Fast Growing Trees Nursery Empress Tree Nurseries Deceptive advertising, poor quality product , Internet

At the end of July 2010 I ordered two hybrid poplar trees from fast-growing-trees.com for $155 to try and avoid having to rent or borrow a truck to pick trees up at a local nursery. When they arrived, both trees were in poor condition.

Each tree was very thin, less than the diameter of my index finger on average from root to top. Both trees were poorly developed. They had few branches and each branch had few leaves (in total, less than two dozen leaves on both trees combined). The leaves they did have were brown, crispy, and full of holes from bugs chewing on them.

Both trees had also been grown without any support and simply allowed to bow over. One tree bowed over to the side so far that the top touched the ground.

I received the trees on a Friday and planted them, but, after further consideration, decided to complain to the company about the quality of the trees. They requested photos, which I sent, and then, rather than attempt to resolve the dispute and without even trying to refute the obviously unhealthy and underdeveloped trees, they simply said that they would not accept any returns because the trees were planted. In their responses to my BBB complaint they first tried to imply that I was complaining about "damaged" items, then, when I pointed out that nowhere in my complaint about their poor quality did I say they were damaged, they started referring to their "policies" on their website.

Terribly quality product and high prices. I wish I'd done my research on this group before I bought from them. Given the number of complaints against them at the BBB site (almost 80 as of 8/20/2010) and their poor rating with the BBB, as well as the complaints about them on sites around the web, I could have been warned away to a reputable nursery. I would encourage anyone else to steer clear of them or to at least read and seriously consider the parade of complaints about their lousy products before ordering from them.