Comments regarding Trade Winds Fruit

I ordered on April 7 and receieved the seeds in great condition on April 23. This was a huge order -- 150 types of seeds -- and they had no problem filling all but 6, with a promise that the rest were coming in 2-4 weeks. I will order from this company again.

Delivery was quite fast, no problem there, but germination rate wasn't too good.

I've ordered twice from this company this year and have recieved seed in good condition promptly.

I had ordered seed from this company last year, and was very happy with the results. It did take some time to come, but I was not concerned about this as I do realise that not all of the seed would be immediately in stock, and some seed has a very short shelf life. I see this as a positve rather than a negaitve as some will sell you seed 'on the spot', at the risk of it not germinating. I got very good germination results last year, sowing most of the seed in early February. A couple of varieties did not germinate, but that is acceptable as seed can be variable, and conditions required to germinate them are sometimes very specific. No one company can offer seed that is always guaranteed to germinate.

I was concerned at the mounting negatives the company was getting lately, as I had already decided to place another order. I had emailed them twice because one variety was going incorrectly into the basket, and I wanted to add it to my order. Having seen the negatives on DG I emailed once more and aired my concerns. This time I received a reply, and was told that they had had server problems, and were not receiving their emails. This sounded pheasable to me, as I was wanting to place an order and not chasing one up. I was also told that some seed was not always in stock and could cause delays, which also sounded pheasable given the nature of the seeds.

I went ahead and placed an order for 19 packets of seed. I placed it on the night of the 23rd January, a Monday, and received it on Wednesday 1st February. Considering it had to come to England, which normally takes a week, I think that was very good. The seed was in very good condition. I purchased many citrus varieties, and some looked like they had only just left the fruit! Also 3 very large seed of camellia pitardii had already got large roots and a stem with tiny leaves, saving me the worry of them germinating!

This company does offer very rare seed, and a very large range at that. I cannot imagine the difficulties that must be presented in keeping the stocks, dealing with orders and emails, which we all know is very time consuming. Thank you Matt for an excellent service.

I do hope that others will be a little more patient and understanding.

Purchased seeds online 12/21 via PayPal. Emailed for a followup on 01/10/06, 01/11/06 and 01/15/06 and never have had a response. A response to an email would be good customer service and I have not had a response. Filed claim with PayPal today to get my money back. Personally, I will not purchase from them again for the lack of service shown a customer.

TOOK MY MONEY AND NEVER FILLED MY ORDER! quick to take my money via paypal, never mailed my seeds. i emailed them 10-12 times over a period of 3 months and they never responded to any of them. they did not fill my order and did not refund my money. I will NEVER order from this company. They don't even have a phone number or customer service department. DO NOT ORDER from companies like this.

First order we for family out of the country got shipped in a fair amount of time, not quick, but not terrible. Though, many of the seeds did not germinate we were told.

Family wanted another order of different variety. We gave another order to TWF during the summer, about 6 months ago. Dealt with someone named Matt - after just one e-mail of telling us one item wasn't in stock, we never heard anything again, and never got any replies to any of our
e-mails. Of course, family never recieved order.

I would stay far, far away from this company. There is no phone number listed anywhere for them and other than e-mail there is no way to reach anyone. They take your money and don't send anything. Can't put in a claim with Paypal because in being patient, it was over the time limit to put in a claim.

If you decide to give them a try-best of luck to you!

NEVER AGAIN will I place an order with this company. I happily placed my order 17 DAYS AGO. My money was swiftly accepted, the very same day in fact, via Paypal. Their website states that orders will be processed in 5-7 working days. So after two weeks, I send them an e-mail. No response. Couple days later I send another e-mail. No response.

There may be a good reason that it takes them so long to send out seeds (up to a month, according to some other posters here). I can't begin to imagine what those reasons might be, but what do I know, I'm not in the seed business. There is, however, NO good reason not to respond to a customers e-mail. Twice, in my case.

If it takes a month to process orders, then they should say so on the website. If they've taken the summer off and left no one to mind the store, then tell people. But they can't expect to neglect their customers and get any repeat business (or happy watchdog posters). This company has a really cool website with a lot of neat, unusual products and decent prices (all of which means nothing if you never get your order). My advice to them is to update their site. Tell people that it will take many, many weeks to receive their order of small seed packets, explain why, and then (here's the really important part) step up to the plate and include a CUSTOMER SERVICE PHONE NUMBER.

i ordered alot of fun, hard-to-find seeds equalling about 50$; the money was taken out of my account, but no confirmation was sent, so i was a little concerned. it took almost a month to get my seeds, but all were accounted for, and a note was left for the one pack that was unavailable, with a date stateing when it *would* be available and that it would be sent then. some of the citrus seeds were starting to get moldy-- it looked like the result of condensation in the bags-- but i planted them anyway and they're growing (quickly!) so i guess there was no harm done. one of the seeds was mislabled and crossed out, but no new name was written down; i planted it anyway.

overall, it was positive, but the slowness and the lack of communication / confirmation made me give it a neutral.

~:)

My first email to this company was placed before I ordered anything, asking how many seed per specific packets and availability. This email was answered.

I ordered some seed from this company that would be extremely difficult to find else where. Considering the rarity of the seed, the price wasn't too bad, besides the shipping was very cheap, just 25. per packet.

Just when it hit the two week mark (it stated on their site that shipping may take up to two weeks), I emailed the company. The seed came the day I emailed but no one answered my email.

The email asking when I would receive the see was void so I paid no attention that they didn't respond.

Upon inspection of the seed (there were only three, as I was expecting) one of the precious seeds had puncture holes where insects bored into them. I even saw insects peeking out of the holes and so the embryos were probably eaten or damaged.

I placed an anwer explaining the problem and reqesting a replacement. My email has yet to be answered.

It would seem that this company ignores any negative emails. This is NOT how a business should run. If I paid for a product, I expect to have what I paid for.

>> I ordered seeds from Tropical Ffruit Winds company in
>> California .

>> Over 1 1/2 months my order went out, I paid almost $ 50.-
>> Wrote them many times over email-- no response,(they do not give you >>a phone number number) .
>> Finally, had one response from Nicole,there,
>>2 weeks ago, because I told them, I would make this known to
>> your Watchdog and the Garden Web community. Since then
>> nothing.
>> I am still waiting .
>> This is a company you have listed in your company lists.Very >> frustrating.
>> This company's name had been given me by a friend in Brazil, >> to obtain tropical fruit seeds. Friends on Garden Web are awaiting the results, some have expressed the thought not to >>order from them at all
>> Ursula

The seeds came in a timely manner, but the palms seeds I ordered were rotting from being uncleaned. The package was dripping ooze, and stinking upon arrival. I shrugged it off and cleaned the seeds, but found that all of one type were so old or moldy that they crumbled when touched.
I called and asked for some replacement seeds, but got no reply.
I'm not sure I would order palm seeds from them again.(or any that need cleaning)

Safe delivery, all items accounted for, GREAT prices, a really good selection. Wish there were a lot more like this.

This is a very nice place to order seeds. I sent my order on a Monday and recieved it the in the same week on Saturday, today. Nice packaging. What's great is there is no minimum order, so that means you don't have to spend 20 dollars and buy other things when you only want one thing. Shipping price is very cheap (25 cents per packet) since it's seeds. Though consider other places charge a whole lot more just for shipping seeds. The prices for the seeds are ok, not really cheap for what you get, but they are hard to find seeds. You definitely won't find these most of these seeds at your local nursery. I had a nice experience and will order from them again. Check out their site, it has loads of information and pictures on tropical fruits.

I ordered seeds from these folks and they arrived in good shape.They are donating 10 % of cost of seeds for research on women's breast cancer.A site worth visiting,they have cool seeds.

Seeds arrived in a timely manner and were packaged well.

Tradewinds has an incredible variety of hard to find seeds. I ordered about 10 different species and experinced approx 85% germination! Many of these are now maturing in my yard as shrubs/trees. The prices are VERY low!

They have an interesting collection of seeds unavailable from other sources. I bought four species from them; so far only the Alpine Strawberry and Horned Melon have germinated, but the others are notoriously slow germinators and one (Chilean Guava) I have been told rarely germinates unless extremely fresh. Their prices are very good; maybe worth the risk. I was sent a care guide specially printed for my order. It is also a fun site.