Hey By the way Green Fin, I never received my order the year of the $7 Dollar tree orders.

Sure, expect a few crumbs to be thrown your way, guys. Don't celebrate too soon!
I've watched GreenFin go from a 110% rating (when he was grooming everyone) abruptly down to zero.
I'd like to see him return the money to ALL victims of this massive scam.
Otherwise, trust when buying on F4F may never return to the pre-James era.

All I know is I still don't have my fig cuttings (around $300 worth, which are quite a few cuttings) from my order from Fall 2016. However, they were not to be shipped until spring of 2017.It isn't the money so much as it played havoc with my farm plans. I had really looked forward to having those. Even if he does send them now, it's the wrong time of the year and chances are they won't root. A person still cannot reach him. His email is a 'do not reply + feed proxy". I get that he doesn't have time to reply to every email. However a person only has to write ONE email and mass send it to everyone to keep them abreast. If I get my cuttings it will be pleasant surprise...and a difficult job to make them work...sigh.

For the record, I am still on the side of optimism. I always felt this was a grassroots cheap way to get some unique varieties. Prepaying in exchange for not having to deal with bare roots, or insane eBay prices felt was a mutually beneficial setup. I feel some people on here, had dreams of starting a FIG empire using James as a source of their financial endeavor. Why else would anyone order so many trees?? I feel these people are not the target audience that James was aiming for, and may have stress the system to the verge of collapse. It seems like, a system has been established and future offerings should go smoother.

In the end if I get my trees, I'll be okay having been the test dummies in helping James get his system down. 

"The burden is on the seller to deliver, not on the purchaser to beg forgiveness for ordering."

This is brilliant and to my mind's eye the best definition of customer centric-service that I could imagine. I wish every person running a business would keep that sentence framed and by their desks to remind them of this simple truth.

Kudo's Lewi for highlighting the essence of how every business relationship should be managed...

Yep. What Lewi said.

James, I'm not a competitor or a troll. I'm just an angry customer. This is based off my own experience.

1. I still haven't received my two orders from 2015.
2. You missed multiple deliverables despite you keep saying that the orders are ready to go out.
3. You don't respond to emails, PMs, calls.
4. You did not keep your customers updated as promised.
5. Not a single person received their order(s). I'm sure if anyone did, they would have posted something. 
6. You're selling more trees and taking more orders, but you have yet to send out any previous orders that were already paid for and past deliverable deadline.

James is blaming the victims, the people who dare complain about his failure to honor orders.

Update on James Sperman. One of our members on growingfruit called St George Police department in Kansas and complained of the scam. They said they will investigate and shut him down if who ever got scammed then call St George Police Dept at 785-457-3353. Please do call so he will not hurt more people.

Tony

What's wrong with you people James Sperman did this sale for the good of the fig community. He did not benefit from the free use of your money. 

So....tell me again what part of the sale was good for the community?

I don't know but I read it somewhere.

How can you say he has not benefited? He's growing his operation at the cost of his customers, his updates of his progress on his web site with the new greenhouse tunnels prove this, he can’t buy the material without money?  He put his goals and his projects above anyone else to finance his operation for future profit and profit is what he is looking for, if he’s made any money at this point or not is not his clients issue, every business owner has startup cost but most don’t finance it by taking orders they can’t fill on time or they don’t have, they go to a bank and get a loan - grow the trees - sale the trees - ship the trees - everyone happy (future clients). 

When his paying customers asked about their orders he ignored them giving people just cause to think this is a scam and he is the only one that can change that? When you don't know someone you only have your personal experience with them, I myself and most “noobs” as he says have no Idea who James is or what his project is or what setbacks he’s had or what is being said in these forums?  When I want a tree I just go on-line and find the trees I want and buy them expecting professionalism.   I already planted other figs in the spots where I was going to plant his trees since he never gave me an update if I was going to get these trees or not, so If I do get the trees I don’t have anywhere to plant them now (that was my project). If he would have shown some common respect with a personal e-mail on the progress I would not have mind the wait, and this letter and these threads would not exist, especially when we see him still selling trees and saying they are ready for shipping even though others haven’t received orders from years ago (even 1 person matters). 

It’s not like he’s giving trees away for free either, he’s selling them at an average price, I paid between $9 to $15 for his small rooted tree (bought 5) and $25 shipping so he should be able to make a profit off of my money, I would think it would take 6 months to root a fig for shipping the size I was expecting? Wright now he is selling 3 gallon trees for $30 which are probably the rooted fig trees he never sent me 1.5 years ago, and for $30 he has a very good profit.  And $4 for 1 cutting is a pretty good profit as well.

He said “I'm guilty of not getting thousands of trees grown by my estimated dates” and “and I'm also guilty of not being able to keep up with runaway emails/pm's/phone calls”   So why not slow down and take care of the orders and clients he had and do consulting work as well? Why take on new orders with all the major setbacks?  This is why he’s working over 100 hr a week and having unwanted problems (that’s what it takes to build a business).  Never skip over paying clients and forget them, my grandfather would have whooped my butt.   I also don’t know what he means about “I took on an utterly enormous task for the good of the fig community” His web-site is setup has a business not a charity?  I understand he might have some friends on the forums but he is acting as an independent business owner and needs to act like it when he takes money from hard working people with projects of their own.

He also said “If all the negative garbage being told about me were true, I would certainly agree that I'd be a very bad person.  But the fact of the matter is that the attacks are a bunch of vindictive nonsense, and I'm totally committed to doing right by everyone.”

This comment is why after over a year of reading these threads I have finally decided to give my 2 cents worth, I haven’t read any comments from anybody above this comment which I believe to be made up lies about him, this comment is an attack at his costumers and the fig community which he says he is trying to do good for?  I see him wanting to build a profitable business but the lack of business experience causing a lot of issues so only time will show if this is a scam, I hope his gung ho words are worthy.  Actions are better than woods, the way to start to do right by everyone is to start returning e-mail no matter the hour and simply show more respect to people.  I hope he come thundering across the finish line for EVERYONE and proves us so called hater or what I would say frustrated people wrong.  

Quote:
Originally Posted by fudgeater
What's wrong with you people James Sperman did this sale for the good of the fig community. He did not benefit from the free use of your money."

Are you serious? What have you been putting in your Fudge? And stop drinking all that koolaid.

Don't you people know how businesses work? None of this is James' fault. It's all YOUR faults. You're not ordering MORE trees. How do you think James is supposed to get money to send your trees? If you'd just go on the site and order MORE TREES, he can start shipping your original orders. Sheesh.