Bananas.org - TianZi, Nature Products: A Portrait of Incompetence

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TianZi: Nature Products

Well, my adventure with TianZi appears to be coming to a close. I have worked diligently and patiently for over a year to acquire healthy Musa itinerans var. xishuangbannensis corms from them without success. Dr. Margraf has been willing to allow his team in China to attempt the transaction, but through failures on their part and some they could not control, there has been little to show. They successfully delivered 4 tiny little corms that were in horrible condition last summer, but no amount of TLC would have saved them outside of a possible tissue culture experiment (I agreed not to do this in my initial requests with TianZi).

Here’s a basic chronology minus the 150+ emails:

1. Ordered corms April 14th 2008.
2. Wired money April 28th 2008 per TianZi instructions
3. First shipment is destroyed by U.S. Customs because they simply didn’t prepare phytosanitary certification.
4. Received corms on May 30th 2008 - 4 corms combined weighed less than 1 kilogram in total
5. All corms confirmed rotted away completely June 18th – informed TianZi
6. Requested new “larger” corms at my expense on June 28th
7. Ms. Sophia informs me that they will not sale plants until after Olympics is over because of tightened security – fair enough
8. After Olympics, I request a new shipment on August 21st
9. Ms. Sophia states that they no longer ship plant material
10. I kindly request they reconsider which Ms. Sophia agrees to on September 2nd
11. After some haggling about fresh material and another shut-down, I wire additional money on Oct. 6th
12. Dr. Margraf agrees that they have received the wire transfer on Oct. 25th.
13. After hearing nothing from my emails for two weeks, I finally copy every email address I can find on Nov. 12th
14. Ms. Sophia has left and never provided a tracking # for the inbound shipment. Subsequently, the package is delivered to the local idiot who destroys the package thinking it’s a bad turkey. This could have been easily avoided if I had the tracking # or some indication it was coming.
15. The new guy, Oak, attempts to pack and send a new package on Nov. 18th.
16. He attempts about one a week through November and December without success. Who knows how many he tried.
17. Two months later he asks me “What I should do now”.

After receiving the above question from Oak, knowing that their 10th or so attempt in the last two months was unsuccessful passing export requirements in China, and after a year of writing optimistic notes to their team hoping they’d figure it out, I wrote the following note in frustration:

“Oak, Minguo and Josef,

I'm not sure what I need to be asking from you guys. Ms. Sophia never indicated any problem with inspection on our previous attempts. I'm totally blind to the process and have no knowledge of what exactly is required; however, I would think you would contact the inspectors directly and ask them exactly why these corms have failed previously, as an attempt to resolve the problem. I'm confident that the inspectors aren't simply trying to prevent you from shipping plant material. Simply "packing more carefully" apparently is not the inspectors concern. Editor's Note: They stated on multiple occasions how they were gonna pack more carefully to avoid problems. No elaboration.

I now have a trail of over 150 emails, over a period of 1+ years, minus around 500 US dollars and nothing to show for it. I'm an extremely patient person when it comes to the difficulties you may encounter, but I'm beginning to feel that you have no intention of providing me with good viable material. This process would be comical if it weren't so sad. Maybe I should ask you guys what my expectations should be?

With Concern,

Dr. Margraf’s solution was to simply copy me on his email to Oak:

“Dear Oak,

kindly prepare for refunding and let me know how much it has to be. I can do this from here in Europe through PayPal. I believe also we lost enough on this. Please refuse plant orders for the future.

Best regards from Spain,

Josef”

It has been over a week since this last email. I have sent emails to Dr. Margraf in an attempt to explore other possibilities. I even suggested a possible group buy for the Bananas.org group to try and make the distribution of this species worthwhile (profitable). I have sent emails to both Oak and Minguo asking if perhaps Dr. Margraf was unavailable. Nothing. So sad.