FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Been looking for more seeds but it seems like right now they're just not very common (especially for the ones I'm looking for), so I've been checking out eBay for more variety (at the cost of potentially getting scammed)

I've seen a lot of this seller's seeds around and a lot of them I would really love to grow. But before I do purchase from them, I would like to know if anyone has interacted with this seller before, or knows them on the forum? I can't seem to find any info/real reviews on the person frankly so I can't really tell how trustworthy they are.
Most of all, I would like to make sure the seeds will be viable if I get them.

What do you think? http://m.ebay.com/sch/i.html?sid=*idana ... efine=true

I'm a bit suspicious because even though they use the proper scientific names, apparently everything they're selling is "VERY RARE" (I think I've seen every seller- reliable or not- do whatever they can to use their ads as clickbait for buyers at least once before, and only the Chinese scammers put in words like 'bonsai enchantress annual plant giant clip seeds' and not the proper names but a LOT of them use caps and fake pics to make it stand out, so I'm not sure)

Try joining some of the Facebook CP groups. Some allow buying and selling. Some of the members of these groups have their own eBay stores. Watching their posts, you'll soon learn who's growing what.

Just my two cents worth.

Good growing,
Mike

I do not believe the eBay sellers from Israel are reliable. Usually people who have huge stocks of rare seeds are not, especially when they sell in such small quantities.

Reliable eBay sellers?

I would inherently say no just based on how many people I've seen get ripped off. This seller does have a high positive feedback rating and of their 4 negatives in the past 12 months, 3 are not complaining about fake seeds and 1 I can't read. But I wonder how many people leave feedback before their seeds grow old enough to identify if it really is the correct plant?

eBay encourages people to leave feedback as soon as they receive their item. Because of this and the rarity of the seeds they sell (supposedly, who knows if the IDs are accurate) people tend to assume they did something wrong if the seeds don't germinate and just leave their positive feedback.

You're in Canada right? Sadly I would not recommend either of the 2 well know sellers there. What seeds are you looking for?

xr280xr wrote:

Reliable eBay sellers?

I would inherently say no just based on how many people I've seen get ripped off. This seller does have a high positive feedback rating and of their 4 negatives in the past 12 months, 3 are not complaining about fake seeds and 1 I can't read. But I wonder how many people leave feedback before their seeds grow old enough to identify if it really is the correct plant?

I translated the one review lol. It was some garbled comment saying something about getting across the border with no guidance on the road, and that there was no germination.
Actually here it is:
"Seed 3 where. On the road, no guidance and declaration, thus to the customs, no germination"

Like what??

Anyways, I know it can be very hard to find anyone remotely trustworthy on eBay, but from my experience I would say just to avoid any Asian countries altogether and you've already filtered out more than 70% of the scammers, and that sellers from the Czech Republic for whatever reason seem pretty good, Canadian sellers are the rarest but best, and USA is pretty good too.

That one I'm not sure only because they have a weirdly huge variety of seeds, making me question how it'd be possible to have so many different plants, and nearly all the pictures are taken off the internet and look like clickbait. Also, a lot of the good reviews look fake. I think they're either a relatively new seller or haven't been bought from enough for many reviews to be available. I've had good experiences with European sellers, but I'm not sure where Israel is on the 'trustworthy' scale.

I just ran across a listing from that Israeli seller for "lowland" lowii seeds. That's a big red flag. These scam seed sellers never seem to be able to resist posting at least one obviously fake listing (usually it's something like rainbow roses.)

On a side note, don't assume that sellers in Europe, Canada, and the US are legitimate. There's one guy from Spain who's been selling expired Nepenthes seeds (frequently labeled as crosses between two extremely rare species) for years, and lately he's been falsely listing them as being located in the United States. There are domestic scammers too.

Smooter80 wrote:You're in Canada right? Sadly I would not recommend either of the 2 well know sellers there. What seeds are you looking for?

Yes. Is one of them Rare Exotic Seeds? I was considering buying from them before I did my final seller reliability research. Yeesh. My first seeds I got from a lucky seller in Saskatchewan, but sadly right after they just kind of disappeared (they said eBay deleted their ads because they were over a month old or something), and they haven't posted anything since.

Since it's been hard to find sellers I haven't bothered to be picky looking for very specific ones, mainly I want large/unusual nepenthes, and I would really like to get either Drosera Gigantea, gemmae/pygmy Drosera, or Drosera with spiralling leaves like D. Platypoda and D. Stolonifera.
I got (sort of by accident because I didn't realize I could purchase it through eBay/PayPal with so little steps) two Nep seeds yesterday, so now I'll have 3 spots left, but I may end up getting more since one spot is some leftover old seeds and a ton of my VFT seeds are going mouldy for some reason.

nimbulan wrote:I just ran across a listing from that Israeli seller for "lowland" lowii seeds. That's a big red flag. These scam seed sellers never seem to be able to resist posting at least one obviously fake listing (usually it's something like rainbow roses.)

On a side note, don't assume that sellers in Europe, Canada, and the US are legitimate. There's one guy from Spain who's been selling expired Nepenthes seeds (frequently labeled as crosses between two extremely rare species) for years, and lately he's been falsely listing them as being located in the United States. There are domestic scammers too.

Lol yeah.
Oh I see, good to know. Thank you for taking a look. I think I'll count that seller out, though I couldn't find much info on them, they're just looking sketchier and sketchier every minute. They had good info on the plants and the proper names, but there were a few red flags in the first place and with that I'll count them out. Sigh : P

No I wouldn't assume, I try to look up everything I can on the seller before buying from them, but generally they are at least way more trustworthy than Chinese sellers. Unfortunately no matter who the seller, unless they're fresh and from this forum you can never for sure predict the viability of any seed.
I've heard of people like that, but geez wow. I wish eBay had a less scum-filled selling system. I suppose that's true, huh. Always better to read the bad reviews before anything else. But even then, 100% positive feedback still doesn't mean they're 100% trustworthy. It's so hard to tell unless enough people have bought from them to tell you.

I've gotten good plants from brokenfinger and spouse2006

HeliamphoraWalnut wrote:I've gotten good plants from brokenfinger and spouse2006

I've heard of spouse but when I checked out their eBay they weren't selling anything
But I haven't seen the other one before, thanks I'll check them out.
Edit: I can't seem to find anyone by the name of that on eBay. Do you have the link?

The correct name is sprouse2006 but unfortunately that's not going to help Shelilla since this seller is located in the US.

nimbulan wrote:The correct name is sprouse2006 but unfortunately that's not going to help Shelilla since this seller is located in the US.

I entered a giveaway from him and received over 300 seeds, all were really nice and one pack was half black widow. It seems he can ship seeds to Canada (I live in Canada) but I would ask him because he may have just made an exception.

amriko wrote:

nimbulan wrote:The correct name is sprouse2006 but unfortunately that's not going to help Shelilla since this seller is located in the US.

I entered a giveaway from him and received over 300 seeds, all were really nice and one pack was half black widow. It seems he can ship seeds to Canada (I live in Canada) but I would ask him because he may have just made an exception.

Ah I wasn't aware that he sold seeds. I only see plant listings on his eBay account.