PLEASE NOTE: The seller's ID on eBay is the-country-garden with hyphens in the name, not underscores (the_country_garden). This seller has been doing this for several years. She advertises named hybrids and shows beautiful pictures in her listings. These pictures are copied from Shreiner's, Cooleys, Mid-America, and other iris growers websites and catalogs. You purchase and she ships them fast and they are nicely labeled and packaged. Buyers leave her good feedback, based on these services. Then the irises bloom a year or 2 after purchase and SCAM, you have a bunch of all purple old form irises. It is now too late to leave negative feedback and you have no recourse to recover your money. EBay is no help at all. But this year, some of us have contacted each other and have spent the last month collecting names of buyers who have been scammed. We have receipts of payments through PayPal and USPS tracking numbers. Intentionally selling fraudulent items across state lines is a Federal offense. So is shipping fraudulent items using the United States Post Office. We have turned all of our information over to the proper authorities. This sellers listings were pulled off eBay on May 23, 2010. Her feedback became PRIVATE on May 26, 2010. She knows that we are on to her and is trying to cover her tracks. We have printed out some of her listings, so there is evidence of using bogus photos. Her contact information that she has with eBay is also bogus. California Agriculture is on to her for shipping irises from Colorado to California without being licensed and inspected. This seller may have sold their last iris on eBay. We will be vigilant in watching for her with another eBay ID in the future. If authorities slap her with a "Cease & Desist" order and she is caught selling again, it's hard time in jail. She has used four different eBay ID names over the past few years. If there are any of you out there that have purchased from the-country-garden, the-iris-cottage, everything4iris, or wetnwild1111, (those are her four ID's) at any time, and would like to help us, please contact me. The more names we have will show authorities the scope of this fraud.

You girls have said it all. This is a horrible scam, profit in the range of grand theft after all these years. The lesson here is to go outside eBay if you think you've been scammed. Report to the iCe.com, to the dept. of agriculture in any state to see if the seller is truly a nursery, report mail fraud, notify the IRS because no one pays taxes on stolen money, report to your local sheriff. If nothing works contact your state representative to help you see a deputy attorney general with your case. Round up all your facts and figures and get ready to rumble.

Ebay is closing off the ability to contact each other's feedback purchasers as of June. This was the last moment for us to find each other and stop this fraud. Thank God for that. There are also enhanced charges when one defrauds those over 60. It's elder abuse. I wonder how much of that has gone on.

This vendor did not think she could be touched because it was always to late for us to leave feedback when we found our fraud one year later. She never reckoned that any of us could think outside the box. FORGET eBAY if you think you're defrauded. No help there. Go straight to authorities and tell them you suspect an internet scam and mail fraud. It takes numbers sometimes, but otherwise it takes persistance. Someone has to stop and take the time to run it all down. I hope its YOU.

Awesome news! I got an email from an agent of the California Dept. of Ag. It would be so wonderful to see this woman taken down. My information is being forwarded to the Georgia Dept. of Ag. as well.