Comments regarding Pond Plants Direct

Poster child for a bad business. Payed immediately by paypal on may 11. Contacted company thru email and phone messages 6 times in 3 weeks and no response. Filed a dispute today with pay pal and decided I didn't EVER want to be contacted by him (as tho he would) and just escalated to a claim for money back. I have been in business 35 years and I Never failed to at least call someone back within a few days. Don't buy from him.

I ordered Anacharis for my turtles. I was sent something else which I do not want. My turtles wont eat this stuff. I want my money back. You still offer Anacharis but you don't have it or didn't send it. You have no contact phone number. Wish I read these reviews first as my turtles rely on this plant for food.

I placed an order on April 3 and paid immediately with Paypal. I have NOT received my order. So far I've sent emails, called and left voice messages, and have received no reply (today is the 23rd). I contacted Paypal and, of course, received no answer. Today I escalated to filing a claim. Wish I'd read reviews before today. If you actually want to buy something for your pond use a different company!

PondPlantsDirect.com is NOT responsive to emails.

I've only used them once, and had issues with the quality of plants. I've tried to contact them via email pre-shipping and upon receipt of plants without success. Why?

They did collect their funds promptly. Go figure.

I would NOT recommend PondPlantsDirect.com from my overall experience.

I feel like an idiot for failing to check here before ordering from this company. I guess I was too much in a rush, wanted to get some plants in my pond asap and didn't have time to go to the local aquatics store. Anyhow, their website says orders ship immediately. I also wrote in the comment section of the order page "Please ship ASAP." My credit card was charged immediately through Paypal but I heard nothing from this company. No response to my voicemail, left on the phone number on file with Paypal -- and I called during normal business hours. No response to my earlier email inquiring as to when shipping would occur. Finally, I opened a claim with Paypal through their Resolution Center -- first time I've done this. At the initial stage Paypal just facilitates your inquiry to the company. No response. So I escalated to a Claim, asking for my money back. Paypal sent this request to the company, and the way they responded was to ship out my order within a day, sending the tracking info to Paypal and to me. The tracking info didn't even include their name or mine; I only knew it must be them because of the city of origin. UPS delivered the package to me the next day (I am only a few hours drive away). The company never did send me an email of apology or anything. They never responded to Paypal either except by sending the tracking info. The shipment date was 9 days after I placed the order. This is totally unacceptable for a company that says immediate shipping on their website. The plants were in good shape; there was one mistake of sending me one oxygenator when I ordered a different one, but that was okay. The main annoyance was that when they hadn't responded and I had demanded a refund through Paypal, I went out and bought pond plants, so I now have more than I need and more significantly I spent more money than I needed to. However, I am sure Paypal would say I jumped the gun on buying the plants locally and since my pond is benefitting from the extra plants, I closed the claim. Of course, I will not order from this company again and neither should you.

I ordered 10 Trapdoor snails and 2 pond plants. No water in bag snails were in just a damp piece of folded newspaper. (I've ordered snails online before and never had a problem. The difference is they were from other companies and the bag had water in it!) Needless to say all the snails and one plant were dead by the next morning. Website stated 7 days to report problems. I reported within 2 via e-mail because there is no telephone number listed. I resent e-mail on the fifth day. It has been 2 weeks, no reply. I saw owners comment from June 2011. It seems his customer service has not improved. I do not recommend buying anything from this online....merchant. I notified the credit card company but so far it is still under investigation. As far as I'm concerned I will never shop there again.

I placed an order with this company on May 24, 2012. Order was supposed to ship immediately. The payment for this order was deducted from my bank account in less than 24 hours. Multiple emails were sent with no reply back whatsoever. It is now June 24, I have received no plants and no response back still. Paypal became involved after I filed a claim. This company did not even respond to paypals attempts for contact. I would not order from this company and would recommend the same for others.

I attempted a small trial order from this company, and despite numerous emails, have never received a reply either before or after the shipment. I had to file a claim through PayPal in order to get the plants shipped, and when they did arrive, the submerged plant bunches were dead/dying and in order to make the stem of a water hibiscus fit, they bent it in half on itself, thus breaking the stem completely. The remainder of the plants in the shipment were in neglected and unhealthy shape with stunted root growth and significant browning of the leaf tips. In 20+ years of plant experience, I have never seen worse customer service, or plant quality.

Posted on April 23, 2012, updated April 29, 2012
Absolutely Awful!!!!!!
I have placed three orders with this company since January, and have received absolutely nothing...not an email, not a call, nothing. I have left messages, and sent emails. Have sent disputes via PayPal....
Spent 300.00 in total, and have nothing to show for it. I ordered in the off season, but Spring is here...and I'm plant less.
Don't order from them.....please.
I have sent a letter to the Ohio Attorney General, and am planning on filing a small claim with their local court system. I know it's not a million dollars, but the principle of it bugs the crap out of me.

I placed an order 4/1. It's now 4/26, and they state they ship to my zone mid-to-late April. I've emailed three times, and heard nothing back. I opened a PayPal dispute and did hear from someone, who made it seem like my order would be shipped ASAP. Still waiting. Will open another dispute next week if I haven't received my order by 5/4. No idea if the plants are worth it or not, but poor customer service can't make up for price or selection.

I placed an order with Pondplantsdirect.com on Feb.27, 2012. I had arrived at their site because of a advertisement shown on their hardypondplants.com site that I would receive a 10% discount if I ordered from pondplantsdirect.com with the promo code "pondplants". I requested the discount in the section for special instructions and placed my order using Paypal.
The charges for the FULL amount WITHOUT the discount was immediately charged to my credit card, but NO DISCOUNT WAS GIVEN later. No acknowledgement of my order was sent to me. I have emailed twice (March 20 and March 27, 2012) requesting shipping of my order as soon as possible, and no response has been given. I looked up their phone number and when I called, the number was no longer in service. I am just glad Paypal has now credited my account back for the amount charged. Very poor business ethic if they are still in business at all!

DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY

Their website looks impressive, but beware. I placed an order and they promptly took my money. I assumed the plant would be on its way. I have yet to receive email response from them about the status of my order. They have not returned any of the four emails I sent. This company is either a total scam or incredibly poor at communicating. Either way, they don't deserve your business.

All of the following websites are the same company, so don't be fooled:
//www.pondplantsdirect.com/
http://www.waterlilies.com
http://www.hardypondplants.com

Don't buy from any of them!

And in general don't ever purchase from a company that doesn't list a working phone number. I will never do that again. There are plenty of other web companies that are very responsible. For example, I just ordered from http://www.pondplants.com and they arrived on time and in good shape!

The owner of Pond Plants Direct, Brad Larson, states below on that “starting out we had poor customer service, we've been working hard at improving this aspect of our business over the past couple years.” Later in his post he says “There's a lot of nonsense on here. If you have any doubt please drop us an email and you'll see that we have great customer service.”

As a firm believer in reading customers reviews, I am extremely remiss that in haste I ordered from what seemed a reputable company without checking reviews. On 8/7/11, I place an order for $106.15 and was immediately charged. It is now 8/20/11 and I have not only NOT received the order, I have called and emailed Mr. Brad Larson three times and have received absolutely NO RESPONSE.

I share the joy of ponding with many on several forums; however, I have never registered. I am now signing up in order to share this experience with fellow ponders in the hope they are not taken advantaged of too. Mr. Larson should be ashamed.

Originally had a good experience. Price was good and I received the pond plants within days of ordering. The plants all died, but I'm new to ponding so thought maybe it was my error. I ordered and paid via paypal for replacement plants, a $50 order. It has now been 12 days and still no plants. Last week I emailed and left voice message asking about the shipment. No response. I've opened a claim with paypal, to hopefully, get a refund.

I submitted an order to Pond Plants Direct on July 10th. I have not received my order. I sent 2 emails and left 2 voice messages for them and have not had any response from the company. Luckily I paid them with PayPal and submitted a dispute. That was almost a week ago and I still have not heard anything. I have now submitted a claim to PayPal to get my money back.

I placed an online order with Pond Plants Direct on June 20th for one Water Hyacinth and one Water Poppy. I immediately paid for it with PayPal. After 2 weeks, I had not received the plants so I emailed: no response. I then called and left a message: no response. Over the next couple of weeks, I emailed again and left two more messages: no response. I am extremely unhappy; they do not follow the 24 hours response time statement. Not a good way to do business nor create positive referrals. If I do not hear from this company in the next couple of days, I am going to go through PayPal to do what I can to pull my funds back.

Ordered some pond plants in May. It appears that they were shipping timely but received them 10 days later and they were nothing but brown mush. Contacted the company and got a timely response saying they would resend. Never received replacement order so contacted again and was told they would check on status. Nothing. Contacted again and they said they would issue a credit. I told them I would prefer a refund but a credit would be better than nothing. Contacted again late last week and no further responses. Do have to admit that when Brad responds his emails sound sincere, unfortunately, no one follows thru.

Another miserable little internet company that you should avoid. I agree that they're drop shipping from other suppliers, as is so often the case these days. Azolla arrived rotting and full of duckweed...no customer service, employees unpleasant and unhelpful.

"On Jun 1, 2011 10:09 PM, Pond Plants Direct responded with:

We don't even sell Azolla."

only one item out of two ordered and paid for arrived, and it represented 2/3 of the cost. in other words the cheap item arrived, the expensive one did not. emailed and got no response. complaint to Paypal and no response. avoid this vendor at all costs.

"On Jun 1, 2011 10:10 PM, Pond Plants Direct responded with:

If you would email me at pondplantsdirect@gmail.com, I'm sure we could resolve this."

Just noticed on Pond Plants Direct site that they are sending out orders placed between 7/10 & 7/20 on 8/10. My order was placed on 7/9. Hopefully this is true. Explained delay as
"Major technical problems".

Completed an paypal transaction with this company 7/11/09 expecting to have some if not all plants/tadpoles etc here in 3 days or so...It is now 7/22/09. I have emailed them several times with no response. Their cs voice mail has been full for a week or more. I just started a dispute against them via paypal. Very disappointing...

I ordered plants and tadpoles on july 9, 2009. Told on the website I would be contacted on shipment. Never received email, credit card billed immediately on the 9th of July. I sent them email, no response. I tried calling the number they showed on website and it comes back disconnected.

Bought 3 water lillies got conformation after paying with paypal and that's it no phone don't return email got scamed would stay away.

I found the Pond Plants Direct website while browsing for pond plants and thought I'd give them a try because they said that their plants are shipped to a customer "live" and ready to place in a pond. I saw some plants that I wanted for my patio pond, so I ordered two on March 16th, 2009. According to them, shipping time is only 3 days because of where I live. They accepted my order, my credit card and emailed me a "tracking info" link, which goes nowhere. I have not heard from them, nor have they replied to my email. It is inconvenient that that don't have a phone number, either. I'm still waiting for my plants and wonder if I've been scammed.

I ordered from PPD late last spring (2008). I was frustrated because I remember checking on the order status after about a week, and it said it was still being processed and then later that same day, my order arrived! So the shipping was quick, but it was really irritating that the status was not updated at all.
Secondly, the plants I received were very small, juvenile plants. It was like they only sent me one or two stems of each plant. Maybe that is the way it is when you order online, but after spending over $55 on plants and seeing what little I got, I am really nervous about buying online again. The marsh marigold and water mint both died, and I'm pretty sure I lost some others (it's been about 6 months since I got them so my memory is a little fuzzy about what else I bought). I'm not sure if this is because I didn't plant them correctly (even though I followed the enclosed planting directions), but I ended up losing quite a bit of what I bought.
I hate to leave negative feedback for anyone, but I can say for sure that I won't be buying from PPD again.

Well, we tried to order from them..... very disappointed. Got any email saying my order was placed, but on their check up page it never moved past processing. I tried countless emails to check up but they never replied, I could not call because their phones are listed "down till Spring 2009". If this place is closed for the winter, they don't list it on their site and it's very bad for customers. After 2 weeks I gave up and ordered from Dragonfly aquatics...

DO NOT order from this company. I ordered some plants several weeks ago, the order has not been processed, but I have been billed.

There is no phone number listed (a red flag, I should've heeded this warning), the contact link does not work on the web site.

I live only about 4 hours from the address listed, I could have driven to the company (If they even exist) quicker.

I have contacted the North Canton area Chamber of Commerce and the BBB, as well as Mastercard.

This company is a fraud, do not order from them unless you want to lose your money.

NOTE: They are affiliated with Lilyblooms, another North Canton company. I called Lilyblooms for some assistance but the man was very rude, would not give me any information, and basically said to me "tough luck buddy".