Comments regarding Cook's Carnivorous Plants

I order a lot of CPs and my experience with Cooks was nowhere in comparison to other companies I have ordered from whether it was directly from companies out of state in WA, TX, FL, CA or even through eBay.

I am aware if their challenges to staffing but my first experience was not good since the fulfillment and communication was disappointing. My order shipment was delayed a full ship cycle (from Tuesday to the following Tuesday) even though I ordered it Friday prior to the weekend cut off which falls on Saturday evening. I was told there was a family emergency. I accepted this and suggested they post this on their website next time that fulfillment will be delayed. Also they have a problem with their site where after placing an order, it does not note that the order was "PAID" and that it is still in an "PAY" status after payment is received. They know it is a problem so they apparently have to reset that paid notice manually which they later did. I accepted the issues as legitimate 1x issues and waited the extra delay and received my order. I did get an apology and explanation from Kim and I was appreciative of that, at least.

Decided to give them one last try and put the 1st time order hiccups behind, so I placed an order on a Saturday (day time, not evening); prior to their cutoff time as noted. I did not hear from them nor did I see my order posted on my account section. I sent them a number of messages and was waiting to see my order post during the week. Tuesday ship day had passed and no response or any order update and it was still listing in the login order status as "PAY". I gave them a final notice late week that if they are not shipping my order to cancel the order only if they are not charging a restock fee and this was a last chance in my opinion. On Sunday, I get a message from Paypal saying they refunded my payment..thankful for that, but not a peep from them about my order during this episode nor any apology for that matter.

I will no longer do business with Cook's and have been so better served from all the other companies including Sarracenia NW (Oregon) who are friendly and have excellent product, fulfillment, and communication. I wanted to buy local and since I live so close to Cook's, I thought it would be a slam dunk to order from them but unfortunately, that was not the case in either experience.

I have ordered from Cooks many times over the years and many orders have been very unsatisfactory. The latest order I received was just one of the worst. With the plants just so small and roots almost non-exhistent. Poorly packaged plants submerged somewhere in the pot they were shipped in. I had to sift through the soil to find the tiny peat covered plants. The plants that were offered were "potted" but really this just seems to mean is that they were removed from their community growing pot and put into a smaller pot once ordered. The plants literally just fall out of the pot, plus there is no moss or roots to hold the soil, like when you order plants from other nurseries. And this just makes the shipping so much more expensive and wasteful than it should be! The peat mix is fluffy and just spills everywhere once you unpack the plants. Never again...

I placed an order, and it took a week to get a response e-mail. When I did get an e-mail, it was from Cook's stating my debit card had been denied (as I had been on a shopping spree leaving my card with less than enough to cover my order with them.) I immediately moved money to cover the cost of my order into the account, and responding to their e-mail within 15 minutes to please run the transaction through again (knowing that it would now NOT be declined.) I never received a response. I waited several days, and submitted an online request (on their website) to have the transaction run again. Radio silence. I never heard back from them. I have finally taken my business elsewhere and requested that Cooks cancel my order all together. My NEW order with another company was billed (successfully) immediately upon ordering. I won't use Cook's again due to their nearly non-existent support.

"On Jul 23, 2014 8:08 PM, Cook's Carnivorous Plants responded with:

Due to our limited staffing, myself with a 50 hour a week job away from the nursery and my wife taking care of our 4 kids, we ship out on Tuesdays only. If your order has been placed and or paid for after Saturday evening of the current ship out week there may be a delay of 1 week for shipping. (stated on the front page of our website)

Had the card not been declined we would have been able to continue and fullfill the order. However it was not at the time it was attempted, therefore we then placed the order on hold for the following weeks billing.

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