Comments regarding Heirloom Acres Seeds

I ordered seeds in December of 2008. I got most of them, but my order was incomplete due to back ordered items. In April I emailed the company asking about my seeds, wondering if they would refund me or still send the seeds out. They assured me they'd send them out. Well, it has been 12 months now and I still haven't received a refund OR my seeds. I'll never do business with Heirloom Acres Seeds again, nor would I recommend them. I'm extremely disappointed with their lack of quality service.

Posted on October 13, 2009, updated November 05, 2009
Posted on March 25, 2009, updated October 13, 2009
I have ordered numerous times from Heirloom Acres and never had any problem with getting orders in a timely manner until last fall. I originally thought receiving my Fall order after weeks of waiting. But now after reading all of the comments and waiting for the rest of my Spring order I am not so sure. I placed my Spring order February 15th with the Pay Pal payment clearing on the 18th. I emailed them 2 weeks later when I still hadn't received a confirmation just like with my Fall order and I was worried that it had dropped from their system just like my fall order so I emailed them and waited for a response. After 3 days with no response I emailed them again. That time I received a very nice email from Renate stating that they were really busy and it was taking 2 weeks for orders to go out, I didn't point out that it had already been 2 weeks. I waited another 2 weeks for my order, after not receiving anything from them I emailed them again on March 16th, when I returned home there was my order in the mailbox. After checking my order I realized that there were a few items that had been backordered, another that doesn't ship until Spring, and one that didn't specify why it wasn't sent. I figured that since I had just sent them an email, surely someone would email back to say my order had shipped and then I could ask when to expect everything else. Of course I still haven't received a response so I had to email them again on the 24th because I wanted to try and catch them before they shipped the remainder of my order to see if I could just place an order for plant labels, pay the shipping on those and have everything shipped together but I still haven't receive a response, so they must not want to sell me anything else. I hate giving them a negative comment because they used to be a great company to deal with, I realize that they grew very fast and have some family issues but it is very sad that they have allowed those things to affect their business so badly. I really hope they can get their things straightened out because I used to really enjoy ordering from them.

Sorry, folks, but I'm posting a negative on this company-- one I have done business with for several years. I've had a backorder with them since the first week of April that still isn't cleared and a promise for replacement seed (wrong item sent) since the same week. I've sent an email every week for the past month with no response. If this is how they treat a good customer, I can't imagine how they treat a poor one. It's only $18, but that could be credited in a matter of minutes-- just DO IT!!

BTW, if you're ordering your seeds in April and thinking you're going to get them within a week, you must be dreaming. That kind of service happens in January and up to the 15th of February. After that, expect 2 to 4 weeks for delivery from ANY seed company. Read Johnny's disclaimers, for example-- and they're one of the best.

It's been a month since placing my order and still nada... I emailed them and did not receive a response... I phoned and their voice mail is 'full' so could not leave a message. I do not mind waiting but would appreciate communications to the effect. Regret I did not check reviews prior to ordering.

DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY.

My experience mirrors that of the other posters here with a negative rating for Heirloom Acres. They do not practice good business and ignore customer service requests.

I ordered from them and received no indication that anything was being processed--other than that they had speedily taken my money. I then had to email twice (both of which were ignored) and call just to get an order update. The order arrived partially filled, though they had accepted my payment for a full order.

Given that it was much too late to plant the seeds that were backordered, I requested a refund for what they didn't ship. This took 2 emails (ignored) and 3 phone calls--and two months later, they have yet to refund my money.

I've put in a complaint with the Missouri Better Business Bureau, which the company has also ignored.

Gardeners: there are many other online vendors who are honest business people! Let's patronize them instead.

My situation is in line with many of the other negative posts about Heriloom Acres, unfortunately.

Placed order on March 31st for ~$25, paid through PayPal. Did not get order confirmation but sent email through website and got email back saying to the effect of "Sorry we are really busy, orders are 3 weeks behind".

Read many of the comments here 4/24 and started getting anxious about my order, tried calling directly, got busy signal. Tried calling again this AM 4/27 and busy again.

I have initiated a dispute with PayPal and they have not responded to my charges via PayPal. I don't know if that will help me get a refund or not, I have never had to do this before with a vendor.

Needless to say, I am not pleased with how they are "running" their business. Maybe they grew to fast? Maybe they have other family issues going on right now? They should have stopped taking peoples' money if they couldn't send out what people have paid for!!

I placed my order [$121] on April 4, 2009.

My credit card was posted the same day.

Twenty days later I have not received my order and have not been notified of shipment.

I requested an explanation by email and received no response.

I attempted to reach their office numerous times on April 24th. The line was busy on every attempt.

I requested that my order be canceled via email and received no response.

I notified my credit card company and placed the transaction in tentative dispute. I will file a formal dispute when the the form arrives in the mail.

The Attorney General of MO needs to shut these people down.

.mike chopapa.

Horrible horrible horrible service. Ordered on 3/13, over $100 of seeds, books, plants. Money taken from my CC, no scheduled delivery date given and the website says 2 weeks. As of today, 4/8, no order and no response to the emails I've sent to follow up. I'm about to have my credit card pull the money back and try to find everything I can locally. This is ridiculous. If they need help, they should hire it or go out of business. Never again, not worth it at all. I agree with the other poster that the positives are probably planted by the owners because this is just ridiculous and seems to be an ongoing problem. We needed this order to have starts by late March.

My seed order (which totaled $80) from Heirloom Acres Seeds was placed on 3/15/09 by credit card.

It is now Monday 4/6/09 and I have not received my order yet.

I e-mailed them yesterday, Sunday 4/5/09 at 7:49PM EST to let them know I hadn't received the order yet and when that would happen. And I haven't received a response yet.

(I e-mailed directly from the e-mail order confirmation originally received on 3/15/09 that came from kirk@heirloomacresseeds.com).

I researched this company after having a bad experience with them . I typed heirloom acres seeds complaints in the google search bar and found many negative comments. i further researched to find that they have an F rating with the better business bureau... the link is //www.bbb.org/stlouis/business-reviews/seeds-and-bulbs-retail/heirloom-acres-seeds-in-new-bloomfield-mo-310248937#ratingdetails you can highlight the info put it in your search bar to find out about this company. You can also make a complaint about them at this link. After dealing with Thom and Renate Kirk I decided to look them up individually on missouri case net. the link is [HYPERLINK@www.courts.mo.gov] after that click on litigant name and enter Renate kirk. It seems she not only takes your money but she doesn't pay her bills either. And then there is this site which shows that they have no regard for customer service or providing products in timely manner if at all. In one review I see that they blamed their poor service on their daughter's health. But after researching they had trouble long before the health issues of their daughter. Kind of makes me wonder what else they are hiding. Steer clear...they hide behind religion but they aren't practicing what they preach. No true christian would behave in this manner.

I placed well Over a $100 dollar order on March 1st. I checked my credit card statement and they charged my card and took my money.

Tonight is March the 24th and I still have not received my order. I have emailed twice and called once to no avail and with No Response.

I am about to run out of time for planting most of the ordered seeds,.,
So, if my seeds don't arrive in the next 3 days then I am going to call my credit card company and site that this company committed fraud and to pull my money back from them for taking my money without specific performance(sending my order).


I will repost with any future developments.

I ordered over 2 and half weeks ago, and have not yet received my order. Have sent numerous emails the last 5 days, asking when my order should be arriving and no response. On their site it says two weeks max for orders to arrive. I was planning on starting eggplants and peppers this weekend.... Finally sent an email to cancel my order and filed a paypal claim (which has not been responded to by heirloom acres either). Should have read reviews on Dave's Garden BEFORE ordering, but I just found this site.
I spent over $50 with Heirloom acres seeds bc the prices were so good. Now I've spent another $50 rebuying seeds, and have yet to be reimbursed. I'm fairly confident in Paypal refunding me , but we'll see. I would not recommend purchasing anything from them, esp. if you're spending over $5! And Frankly, I am starting to think that the positive reviews listed here for heirloom acres are posted by actual employees trying to save face. My apologies if I am wrong in this assumption, I just don't understand how my experience could be SO BAD within weeks of other's positive experience. Plus I'm fairly perturbed that I've been cheated out of $50.

Please don't send your money to this company. They take money for your order and you never get anything, not even an email from them.

It has been almost 3 weeks from when I placed an order, and I have not received it - or any communication from the company. I've emailed twice and called once in the last few days - nothing. Their website says it "rarely" takes more than 2 weeks for orders to ship.

I've gone out and purchased some of these seeds, unfortunately as hybrids, locally, because I needed to get them in the ground this week.

I won't order from Heirloom Acres Seeds again.

The Service:
These people are very slow, and apparently have no way to keep track of orders (they bill you the day of the order though, whether the product is in stock or not). I placed my order on Jan 22, 2008. After numerous emails in the first week in February, they finally shipped it on the 14th. After getting it around the 18th and sorting through everything, I didn't have about 10 seed varieties out of the 30 or so that I had ordered. I emailed back about it and they apologized and said they would correct it. After a month of sitting on it, they shipped a 2oz package of soy to me that I didn't order to begin with on March 17, 2008. I emailed them back a few more times until about April and they just ignored me. I eventually gave up on getting the seeds or the roughly $15 back for the packages they didn't send.

The Seeds:
The summer squash, blue corn and broccoli seeds were excellent, the rest were mostly mediocre with about 40% germination, with the beans being utter trash that likely introduced a fungus to my garden. I definitely didn't get my $90's worth out of the deal.

I originally spoke with Mr. (Thom) Kirk on Friday, May 2 in the afternoon when their website "ate" my order. I made the order to him, he verified that they had received it on their end, AND that everything was in stock. He told me that it would ship mid-week "next week." That would have been approx. Wednesday, May 7.

I hadn't received anything, even an email, by Sunday, May 11, so I emailed them via their website. No response.

I telephoned and left a message inquiring after my order on Wednesday, May 14. No response.

I sent a second email Saturday, May 17. This one stated that I "was thinking very strongly of posting" my experience with them on the Internet gardening forums in which I participate. Nope, not even an email that "We're working on it."

So I went to a highly-recommended source on the Internet and ordered most of the seeds I had previously requested from HeirloomAcresSeeds. My second order--from the other company--arrived Friday, May 23. Wow.

I had given up on HeirloomAcresSeeds and was just waiting for my credit-card statement to come in to make sure there wasn't a charge from them on it.

So, on Tuesday, May 27, the order TA-DA! arrives in the mail. No note of apology, no "good-will" packet even of tomato seeds, no reason for the communication freeze-out. Nothing by way of explanation. The complete order of seeds and tubers was in the envelope, together with a print-out of my order and my charge-card receipt.

But, on further review, I saw that my credit card had been charged way back on the 2nd of May--three weeks before the order shipped!

I am so glad I found this Garden Watchdog in the meantime so I can share my poor service experience with others. It's really too bad--the Kirks have a tremendous variety of plant seeds and tubers--but if they can't get their order fulfillment together, they need to

1) hire some help or
2) affiliate with an order-fulfillment firm so they can concentrate on the growing part.

Meanwhile, I'll let others give HeirloomAcresSeeds their money and see whether their ratings here improve.

I do not think ANYONE should ever take payment without delivering services. This is exactly what Heirloom Acres Seeds did. Our payment with VISA was processed 05/15/08, and today we still had not received our order. Being 05/23/08 that makes 8 days since we paid for our order. I called them today and the lady that answered the phone seemed to have no idea where my order was, other than saying "It's probably right behind me, ready to be shipped. We are running about 10 days behind". Would have been nice to hear something earlier about this problem. I called them yesterday (05/22/08), asking why we had not yet received our shipment, and heard nothing back from them. Judging from the dialogue between that lady and me, I feel it's safe to say that I would have NEVER heard anything back from them. They made indeed bitten off more than they could chew, as far as running a business goes. I can forgive that. I can not forgive anyone taking my money without giving my produce at that moment, or at least delivering it within a day. I call that stealing.

Great selection, great prices, good germination, but very poor and extremely slow service.

I ordered in early January, and after over six weeks emailed to check the status of my order (that I had already been charged for). A few days later, I finally received my package (minus the backordered items), and not until nearly a week later did I receive a response to my email, stating that my order had already shipped (though it hadn't when I sent the email, according to the postmark... they waited until after shipping to respond to me).

I had also requested they cancel & refund any backordered items, and in the email I was told they did not know if any items were backorderd (two were and at this point are not worth the hassle of trying to get a refund).

Next year I will gladly pay higher prices and get all my seeds in time for planting. But if you order very early and have the time and patience to go back and forth with them to ensure your order gets shipped and that they don't hold the entire thing for one backordered item, then it's a pretty good deal.

First time I ordered (last year), no problem. This year took a very long time to receive seeds, had to ask for them. Amount charged was different than total in confirmation email. Two seeds were back ordered and was told they would ship asap. Had to ask about the back ordered seeds just the other day (ordered in May) and was told they should be in in December. Company has dropped the ball big time.

Placed two separate orders a week apart - after multiple emails, finally received both orders SIX weeks later....
Buyer beware! I will NOT order from this company again....

Good seed at great prices, but having waited over a month to receive my seeds two years in a row makes me unwilling to order from them again.

Last year I ordered late and so was patient knowing they are farmers, too, and were busy. But, I eventually e-mailed asking if I would ever receive my order. Their explanation was that they were holding my entire order for one back ordered variety. Well, I ended up getting the seed too late to plant most of it. What I did plant last year was mostly good, although some of the seed was substandard.They were apologetic, so I decided to give them another try.

It has been four weeks since I ordered, and I have not received my seed. The three other companies I ordered from sent my seed within a week. I called today and was told that they are running three weeks behind. I asked them to cancel my order if it had not shipped yet, as it is too late to start most of the seeds. The lady I was talking to checked her shipping log and told me that my name was not on it. Then she told me, "But my shipping log is innaccurate." She is supposed to call me tomorrow.

My impression is that this company has grown too fast and has not kept up organizationally. In this day of instant gratification, they need to update their systems and get more help if they want to compete. If they don't want to compete they should make it very clear in their catalog that you should not order from them if you need your seed within a month.

There prices are low but their service is slow. It took over a month to receive my order. They responded to my email quick enough but i would rather had my seeds so i could go ahead and plant. I donot know how good their seeds will germinate but i hope better than their service.

First of all, they lost my order! Now, i've started 3 different types of seeds from them with zero germination. If I had started these in the garden, I might have thought other variables, but these were put under lights. Just to make sure, I tried the seeds on a wet paper towel, NO germination. Havent recieved a reply to my e-mail, but this was my first and last order to this company. I think its buyer beware here.

After 35 days and many different explanations, I had to cancel my order. I was told that the seeds had shipped at 2 different times on 2 separate email inquiries. They couldn't get their story straight nor could they get my shipping address correct. I was also told, "We do run about 2-3 weeks behind during the height of our season with seed orders unless the customer requests immediate shipment. I wish we had known that you needed the seeds so quickly." I found out later that they hadn't even shipped the seeds for at least 20 days after my confirmation. At the time I ordered my seeds, I wasn't in a hurry. I thought I had ordered in plenty of time. I have never ordered from a company that took 3 weeks to ship seeds at any time of the year. All told, this was a great waste of time. To their credit, I was told I would receive a full refund. I would have rather received the seeds in a timely manner.

Received seeds in reasonable amount of time but seeds were mixed in bags and germination rates were poor.
Some seeds did not seem true to type of breed.