Personally, if I had rec'd a handwritten note in my mailbox, I would likely not even responded to it. What government agency would do that? None that I know of. You would have gotten a formal letter or a knock on your door, not a handwritten note. In my opinion coop, you've been conned/duped into calling the USDA on your own. Did they actually know who you were when you called or did you have to first give them that info?

Who else did you tell about winning (or bidding on) that auction before you got the note? That's the question I'd be asking myself. Start with the most likely rat and work your way down the list.

yeah.. in these days of wild government spending, i would expect at least a gilded envelope with little perk like a chocolate covered mint or something.. it's such a let down to get a hand written note in the mailbox. lol J/K!!!

Hi Bill,
I took the note seriously. It was written on the back of her business card which I checked out by calling the Dept Of Agriculture directly and determined it was totally legit. She left it in my mailbox as I was not home. I responded to the number on the card and left a message and she called back. I did not speak to anyone about the purchase so I don't know why anyone else would be interested in this. While speaking to her on the phone I could tell this was no joke or scam and we had a very nice conversation on the issues. I sent her my cancelled transaction record and the emails I sent to the seller through eBay. I haven't heard from her since, so I feel I did the appropriate things and the case is closed.
Very interesting event however. My biggest beef is with eBay, who I feel gave me up even though I did nothing wrong. They are the ones who supplied my personal info to the Dept.

that note should never be taken lightly, it's a friendly reminder ... but it can be very serious if not responded, USDA has a very bad reputation for showing up unannounced and seising everything you have in the garden, with their good reasonings. 
Bill you are acting delusional and misleading people., with all due respect.

Got it coop. I didn't catch earlier that it was written on the back of her business card. Additional clarifications you've added in post #29 now make it clear that this was a professional visit. This wasn't quite so clear in your first post. Sorry to hear that this happened. Thankfully you didn't go through with the transaction.

Aaron. No hand-written note left in your mailbox should be taken seriously unless it's in a proper postal envelope with legitimate postage. With the limited information that was outlined in coop's first post, my "delusions" would have been correct. Obviously, the fact that this information was written of the back of a professional business card from someone in the the USDA, negates any "misleading" suspicions. This was not originally made clear.

Also Aaron, in the future, please weigh your words more carefully before accusing someone of acting delusional. Really, you never know when someone is screwing with you just for kicks. My concerns could have been quite legit.....with all due respect.

This has been discussed before and there seems to be some big concerns here that really seem unfounded.

To think that eBay can monitor all of the regulations that apply to everything sold on eBay is unreasonable.  eBay is a facilitator in the sales but not directly involved in the sales.  Others have pointed out to the link in eBay policies that instruct sellers and buyers to make sure they are complying with regulations regarding plant sales.

APHIS monitors eBay transactions out of their Colorado office.  I had a surprise visit from APHIS around November 2012 in regards to my chestnut operation and I was able to eliminate their concerns pretty easily.  At the time, I asked them about eBay transactions of various plants and how they monitored that and they told me that staff in Colorado monitor that and then send information to the office closest to where the problem is identified.  I imagine that APHIS/USDA has demanded and received certain levels of ability to review various eBay transactions so that they can detect violations.  That seems reasonable, and not nearly as scary as the far-reaching actions of NSA.

Coop, I went through the same visit last summer. The USDA agent was able to obtain my phone number and called and set up a
day/time to come and visit with me. Maybe they were not able to call ahead for what ever reason and dropped by. The agent
that visited me was very courteous and professional. We also had a good discussion about the issue at hand.

a hand written note is definitely unprofessional, specially when a person is representing a federal agency. having said that, it was right thing that coop called the DoA. i wouldn't have. if they come back and ask why i didn't called back, i would say anything in the mailbox once deposited is a property of USPS. since it didn't have post stamp on it, i ignored it. didn't want to become involved in misuse of our postal system. i'm sure that will get me in bigger trouble :)

At http://www.ebayprivacycenter.com/government-agencies/law-enforcement eBay states that law enforcement has real time access to eBay records.

Pete, there is nothing unprofessional about a USDA officer writing a note on the back of their business card asking to be contacted.  Do you want every government employee to carry around a computer, printer, and letterhead???  Really???  Our government is bureaucratic enough as it is.  This matter seems to have been handled just fine.  Coop explained that the transaction was cancelled and that satisfied the agents concern.  It's not a big deal.

Bill, my intention was NOT to put you down but to make sure none of you gutsy people mislead any other reader, there are so many people that read these posts to learn and this kind of serious subject can not be taken lightly. Never encourage people to go against authorities like USDA. NEVER. 
Instead we should share every information regarding laws and regulations of shipping cuttings or receiving them from different countries and even some states.
In fact we should have a locked Post regarding laws and Regulations of shipping plant matters.
No one needs headache for some twig for God's sake. At the end of the day it's just a twig! Well...not for me, but... LOL
anyway... peace ;-P

Here is the reply I got from the Dept. I must say she treated this professionally and courteously . 
Case closed:

 Thanks so much for your cooperation, Mr. Cooper. I appreciate the information and will close out this case. As you stated, after realizing that the product did not originate from the US, you promptly cancelled the order and thus never received the product.

If you have any other questions regarding regulations governing the importation of foreign origin agriculture material, please feel free to contact me.

Regards,

Julie Hong-Sakowski

SITC Officer, Elizabeth, NJ

USDA APHIS PPQ

nice humor too...

Somethings up with Ebay. I just did a search for "fig tree" along with "US only" and a bunch from Turkey and Malta show up. Even when I un-click the US only and then click it again it is still happening. Are they baiting people now?

I don't think eBay is intentionally baiting folks, but it does look like they've got a significant flaw in their search.  If i click on US only they remove only one listing from my search.  I  don't pay much attention to that anyways since the listings still clearly show the country they originate from.

I heard recently of someone that bought fig cuttings from Philadelphia a few years ago but they discovered when they arrived it was spelled kind of funny because it was from Turkey.  The cuttings got turned over to USDA Davis and, after lots of mailing of the cuttings across the U.S., they ended up in the repository. :)  If it was today, I'm sure they would get burned.

oh wow, I just checked my eBay page... there are so many blocked pages... It will say this item has been blocked for your area. LOL amazing.

@ Aaron (responding to post #37). Believe me, It wasn't my intention to try to get anyone to go against the law. Based on the limited info that was originally provided, I honestly thought someone was just messing with Coop. So, I certainly wasn't being gutsy. I know full well that no Federal agency should be taken lightly. There's simply no winning scenario for someone breaking the law.

I agree, we should all be keenly interested in what's legal and what's not when it comes to the plants we all care so much about. Ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of enforcement agents. It would be a sad thing for any of us to lose every plant we worked so hard to propagate & maintain just because of one piece of plant material that was obtained illegally. Really some food for thought....

No harm done Aaron. Thanks for the reply.

Now we return you to our regularly scheduled topic - FIGS :-) !  

haha, well said ;)
NOW, WHERE WERE WE!

Interestingly Ebay seems to have fixed the issue I mentioned in post #40, but I am not seeing blocked pages as Aaron described in post #42.

yeah, i realize that too just now, it's not blocking it anymore, huh, weird.

Coop, Could your spouse possibly be involved?

Just wanted to report that I got a call today from the US Dept of Ag. Wanting to know if I had bought cuttings from Canada in May 2013. I had to look up the info on ebay & sure enough I did! Oops! The guy said it wasn't illegal but they would need to monitor the tree for disease.

Well thank God I was a newbie and killed almost all my cuttings last year and that one was included in the dead ones.

Anyways I just thought I would mention it to be very diligent in knowing where they are coming from or you will get a call!!

next we will hear from a forum member who got thrown in jail for 6 months for buying fig cuttings off eBay .......  

  hmmm  I sent an envelope with vanilla beans and a box of DVDs in seperate parcels, on the same day, to my friend in So Cal.    The vanilla beans arrived 10 days after the DVDs with no explanation why.  We'd  given up on them ....  Now I'm wondering if the vanilla beans had been delayed for examination. Intersting. It seems like there would be  notation on the envelope.

Interesting that they are investigating old purchases. Sounds like you guys are keeping many people in federal employment...well done. I'm sure they secretly appreciate the gesture also. Keep it up.