Comments regarding Tropilab® Inc.

I have attempted to order seeds twice from this company. Both times I looked and the items showed as available to order but soon after I would get an email saying the items I ordered were not available and that I would need to choose other items. Since I did not want anything else I canceled and after the 2nd try ( 2 months after first attempt ) I gave up.

Had an incident of credit card / identity theft within the 2-3 weeks following my 1st online order from Tropilab.com. Please note that my negative Tropilab-related experiences are nothing more than a factual report of events as they happened & as I perceive them NOT an accusation. It isn't my intention to portray Tropilab negatively, my experiences could have been a combination of bad luck & honest mistakes. I'm reasonably convinced (or so I'd like to believe) that Tropilab wasn't involved in the incident concerning my credit card.
These are my complaints: (1) Tropilab sent only a fraction of what I actually ordered/paid for. Be prepared to pay the full amount for your order only to receive about 1/10. (2) I also think it likely the seeds I did get underwent extensive irradiation at customs or during another stage of export/shipment. Only 6-10 seeds out of 250 actually germinated (using heroic effort & many different growing conditions, temps, soils types, soil-moisture/soaking times, lighting, timing, pH, etc). These seeds are considered to be hardy & invasive weeds in the region which I live. The few seeds that did germinate rapidly proceeded to die after failing to grow any larger than a sprout.

Beware, I ordered herbs from Tropilab 6 months ago and have not received them. Tropilab does not answer my emails or phone calls. Do not order from them.

I am posting a Neutral at the moment because I am awaiting to hear from them concerning my order.
Before placing an order, I contacted them to verify that they had the bulbs or rhizomes that I was looking for and to see when they ship, as it was December 2005. The email was answered promptly "Sure ,we have them in stock (planted!)" and they ship year round. I placed the order December 7 for 6 different bulbs or rhizomes at the price of 5.00 each and shipping cost was to be 5.75 and these were to come from Florida as the address shows on their website or that is what I thought. I was charged 53.10 instead of 35.75 and I contacted them and received prompt email stating "The rhizomes are shipped directly from Surinam, South America and international shipping rates apply.These rhizomes are heavy (4 - 5 lb.)! We advise on all our pages that the S & H may differ from what pops up when you order and to also visit our web store page (www.tropilab.com/webstore.html) for the right freight rate." They did have the extra shipping stated that it might be more but the rhizomes or bulbs were not heavy when I finally received them in FEBRUARY 2006. They were very small rhizomes that were in very bad shape and even had rot and mushy rhizomes.
I had contacted them via email numerous times because of the delay as I was afraid they would freeze with temps being so cold but this is the reply from them,"Do not worry; the USPS claims that they have heated storage and warehouses."
The slow shipping was blamed on the postal service and then after contacting 6 more times they replied," However, this takes too long, we will resent this today or early next week.Regards" so I received the shipment about 2 months after placing the order and received small, rotten and mostly dead rhizomes or plants.
The email that was sent to me after they reordered contained the following message, "TROPILAB INC is not reponsible for delays and/or loss of packages by one of the carriers we use. These include postal services world-wide, shipping companies and courier services, such as FedEx, UPS and DHL. Complaints about packages, that are lost damaged and/or with the contents lost, must be reported to the postal service, courier service or shipping company."
I loved the website, their prices are great but at the moment I could NOT RECOMMEND them to anyone.

I am still awaiting and answer from them as to what if anything is going to be done concerning my order.I will post their response and let all gardeners at all of the groups that I am a member of know what has been done by the company.