thinking at all the work before and after, regarding that event. He was asking me, if I'm coming, because he would have bought all my plants with him to Dresden. As I already told here before, I ordered more plants in November, but asked if he can send them first in Spring, which he agreed. He has set my plants aside, and I have kept adding plants couple of times, when I have asked plants outside the official list. Those I haven't even paid yet. I'm quite convinced, that I will receive my plants later, when weather gets warmer. Now it has been much colder than usual.
So, Hegel, I would say, don't worry. (Atleast I hope I'm right)
Caffeine93, I am sorry to hear from your bad experience. In the Netherlands is another place I was worried to order, especially, when I read the rewiews. From five stars to -10 stars, as one said she would have given, if possible, and the explanations they gave. I took the risk anyway, and got my plants, which were great, but had to be strict with them. Let them know that I din't buy every explanation they gave, why it took some time to send my plants.

 

[Hegel74]

Hello guys, thanks for answering. This morning finally I received an email from Mr. Tibbs that says he will ship after Easter. I don't know if he reads this forum...I hope it's truth.
I forgot to say that generally I use only safe payment methods, but I talked with Mr. Tibbs two years ago and he convinced me, also the site inspirered confidence so I made an order and I had no problems, great communication and great plants so I was confidence in this other new order.

 

[MichaelTibbs]

Good day to you all. Michael here I do read all the messages everyday but never comment nor reply. I do not wish to get into conversations save as to say there are two sides to every story !
I appreciate all of you who have bought through my webshop with confidence
We are very busy right now but the winter weather has continued much longer than expected with current morning temperatures still too low for my confidence of safely shipping as well as the Easter holidays and I don’t want consignments getting caught up

I do my best to respond to everyone within 24 hours.

 

[southernbelle]

Hello I placed an order EPCCOM1343 for € 302,55, many Paphiopedilum. I contacted Mr. Tibbs through mail 3 times, no answer, I use the contact form in his site 2 times, no answer. The week before my order I use contact him with site form and he answered, After paid he disappeared. I think he stole my money...please someone can help me thanks. Unfortunately he accepted only credit card no PayPal so no way I can have my money back...

FYI, you can dispute a charge on a credit card with a legitimate reason. If indeed you don’t receive your order and we’re charged that is legitimate. But it sounds like, from this thread, that temps are an issue right now in shipping, so be patient.

 

[Guldal]

I can only say, that I've only had very fine experiences dealing with Exotic Plants and mr. Tibbs. As far as I understand he is on and off traveling outside Europe, which might explain some of the delay, that can occur temporarily.
From my viewpoint up here on more Northern latitudes, I can confirm, that it hasn't for a while been weather for shipping neither tropic, nor subtropic plants for that matter. We've had days with fairly good weather, but night temperatures below zero - couple of weeks ago we suddenly had snow.
On the topic of mealybugs: I can't think of any dealer, I've delt with, who hasn't sent the odd infested plant (maybe with the exception of Sam Tsui...his plants, sent barerooted, on the other hand, seem not generally to take to my growing regime).
And lastly, concerning payment by credit card: Belle is absolutely right. My bank has with no exception cancelled payment as per both Visa and Mastercard, when goods weren't delivered, or when a faulty amount had been withdrawn!
I, for one, will certainly also in the future with confidence deal with Exotic Plants and Michael Tibbs.
Best regards,
Jens, Copenhagen

 

[JayeL]

I, for one, will certainly also in the future with confidence deal with Exotic Plants and Michael Tibbs.
Best regards,
Jens, Copenhagen

Fully agree Jens

 

[annica.jarvela]

I also fully agree with Jens and JayeL!
And as Jens said, there can be always some odd plant with mealybugs, but mostly plants have nothing. That is why new plants should be on quarantine for atleast two weeks. And some other critters can be inside pots, but if you sink the pots for a hour or two, they will creep out or drown.
And as Jens said, that is one reason I don't really like to order orchids outside EU is because they have to be sent barerooted, so they may easily dry too much, or otherwise suffer.
What Jens said about Exotic Plant Company, and Mr Michael Tibbs I totally concur with everything he said.

 

[caffeine93]

I mean, there's a lot to unpack here:

1. To say that receiving disease-ridden plants from all vendors is an universal experience is, plan and simple, wrong. That is not to say I've not received plants with mealybugs and mites from other vendors (all of whom would, without a question, issue a coupon or refund for the value of the affected plant...as the customer has paid the declared amount for a *healthy* plant and expecting a hobby grower to play around with chemicals such as imidacloprid isn't a given, and if the plant is not extremely rare or valuable to me, I'll simply send it to compost graveyard. Not to mention that having sap-sucking insects around, even in a separate room, is a great way to introduce orchid viruses into your home/environment). Spider mites are extremely small and mealybugs hide between the leaves so in case of a lighter infestation, I'm aware that it can go unnoticed to the seller, however, when a plant is heavily infested with many of them actively walking around, you'll have a very hard time convincing me that whoever was packing the order didn't notice them and simply decided "who cares" and just shipped them as they are.

I will also say I've ordered, at this point, probably hundreds of plants from Schwerter, from multitude of orchid genera, none and I mean *none* were infested, so it's obviously possible to maintain proper greenhouse hygiene and avoid outbreaks. Same is true for orders made from the late Mr. Popow's shop, always impeccable.

2. Issues with "out-of-stock" are not how customer orders should be handled. Obviously, mistakes in inventory record keeping do happen, but when you notice that a plant is no longer in stock, you should inform the buyer *before* shipping the order. This is literally a standard way of doing things that I've encountered in every other (orchid and non-orchid related) shop I bought from. Especially so when you're charging 30+ € for shipping and it makes no sense for the customer to pay an additional 30+€ at a later time just to have the missing plant shipped, it's ludicrous. Added comedy bonus is that, even as I was made aware that the plant is no longer in stock, it continued to be displayed as "in-stock" on the website for the following weeks and might be even now as well. Not only that, but a literal one minute Google search shows that someone else who's had another issue with this shop also received the same reply about Paph. armeniacum going out of stock, and this was 7 months ago:

3. I'm fully aware of the credit card chargeback option being provided by the bank and, as explained above, this would have been my next step if escalated. But seriously, what kind of level of customer service are we talking about when you have to resort to such moves? If you went to a restaurant, got served two burnt dishes and were additionally charged for one of the dishes that was not even served, and then had to spend a few hours arguing with the restaurant management over the excess charge while having to threaten them with calling the police and a bank chargeback, would you consider that a great experience just because in the end they agreed to refund the excess charge? I certainly wouldn't.

Obviously, as with everything, personal experiences will vary, but as someone who both runs a small, non-orchid related, business and has also been online shopping, both orchid and non-orchid stuff, for some 10+ years now and in the ballpark of 500+ different kinds of purchases, I can without a doubt say that I've never had such a poor customer experience so far. Now, maybe I was extremely (un)lucky but I certainly won't be spending another cent at the Exotic Plant Company

 

[whitpaph]

Michael is a great guy…he stated that he is very busy. Message him…don’t email. I ordered plants some time ago and have not received them probably due to cold weather. The last I heard was that he ships to Kelly McCracken (High Desert Orchid) and then they go on to the purchaser. I think Kelly is very busy, as well. I think she has made some changes to her orchid business.

FYI, you can dispute a charge on a credit card with a legitimate reason. If indeed you don’t receive your order and we’re charged that is legitimate. But it sounds like, from this thread, that temps are an issue right now in shipping, so be patient.