Recently a member of the GrowingFruit forum received an email from James and shared it:

"Hi ---,

Your email is 850th in line, i.e. there are 850 unread emails ahead of yours, so it's only by blind luck that I just saw it. The reason I haven't responded to your emails is because my inbox is completely overwhelmed from all the people demanding constant personalized updates, demanding favors, or simply cussing me out and issuing veiled threats. I've received an enormous number of emails/pm's/calls since the very beginning, and I was able to keep up with them for about a year, but I fell behind several months ago when I badly broke my foot and had to start dedicating every single waking minute (about 16-17 hrs/day) just to getting the basic chores done each day. The chores took longer because I couldn't move as fast, and it was excruciatingly painful, but if I hadn't pushed through and done all the chores every day, then there would have been a lot of damaged, stunted, or dead trees. If I skip chores for even 1 day, then there is widespread wilting and leaf burning.

I'm currently working 100 hours a week (14 hrs/day every single day of the week, no days off ever for the past 18 months) doing the actual hands-on farm labor involved with growing all these figs, so I don't have the extra hundreds of hours that it would take to reply to all those emails as fast as they come in.

I would be happy to send you a refund, but my PayPal accounts have been frozen (due to complaints from people who are mad about me not responding to their emails), so I am not able to send refund payments at this time. I'll send it as soon as I can.

Best regards,
James"



Sorry to say, but there goes any chance of people getting refunds. Looks like he is only blaming his customers, so I wouldn't expect any sympathy from him.

Good luck,
Babylon

^typical (((GreenFin))) behavior.

I got word yesterday that Amex will be refunding my last and 3rd payment to James.

Thanks for the post Babylon. Cheers.

Wow.  Just... wow.  To blame customers is totally devoid of accountability.  No one forced James to accept all these orders to the point of being as overwhelmed, as he claims to be.  And if he is this overwhelmed, why continue to take orders?  Especially when he broke his little toe, he just kept on taking people's money when he was purportedly that bogged down.  What a load of actual BS.  

This is what happens when the walls close in on cowards and criminals. They blame us.

A few issues. Why would the trees die in a greenhouse after just 1 day of not doing "chores"? I put that in quotes since that is what children do when their parents make them. Adults just call them responsibilities. Second, let's say he gets 100s of emails. There are simple explanations for the emails. It's because customers have no updates and want their money back. Yet, he still is taking more orders? Then he says PayPal froze his account because he won't issue refunds. So he knows the accounts are frozen and is not doing anything about it. Perhaps he could just issue all the refunds, provide timely updates for people who have been waiting for a year, shut down the ordering system, and get everything taken care of. 

James says, NAHHH, let's go back to doing "chores" and whine about it. 

Anton wants to be on the trusted seller list at Ourfigs, they said he needs to prove himself more, so that is what he's doing. Earning their "trust". He doesn't care if this place ends up a smoking crater.

Anton:

Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to be critical of you. I was just explaining my experience with chores. To my knowledge you haven't said anything regrettable on this forum about James or anything else. Unfortunately I can't say that about many other posters on the subject of James.

Please have a good day.

I'm curious why a person who never posted here before would post that some unknown other person got an email from James and then post what the email is said to have said. I'm also wondering why, when so many people are desperate for news on this topic, no one else has mentioned this email. As far as I'm concerned it is hearsay upon hearsay upon pot-stirring. I'm angry about my order taking so long so I'm not advocating for James but the way this topic keeps coming up with total disregard for the fact that the original topic was locked for good reason is ridiculous.

I'm not trolling, there's more evidence for what I said than what you said.

I think the "chore" thing may be a generational or regional thing.  The definition certainly fits the tasks required to run a farm.  "Chores" certainly had a negative connotation in city environments (where I grew up), where "chores" were what you had to do when you weren't "playing."  But on a farm (where I worked several summers), "chores" were all there were.  No time for fun :)

I do not buy future products but thought about it so I have followed and commented on this sad situation. I do think the email is from him. The email reads like someone looking for excuses. The one that stands out to me is his PP account. I do not doubt his PP account was shut down. I also have no doubt is was NOT closed "because he did not answer emails" but over fraud complaints. He continues to think people are stupid and wants them to believe that PP is the only way he can refund the money....BS!  

How is he still taking orders if his PP account is closed? Just curious. I don't do the PP thing much.

Ridiculous  

It sounds exactly like a message I got from him before when I PMed him asking if he had read my emails from several weeks before.

"No, I hadn't seen them yet. There are still around 250 emails ahead of yours, so it would have been quite a while before I would have worked my way through to them.  I've had to work through around 3,000 emails so far."

Let's cut through the speculation and growing incivility here, shall we?  Let's stick to cold hard facts.  I just called Paypal and asked the rep if the Paypal account linked to the seller was frozen, as James seemed to have claimed in the pasted email above.  The Paypal rep looked at James' account and it was NOT frozen and was in fact active.  Without me saying anything about how many people have been affected here, she also commented that I am not the only one who has had similar complaints filed against James.  

So, if James is now telling people that he can't give refunds because his account's frozen...