I have contacted James over the course of 3 months looking for a refund due to his failure to deliver. He had not responded back to 4 emails. I called him at his private number which I found online through the Kansas Department of Agriculture. He basically told me to F-off that he's too busy to respond to people. he went on a rant that he has over 5,000 customers and he broke his toe. He went on to explain to me that as of the day that I called, he had 485 emails that day alone, and it's bothersome to answer emails when he could be in the greenhouse working.

The guy is rude, and is either a poor business man or a scammer. Either way I don't want to do business with him and want my money back.

Hmmm... even if he did have 1,000 trees which just doesn't look like that in his pictures, But let's say 1,000 trees. According to James he has 5,000 customers. Assuming each customer only bought 1 tree (which I paid for 3), the math comes to 4,000 customers being screwed.

Let's just say $7 a tree is all profit, that's $7,000. Take a guess at his infrastructure cost -- material to build the greenhouses, pots, proper soil, electricity, permits, and mortgage or rent??? What about his living expenses such as food, utilities, car, etc.?!?

If you think you're getting your trees, and I really hope you do, I think you need to consider waiting for some time and risk losing the ability to dispute the charge with PayPal and/or your credit card company.

Just count the number of people who post, add on a conservative additional number that don't post, and then multiply that by what, 2 trees per customer? Then go look at his greenhouse and property pictures and see if he has enough trees. You can see his address in Google maps.

Sorry folks. Maybe he sends out 10% of his orders. At least you may get a post or two about happy customers.

The cheerleaders are hoping they get theirs first so they can crow about it. Bluffing with a pair of 7's at this point.

Behind the lunchroom after P.E. I'm guessing?

Eric from Alabaster

Frank, it is classic troll behavior, attack and ridicule those who don't rubber stamp what the troll says. Don't let them bait you. Not worth even a slight rise in blood pressure.

Just be amused by all the speculation and fuzzy math over how many trees there are and how many customers there are and how it's just not possible that even "x" number of people will get their orders.

Unfortunately only James knows for sure. Sad situation to be in for many people.

Just never ceases to amaze me how vehement so many are over some trees and some money.

Not to pee on your parade kyfig, but Frank is the "vehement" one and I don't have skin in the game as I've said before. I've covered my beef with the cat weeks ago in a PM. He made one of his grumpy remarks to something I said in jest. It didn't even involve him, but he interjected and took it personally.

Hummmmmmm

Sure, I will address that bit.  You didn't quote the whole sentence, leaving off the part "accomplished by satisfying initial investors..."  I realize he has posted pics, etc. to try to keep people appeased, so you might say that qualifies.  But at the same time, he's over 1 year late which is pissing a lot of people off.  That's not a very good way to satisfy initial investors.  The value of a rare fig tree drops quite a bit each year, as it starts to spread.  And to fig collectors, a year of lost progress can be worth as much as the tree.  This is why a tree that cost $400 last year might go for $50 this year.

Anyway, it's not like I don't see the parallels.  I listed many myself earlier in the thread.  It does seem like pretty poor Ponzi execution though to be over a year late for people who value growing seasons as much as figs.  For example, the $20 Ponte Tresa I didn't get from James was worth more to me from someone else because I could get it for this season.

He took a bunch of orders and didn't deliver yet (and maybe never).  There's no need to invoke Ponzi to confront the problems with that.

The crazy prices and sudden drops are driven in part by:

Periods of high demand: Bad winters, new markets emerging, want list copycats, and even the high prices themselves spur demand from buyers who see it as a business investment. As a matter of fact I remember seeing an ad not long ago that had no real information about the variety other than it would be in high demand for a long time, which is something that seller cannot even control anyway. 

Low supply: With sellers fighting to be near the top of the pyramid (uh-oh) on varieties that have been identified by members of the community (without conflicts of interest and bias, lets hope) as superior AND not readily available, then it takes away the opportunity for some of the more "generous" members you read about to get their hands on it and work their magic.

New information: As varieties get into the hands of more experienced growers the beans get spilled- splitting, shy bearing, synonyms, unflattering photos, realistic comparisons, etc. 
Good luck finding a variety that works well in all climates, is attractive, healthy, tasty and not already spread all over the place.

Low demand: Member turnover has increased due to a whole bunch of things: animosity, conflict, reality setting in, competition, distrust, and so on. Average growers cannot justify the prices sellers pay, but they are the ones which lower (on the pyramid) level sellers rely on in order to recover their investments and turn a profit. Wishlists are also a factor here, while the demand is there some people know they can pay nothing at all if they brown nose the right person or support them in a fight or something. 

High supply: In the event demand increases or supply decreases and prices raise as a result there are now more sellers waiting to jump in quick and capitalize resulting in a price drop, and more availability throughout the year. 

Get a clue lewi. I was talking about people attacking each other for trivial reasons. Not about getting trees or not getting trees.

Does anyone have any idea how many trees are on order?  How many of you would be interested in starting legal action?  $7 per tree + $3.50 per tree for legal action would mean that you would still only have $10.50 per tree invested, a great buy if the trees exist.  I would bet that there is an Attorney in James' county that would start the proceedings.

Has anyone even considered legal action?, probably not, because of the small amount of money invested by individual buyers.  Most credit card thefts result in less than $2000 because thieves know the banks won't pursue recovery on that small amount due to legal costs.

MY FINAL POST TO THIS THREAD!

Jon, this needs to end!!

i am one of the people who found james' site and submitted and order before being fully aware of the situation. I then found this thread, asked about his reliability and decided to submit another order for cuttings.

James' last update was telling us about his toe. He mentioned that he could really only water the plants and regulate the vents and the shipping would be delayed by a week or two. That was six weeks ago.

I have 2 questions. If he couldn't get much work done in the greenhouses, why not use this forced downtime from the injury to catch-up on emails? Second question, broken toes typically take 4-6 weeks to heal, is he back up to speed now? And if so, why has shipping not started?

After this last delay and seeing even faithful supporters doubting him, I decided to request a refund. I have send 4 emails over the past 3 weeks requesting a refund with no response. I feel for him, I do. But the silence is what is causing all the frustration. It would literally take a few minutes to just post something anything every few days.

Over 6 months since I placed my order, no trees have arrived. 7 weeks ago sent e-mails - to date, no answers. 10 days since request for refund - to date, no refund. Sent another request for as directed above by sending private message. Will update if anything happens.

I placed my order over 6 months ago, so Pay Pal can't help. I e-mailed with questions 6 weeks ago, to date no answers. Requested a refund 10 days ago, to date no refund. I requested a refund through private message as advised above. Will update when a refund comes through.

Sorry about the re-post, operator error!  ;)