Hi All,

I have had an unpleasant experience with T&M. I would like to know do
you have similar experience? If you were I, would you accept the
VERBAL apology or I was right to request for some other compensation?

The following was the message I had posted in their guest book with the
event.

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I have an very unpleasant experience with your website recently. I
would post the event first before I have my suggested improvements:

On 23rd March, I received your company's newsletter on the offer of
Busy Lizzi. The offer was rather attractive as my mother-in-law would
like some for the flower beds in her front-garden.

Although I would be away from the UK between 30th March and 22nd April
and there was no more room on capillary mats for any more seed trays at
home, since the delivery period would be within April, I still thought
it would be fine to order it as long as I inform your company to
deliver it after 22nd April.

I ordered the plug plants online on late Saturday afternoon. From your
website, I was told that for special arrangement about delivery date, I
could EITHER email or call your company. So once I got the email of
confirmation with the order reference, I sent out an email (I copied
and pasted the email address from your website) within 5 minutes to
mention about the delivery and stated that if there was any problem,
please sent me an email.

However, when I was away from the UK, I was told by my husband via IDD
that the plug plants had arrived on 1st April. My husband is not a
gardener, but he still transplanted those plug plants into modules. I
had suggested him to create some more water tanks with full-sized seed
tray and capillary mats. However, he had no time to do it before
flying out to join me. As we had arranged a neighbour to water the
indoor plants twice a week, he swap the seed trays of Busy Lizzi with
an seed module tray (a 6 X 10 core modules) where I had transplanted
various seedlings (all of them had at least a pair of true leaves when
I transplanted them) which I had sown from January:
3 Busy Lizzi (Double Carousel Mixed F1 Hybrid)
6 Marigold (Marionette mixed)
13 Nemesia (Shooting Stars)
16 Petunia (Super Cascade Improved F1 Hybrid)
7 Summer savory
3 Strawberry (Sarian F1 Hybrid)
4 Tagetes (Golden Gem)
Of course, when I arrived back home, the above seedlings had ALL DIED!

I called your company this morning (24th April), but needed to wait for
nearly 7 minutes before I got hold of someone. I was told that there
were so many emails to that email address so it was impossible to
reply. The company needed to deliver the plug plants otherwise they
would die. However, I was asked how many Busy Lizzi had died. But
most people would understand that It was senseless to get another lot
of 35 plug plants of Busy Lizzi. (I would have order another lot if I
needed so many.)
Since your colleague seemed has not the authority to decide what to do
except saying sorry, I asked to talk to someone more senior. I had
waited another 3 minutes before I was asked to left my telephone number
and convenient time to ring.

I got the phone call before the convenient time. That time I was told
that the company had not received my email concerning about the date of
delivery. I used Yahoo and I always got notification if there is a
failure of delivery email. I was told that I should call your company
when I had not got any reply. (I told her that I do not trust the
services of the department anymore so I would not expect to order any
stuff from the department). I was told that though I lost so many
seedling even though I bought the seeds from your company, she would
not be able to do anything about it as it is the business of another
department (of course, no one would like to tell the other department
about their own faults). I was told that since my Busy Lizzi survived,
I would not get any compensation even though I had suggested some
petunia. So I told your colleague that I would not accept the VERBAL
apology and would post the whole issue to any newsgroup about
horticulture. She agreed that I had the rights and the company would
not be legal to sue me.

Suggested improvements:
1. Please make it clear about the date of delivery on your website. If
I knew that the plants would be delivered in EARLY April, I would not
order it.
2. Your colleague said I should call the department instead of sending
an email. So please state it clear in your website.
3. There was a remark on the form of online order. However, it stated
any request about holiday delivery should be contacted via EITHER email
or telephone. It would be much better if customers could add the
request in the remark.
4. It should be stated in your website that if there was no respond to
the email within X office days, the sender should contact your company
again.

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With regards,
CK