"What happened to this great American company? Need customer service? Call and you will get foreigners who you cannot understand. Ordered blueberry plants . . half died the first year and the survivors are stunted. Ordered beet seed this spring . . took 2 weeks to get the seed . . . their billing said beets but they sent us sweet corn. Shame on the new CEO and management of this old stand-by company for what you have done. Shame on you. Gave them one star because there was nothing lower. "
"Louse customer service! Poor communication! No tracking! Never again!"
"I bought a Currant Pink Champagne about two months ago and it still has not been shipped. Not only is the wait long however the customer service has to be one of the worst ever. I think Gurney's hires a third party to do all their customer service interactions and these individuals whether by phone or chat, WILL hang up on you. They provide zero help besides saying to wait longer. "
"I ordered three tomato plants and they came three weeks ago in terrible shape. They were packed in a box with no holes and not much protection, and came very very dry, with most of the leaves yellow, and in such tiny pots that the roots were cramped, in spite of the fact that the plants were tiny. I called and the person I spoke with said they'd send another order, so I thought, OK, the next ones will be better. Well, they came today and they looked the same, yellow leaves, thin stems, but the soil was a little damp. I'm afraid to put them in the garden because they look diseased. Once I cut off the yellow leaves, there's not much else. I ordered tomato plants from another company, the plants came yesterday looking so big and healthy, all green, soil still wet, and with excellent protection. I'll never order again from Gurney's."
"We bought a place in the mountains of Colorado last Dec. with a small garden area. We are long time customers 0f Gurney's Seed and Nursery Co. and have had about average luck with their products. In their Spring catalog I saw the new Sweet Baby Girl Tomato's and after checking the growth time and zone it looked like we could try them here. At this elevation we have a shorter growth time limit. Since ordering 3 plants the expected ship date has been moved 7 times and it looks like it may be mid summer before we even get the plants. I have been in retail sales since 1970 and believe once a customer has paid for merchandise it is their merchandise, such as in a lay-a-way program. That merchandise cannot be put back in inventory and sold to someone else. Gurneys has taken plants that I paid for 2/9/2015 and sold them to someone that ordered after I did because they live in a warmer climate. To me that is not only bad business, but it is theft. I will not do business with Gurneys again and suggest that unless you live in one of the warmest climates you do the same. I dislike dishonest companies and am really disappointed in Gurneys. Their main competitor has the same plants available now but it will be too late to plant now. Really bad business practice Gurney's! I contacted a customer service agent who barely spoke English, in who knows what country, who had a book to tell him what to say but who could have cared less about my problems. I thought Gurneys was an American Company, wrong again."
"PLEASE.....ALL AMERICANS.....NEVER BUY FROM GURNEY'S. THEY ARE USING OVERSEAS WORKERS FOR THEIR OVERFLOW CALL CENTER!!!! INDIA TO BE EXACT!!! WE NEED OUR MONEY TO PAY OUR AMERICANS. REFUSE TO DO BUSINESS WITH THEM OR ANY COMPANY THAT WILL NOT PAY AMERICANS. OUR UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS SKY HIGH BECAUSE OF COMPANIES LIKE THIS!!!! BOYCOTT GURNEY'S SEED AND NURSERY....PLEASE PASS IT ON!!!!"
"I am really disappointed with this company. I have been a customer for a few years now, but what happened to my order this year has changed my opinion of them completely. When I received my confirmation e-mail, all things looked correct... correct billing, correct shipping, etc. All things looked good, as I kept getting updates for order processing and shipment notifications as my zone came up for shipping.
I noticed my strawberries were taking an exceptionally long time to ship, so I checked the tracking info, only to find that 12 days ago, they had been returned by my local Post Office (I had it shipped to my house address and NOT my PO) sent it back because of an incorrect address. I e-mailed Gurney's as soon as I noticed this, and heard nothing back, so I decided to call them. The woman whom I spoke with was pleasant enough, and even accepted fault on behalf of Gurney's. I don't know how, with today's technology, and the fact that my confirmation e-mails had the correct shipping address, they messed this up... But she was able to determine that my stuff went to a completely different town and zipcode.
Was hoping for an easy fix, but noooooo. Everything in that shipment was now out of stock. In fact, there was only ONE type of strawberry plant left on their whole site. I asked for my money back, which she assured would happen in 3-5 days. I still can't help but wonder when they were going to fix this, since 12 days seems like more than enough time for them to receive the returned items, and somehow reach out to me or refund my money.
And wait, there's more... My order was two shipments, and the second one has yet to go out. Of course this also has the incorrect address on it, but she claims she can't stop it in this part of the process to correct it, and all three of the items are also out of stock. So basically I have to wait for it to ship to the address they made up out of thin air, get returned, and THEN I can get my refund. At this time of year, EVERY site is out of the stuff I initially ordered in March, so there goes my entire fruit portion of my garden.
This mistake cost me a lot, and is so baffling as to how it even happened... I could NEVER recommend this company to anyone, let alone ever give them my business again."
"I am in the middle of the ordering "process" with this company. I am extremely frustrated at this point. This was my first time (and possibly last) using this company. I placed my order on Feb. 16. (a rather large order). The seeds shipped somewhat quickly(1st round of shipping). We got all those planted and so far about 1/4 of the seeds that were planted didn't do well. I had gotten an email a couple of weeks after saying that there were some apple trees for sale thought I would take advantage of it, didn't say there were restrictions on how many you could get so I wanted 5. Well they came back saying they were "out of stock" and only going to ship 1... even though they took my money for all 5. I got a refund, it seemed to be a few dollars short so I called customer service and it's outsourced... they didn't understand what I was trying to tell them so I decided it wasn't worth the trouble and figured they could have the couple extra bucks.. Then we received the onions, potatoes, and some of the berries (2nd round of shipping). Come to find out our peach tree was "out of stock". So I called customer service.. again. She told me that I could order a different tree and use the same code and get the same price, but that they wouldn't be able to do an exchange or anything along those lines. I have not received the credit back on the tree because the whole order isn't shipped and I tried to place a new order with the original code like I was told and it was expired. Luckily, they had sent me an email with a different code (promo email) so I decided to use that but it ended up still costing more. Ok, fine. Currently, I have another shipment coming (3rd round) and the black berries are "out of stock", I'm probably not going to get a refund on those or the still pending refund for the peach tree until the order has finally shipped... which they still have 1 thing left sitting on hold waiting to be shipped and it's 2 months of back and forth. I'm going to call them today about the blackberries out of stock and try to figure out what's going on.. I'll update as the process continues."
"I place at least one order with gurneys every year since we moved into our home four years ago and got a catalog from them. We've always had good luck with them, things always ship during the shipping frame they give. I've never had anything from them not grow yet. Our spring order this year included 3 maximillion sunflowers & 2 butterfly plants- arrived about a month ago and they are thriving so far :) We still have perrinials in our flower beds from previous year orders that have bloomed again and look beautiful. They've been a good company to use for us."
"Completely incompetent. I placed two separate orders on the same day (same item, but I later decided I wanted more of what I ordered). A week goes by when I decide to check on the status of my order since I hadn't yet received a shipment notification. One of my orders was canceled. I called to inquire and was told they had assumed I placed a duplicate order and took it upon themselves to just cancel one of them. They couldn't call to verify? Idiots. I asked why the order still valid has not yet shipped. I was told word for word, "Sir we have other customers and it's a first come first order fill basis on how we ship." Really? It takes you a week to fulfill an order for 2 small pea fences?! Wow. Now almost 2 weeks later I call again to find out yet again where my order is. I'm told the pea fences are on back order and have been for quite some time. Would have been nice if the first rep. told me that - or better yet if their website didn't say they WERE in stock when I ordered them. I told the rep. I'd like to cancel both of my orders; I was told it was "too late to cancel." Oh really? You haven't shipped my order yet; the items are on back order and you're telling me I can't cancel my order? B.S.! They eventually wound up canceling my order for me once I raised hell and made my case that their logic of "it's too late to cancel" made absolutely no sense.
Stay away - worthless customer service and you'd be lucky if you can even get your product shipped to you; IF THEY EVEN REALLY HAVE IT!"
"Total waste of my time. Item I ordered showed (and still shows) as in stock. My CC was charged right away after placing my order. After 7 days and no shipping notice I called customer service who informed me that the item was in fact OOS but would ship expedited within 1 week. 7 days later and still no shipping notice so another call to customer service. Was now told item was not expected back in stock for another 4 weeks. Cancelled my order and will never shop with Gurneys again."
"We ordered plants and seeds months ago and the plants are slowly coming in one at a time. The look horrible and much smaller than what i actually paid for. My husband order red worms to make a worm farm for his garden and all of the worms were dead and dry when we received them. they said they would ship new ones and never did. the lemon tree i just got the leaves we all dead. we are still waiting on our sunflowers that were ordered on feb.2. I will never do business with this company again. "
"We have been Gurneys customers for over 10 years, I always thought they were a decent company and I felt safe that I always had the lifelong guarantee to make up for the bad things I received from them. It is about a 50/50 chance on what you get surviving. We never had luck with the seeds, they very rarely worked out. But nonetheless we placed our order this year for seeds and plants, we received the seeds and were waiting patiently for the plants to arrive to signal the arrival of spring.
You can imagine my shock when I received a letter from Gurneys informing me that we were no longer welcome to order anything ever again from them. It said "in review of our account, we have found that a majority of your purchases have been reshipped, refunded, or issued replacement certificates against. We will be cancelling all outstanding orders and refund your money in 4 to 6 weeks"
I was dumbfounded, we have had items replaced when they died. But nowhere near the majority, and it made us sound like thieves. And to never sell to us again, that hurt since I grew up awaiting the Gurneys Catalog every spring.
I have had items replaced, no refunds, and had replacement certificates sent. I have had plants die that I did not request refunds on that I considered not worth the trouble, pampas grass, lavender, among other items.
Since I am no longer a customer I would recommend that you stay away from Gurneys, or at least not use their guarantee, as you too could be flagged as an someone "they are unable to successfully satisfy""
"Prices are ok and live plants are packaged well and shipped quickly. Unfortunately, I've run into problems with almost every order I've placed and the company is totally unresponsive in resolving them. And by "totally unresponsive" I really mean totally unresponsive in that further inquires are ignored.
The problem usually came down to missing plants, usually a $2.99 one here or there, but I gave up after more expensive plants weren't shipped and I ended up with some trees that were the wrong species."