Gardening Express, Primrose and Plantsavers

[Thecazelets]

Has anyone actually received any plants from these 3 firms since lockdown? I foolishly placed orders with each of them in early April. Nothing at all received so far from GExpress or Plantsavers and my attempts to follow-up have been ignored. The only way to contact GE is to raise a 'ticket' online - no response so far, and Plantsavers similarly haven't responded to my query.

I did actually receive half my Primrose order after a month, with no reference to or acknowledgement of the (paid for!) missing items and the order date on the packing slip changed to 30 April (the order was made on 11 April). My follow up email querying the missing items has been ignored so far.

I realise these are tricky times, first world problems and it's churlish to complain when people are doing their best - but I've had no such problems ordering from elsewhere online, and I am down to the tune of £150 between the 3 of them as they all took payment at point of order.

I'd be interested (and maybe comforted if I'm not the only plantless one!) to find out how others have got on.

I placed order 21 april, website stated 10 day delivery due to cv19. Plants never arrived. Raised two support tickets and emailed and no response.
Have today raised case with bank for full refund...

Good luck! I have finally had my refund from Gardening Express. Two months of hassle - never again.

Still no response to any of my emails from Primrose, who owe me about £45 and have ignored all my contacts so far, so I will have to try and email them yet again. Sigh. Feels like this is going to be a weekly job for the rest of my life...

I ordered from Gardening express 25th April. My tickets have been ignored, money taken straight away then order set to processing so couldn't cancel. Went to the nursery team a week ago but still no dispatch notice.

I spent £96, on my credit card. If I'd have thought about it at the time I'd have spent another £4 to be over the £100 credit card limit.

I get they've been inundated with orders but at no point have the stopped taking orders to catch up. No communication specific to orders either. I think this will send them under.

I’ve been keeping an eye on this thread ( since posting re GExpress on the first couple of pages ) to see if you ever received your plants, Thecazelets.
All in all, think you did better with the refund - two of the three shrubs we eventually received have died already.
Lesson learned ! - as you say, never again.
Fingers crossed you get your money back from Primrose in due course.

Thank you Yiayoula - and how annoying that your shrubs died after all that! I'll keep updating re: Primrose...

Suriv - yes, it's so infuriating that there's no redress under £100. I hope you get your money back or some (healthy!) plants - in the last few days they did seem to be responding a bit more quickly to support tickets, so it's worth persevering.

I have bought loads of plants since lockdown- all of them from sellers on ebay. Everything has turned up fine and all of it is growing well. Maybe the smaller sellers can cope better than the massive companies?

Just a quick update, I 'raised a ticket' about a week ago and put 'credit card dispute' in the heading. I told them I wanted immediate delivery or a refund, and if they did not reply I'd be raising a dispute with my credit card company.

I got a standard holding email from 'Roger' the next day, which completely ignored the points I'd made about already waiting 8 weeks etc. I replied to that telling them it wasn't good enough, and reiterating that I was going to raise it as a CC dispute. Amazingly I then got notified that my order was with the nursery team, and the plants turned up on Friday (they were ordered on 23 April).

They are in reasonable condition, although not particularly well packed, and two of them were meant to be late spring flowering, so of course they are now out of season, but hopefully will settle for next year.

I won't be using them again though, the updates have been useless.

Thank goodness you got something out of them in the end whereiwantto be - but how stressful that you had to go to those lengths to get a response!

I might try going down the credit card dispute route with Primrose as they're still ignoring me.

Horsechestnut - yes, I think you're right.

@whereiwanttobe

Just a quick update, I 'raised a ticket' about a week ago and put 'credit card dispute' in the heading. I told them I wanted immediate delivery or a refund, and if they did not reply I'd be raising a dispute with my credit card company.

I got a standard holding email from 'Roger' the next day, which completely ignored the points I'd made about already waiting 8 weeks etc. I replied to that telling them it wasn't good enough, and reiterating that I was going to raise it as a CC dispute. Amazingly I then got notified that my order was with the nursery team, and the plants turned up on Friday (they were ordered on 23 April).

They are in reasonable condition, although not particularly well packed, and two of them were meant to be late spring flowering, so of course they are now out of season, but hopefully will settle for next year.

I won't be using them again though, the updates have been useless.

Mine has been with the nursery team for 12 days now.

Still no response to my ticket.

Just awful!

Hi all, I thought I would comment with my experience.

I ordered from Gardening Express on 26th April. I received no order and no communication and raised a ticket on the 19th May. My ticket was ignored, so I waited. I raised a new ticket yesterday and threatened to go to trading standards and requested my money back.

Shock! they responded with a pre-written message from their CEO (which I had already seen on their FB page). I responded asking for my money back and said I would go to trading standards. They have responded today saying that they are packing my order! I have responded asking for my money back again. Lets see what happens.

I am shocked with the appalling experience. I get these are unprecedented times, but the unprofessional silence by them is no way to run a business.

On the flip side, I ordered from Primrose on the 25th April and received my plants within 3 weeks.

This has definitely put me off ordering online again.

Me too - good luck!

Still radio silence from Primrose despite numerous contact attempts. I have actually given up and opened a payment dispute with my credit card company to see if I can recover the money that way.

@Sofabunnyuk

Hi all, I thought I would comment with my experience.

I ordered from Gardening Express on 26th April. I received no order and no communication and raised a ticket on the 19th May. My ticket was ignored, so I waited. I raised a new ticket yesterday and threatened to go to trading standards and requested my money back.

Shock! they responded with a pre-written message from their CEO (which I had already seen on their FB page). I responded asking for my money back and said I would go to trading standards. They have responded today saying that they are packing my order! I have responded asking for my money back again. Lets see what happens.

I am shocked with the appalling experience. I get these are unprecedented times, but the unprofessional silence by them is no way to run a business.

On the flip side, I ordered from Primrose on the 25th April and received my plants within 3 weeks.

This has definitely put me off ordering online again.

Mine has been in packing for two weeks. I finally got a response from the email address that's appeared on their website but it was a relatively generic response saying they can't cancel after the '24 hour period'. I assume this is from order, so have replied stating I have been waiting 2 months and therefore unless they arrive tomorrow I'll be raising a section 75 under fraud.

Await updates!

Not plants but we did buy three panels and an arch in Hazelfrom Primrose . It arrived a couple of weeks later. Disappointed to see that Primrose has proved so unreliable.

I thought I'd turned a bit of a corner on Friday as I finally had an email from Primrose apologising and saying they would refund me.

However I've just checked my credit card account and no such refund has been applied or is pending.

To be fair the email does say refunds take up to 8 working days to complete so I'll give them another week, bringing it to a nearly 3 month saga.

Strange that refunds are such a long process when they were so quick to take my money back in April...

In a small update, I have had my Primrose refund at last, so the saga is finally over for me!

Good luck to anyone still waiting!

Hi all, an update from me too. I received my order yesterday. All it took was 2 months, 2 tickets and a threat!

Good luck everyone

Update from me. My gardening express finally arrived. Smaller plants ok but the expensive ones (£30 Acer and 2 flamingo trees) were a very sad sight. The few leaves the Acer has have been munch led by something. I'm nurturing them now hoping they'll survive. I've lodged a complaint but not holding much hope!

Oh no - good luck!

My garden express plants finally arrived, two clematis (1 ok other half dead) and 3 erysimum of which only 1 looks like it will survive....

I got refunded by bank but if GE dispute it I will send them photos of the state of the plants!!!!

Never again!!!!

Sarah Raven on the other hand: delivery in a week and beautiful healthy looking plants

Wow - nearly 3 months after you ordered!