I am an old school grower, and first ordered seeds from the Seed Bank of Holland decades ago. I still recall the courage I had to muster to drop hard earned cash in to an envelope, and the faith I had to put in to the fact that I would eventually get my seeds. Lo and behold, a month or so later (it felt like years) some seeds did actually show up at my house, courtesy of the United States Post Office and I grew them much to my satisfaction. It was at that point that I realized that if you trust people, that they will come through, and they have a lot more to gain in the long run by actually sending me the seeds rather than just taking my money and not sending anything, because I placed several more orders over the years with Nevil, all without a hitch. I have since sent a lot of cash through the mail, as presents for peopleās birthdays, payment for concert tickets, and many other transactions (both illicit and otherwise), and never once had an issue with the person on the other end not receiving the money, or me receiving the goods I paid for in return. I stopped paying for tracking, etc. for that reason whenever sending cash, and also felt that it shows a certain amount of trust to send someone cash with no tracking, and if you are expecting the trust to be returned, then you get what you give. Also, the money spent on tracking always seemed like a waste of money, better spent on other things, since I trusted the system.
However, recently I made several purchases through a well-known and highly regarded seed bank in the USA, having done business with them before, and having heard nothing but good things about them from friends and the community. I placed a few orders within a few weeks, and some of the packages crossed in the mail (sending out payment for a 2nd order without receiving my first order) and I didnāt even think twice about doing that, having had several positive transactions with them before. One of the orders I placed quite awhile ago supposedly still hasnāt been received by the seed bank, however payments I have made since then have arrived safely. I have never had an issue receiving the seeds from them, and up until now I never had an issue with them receiving the money. This leads me to believe one of two things, either the letter containing the blank money order was lost or stolen in the mail system (which is highly unlikely, I have never had any mail actually lost anywhere, it always eventually shows up), or the seed bank received the money and for whatever reason they didnāt record my payment (perhaps an error in their system, or a human mistake of some sort). At this point I am assuming the issue was with the seed bank and not the postal system, and am very disappointed in the seed bank and donāt plan on doing any more business with them, even though it was my fault that I didnāt have the payment tracked, and thatās why I am not calling them out in this thread. Perhaps times have changed in ways that I am unaware, but lesson learned by this old hippie and now whenever I send a blank money order or cash through the mail I will be tracking it. I donāt like the implication of having to track money I am sending to someone, since I would prefer a relationship with a certain level of trust built in, but as I said, perhaps things have changed in ways I am unaware of.
