I was absolutely appalled at how my mother and I were treated today. My mother, who is a disabled senior, spent $200.00 on two specialty trees. Trees that are easy to care for, deer, drought, pest resistant and so on. When she purchased the trees, there was no statement made as to them not being refundable should there be a problem with them. Nothing on the receipt that says final sale. She was also rushed by a staff member who claimed she had to pick up her son and when she thought the gentleman who accompanied her out to her car was coming to help her, he instead was waiting to take the cart back so my daughter and I had to load these trees ourselves.
From the time these trees were replanted they started losing leaves and my mother decided to wait to see if things would improve. When they finally got to the point where one was completely bare and the other was following suit, the landscaper suggested she return them. So we dug them up, loaded them into the car again and planned on returning such an expensive purchase, not expecting to be treated the way we were.
We started with one woman telling us the trees were fine, still alive and that the deer had eaten them. We had to tell her they were a deer resistant plant and there was no evidence of deer eating them. So then she said my mother didn't water them enough. My mother has been gardening over 50 years and she watered them. So then the woman said she must have watered them too much. That they weren't refunding the money because when it left their nursery, they were fine so it had to be something my mother did.
When I stepped in, because of the ridiculousness of what this woman was saying, she called now a third woman who again said she wasn't refunding anything. That there was nothing wrong with the trees because the ones they had on sight looked great and so it must have been something my mother did because they couldn't possibly have had anything wrong coming from their stock.
I was absolutely livid at this time, as was my mother. The woman continued to say she wasn't allowed to give us a refund or she would be fired and she had a kid to feed. The other woman said she'd be fired if she did it and that the owner wasn't going to be in until Monday, but that he probably won't refund them either. Then they said they wouldn't refund anything because the trees weren't returned EXACTLY as they had left. I had to dig them up to bring them for my mom and did them a favour by not bringing a bunch of dirt with them either, so they then said that because they were not in the original pots they wouldn't take them back. I'm sure if we had brought them in in the original pots they would've said we didn't transplant them and that's why they looked this way. So I offered to run back to my mom's, just down the road, put them back in the containers (luckily my mother kept them) and then bring them back, if that's all that was needed. Then the woman said no again! No refund because they didn't look the same as when they left. Both my mom and I said that was why we were returning them!!
It seemed as though none of these women knew what the hell they were talking about and clearly they don't know anything about these trees. So much so they felt the need to essentially insult our intelligence and treat us as though we were trying to pull some kind of scam. I even said to the woman, since she claimed the trees were healthy and still alive, that she could take them back then and resell them. Her response? "I can't sell those! They look awful!". But are expected my mother to keep the costly trees.
So we stormed out of there, dumbfounded by how we had been treated and we will never give them our business again. My mother has spent a lot of money there over the years too. Luckily a few people shopping outside heard the confrontation and decided to leave without giving them their business either. So these women also cost their business a few potential sales by their outrageous behaviour. If you're going to work at a nursery you had better know your product. read more
