I can't think of a better way to spend nine million dollars...

I would think they owe part of their demise to Garden watchdog and word of mouth on Garden web or similar sites. I think they would have had more orders (and complaints) if they went unnoticed by these helpful sites.

I think I will call them and see if they can ship me a replacement tree before the Fall season. It would be a pain to try and keep alive planting it in our hot summer but at least I would get a replacement.

Governmental agents have leaked a report of a widespread, ongoing investigation of Paradise Palm Co. Nursery and Willis Orchard Nursery, and that the owner of Willis Orchards has panicked to rush to sell out his company and to flee the United States. This result of this online information has been published at (www.buybusiness.com/Businesses/13803/Multi-Million-Dollar-Mail-Order-Nursery-for-Sale-Top-Nationally-Recognized-Company)

Authorities claim that Paradise Palm Co. was formally a website operated under the Internet address, www.paradisepalmco.com owned by Jason Willis, who also owns www.willisorchards.com, and the closed down company, Paradise Palm Co. has been forced off the INTERNET due to illegal activities. Rumors fly, that the U.S.D.A, recently fined Willis Orchard Co. for illegally shipping infected citrus into Texas and other States. Jason Willis was forced to destroy all his on site diseased citrus trees and then to "Cease and Desist" the selling of citrus on the www.willisorchards.com website.

A garden watchdog website, is reporting that Willis Orchard Nursery has compiled more negative complaints that positives, and the B.B.B. after three years is still showing an 'F' rating for www.willisorchards.com, a rating that is so bad. that you cannot even bring up the name Willis Orchards unless you type in the now defunct company, Paradise Palm Co in Moultrie, Georgia.

It is unclear. whether or not, the greatly indebted and empty pockets of former suppliers of Willis Orchards will seek a Court intervention to block the sale of Willis Orchards, before the owner, Jason Willis, has a chance to flee the United States and pursue his other interests in a foreign county.

Website investigators have advised present and past customers of Willis Orchards and Paradise Palm Co. to complain to the following agencies, if they have any complaints against the Willis Orchards complex, or if the customers are owed free replacements resulting from dead or infected plants.

Tommy Irvin Georgia State Agriculture Commissioner:
Email- tommy.irvin@agr.georgia.gov
Phone- 1-800-282-5852

Georgia Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs:
Office of the Attorney General of Georgia
Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General
40 Capitol Square, SW
Atlanta, GA 30334
Call 404-651-8600 or Toll Free 1-800-869-1123
Website: http://consumer.georgia.gov/00/channel_title/0,2094,5426814_39102589,00.html

Georgia BBB:
500 12th Street
Columbus GA 31901
Phone- (706)324-0712
Email- info@columbus-ga.bbb.org
Website- http://columbusga.bbb.org

For protection you can file charge backs with your credit card company also.

I think most of us would have known better than to order from Willis in the first place, given their negative ratings on Garden Watchdog (as Mr.Ed said). But, it's kind of weird how all these new people are signing up just to post these messages here on Gardenweb in multiple forums. Something seems a little fishy. I think there may be more to the story than meets the eye, and there may be more to the motives of these new forum participants than they claim.

Yea I saw the guy here on garden web saying he was going to contact the feds because Willis Sent him a Citrus tree.

Never heard of any trees being sent that were infected. Just that someone ordered and received a tree and was calling the authorities.

I am Jason Willis and wanted to address the comments of fireant156 (aka. Pat Malcolm owner tytyga.com - this is my opinion and a logical assumption given past deeds, of this sort and worse, to me since opening my company). I swear that the following statements are the truth, the whole truth, so help me God. JW.
(1) There have never been any disciplinary actions taken against me personally, Willis Orchard Co., or Paradise Palm Co. Not now nor anytime, ever. This is completely made-up by the author to slander, discredit, and harm my business via the trust given me by my customers.
(2) My company has never been engaged in smuggling citrus trees into restricted states. We have never engaged in shipping diseased or dead trees to anyone. We stopped offering citrus trees due to the relatively new Ga. Dept. of Ag. regulation that prohibits the shipment of citrus trees from Ga. nurseries to customers outside the state of Georgia. Since we are solely a mail-order company and +95% of our citrus tree customers were outside the state, we dropped the citrus items from our website. Citrus is just too costly to stock a full inventory and to take care of, for only a few sells a month.
(3) The author states "result of this online information has been published at (www.buybusiness.com....)". Yet, this site says none of these ridiculous accusations of investigations or fleeing from the law to foreign country, etc.. However, I did place my company on this site for sale several months ago...primarily out of curiosity. I had received a phone call from a large conglomerate from N.Y. that was inquiring about my company for some client company of theirs out of Israel. At least, that's what they told me. So it sparked my interest. (I guess, from a business standpoint, any tangible item is for sale...at the right price. Wouldn't you agree?) Anyway, the buybusiness site has question field you must fill out. Why Sale? So, I put 'to pursue interest in foreign country' because my wife is S. Korean and she believes I would do well selling fruit trees there. That is, "IF" we ever decided to move there. But this is husband and wife talk, not realistic. But I had to give a reasonable answer.
(4) Dave's Garden. Since I started business, 3 years ago, we have received 93 positive, 11 neutral and 66 negative reviews for a total of 170 posts. Trust me, I like any other business owner, hate to see even one negative post. But I have to keep things in perspective. Example: I recently received a report from FedEx that we had sent out almost 20,000 packages from Oct. 18, 2009 - April 18, 2010. This is only one nursery season, yet we have been through three. And we also ship palms, banana, olive, etc. all year long. So the total number of annual shipments is even more. So, this helps me to realize 170 posts or 66 negative posts in three years of business selling perishable products is not reflective of my overall customer base. During peak season, we have more individual customers than this in a single day. But this being said, it still hurts to read some of these posts. Especially knowing how hard we work to satisfy our customers. (Most negative posts are over issues of warranty/replacements. Which we honor every single day.)
But, we have some that call from two years past demanding things and some that won't be cooperative to send in the root half of the tree or even send a picture...and all other sort of scenarios. So it makes me wonder what we should do. I thought it was simple. (If tree dies, send in only bottom part of tree and we send you a brand-new one.) Seriously, I would love to have your suggestions on this subject. Please. But try to look at it from both a customer and a viable business point of view.
(5) B.B.B. Unfortunately, I do receive only few BBB complaints each year. Typically, 3 or 4 each Spring and they are always over warranty issues. I answer them and get a response from the BBB that the case is closed. But even if the person gets what they want, they still check unsatisfied on their closing survey. So I call Mrs. Constable at the BBB and ask why I hear I have poor rating since I have answered and received letter the issue is closed? She said it's over some issue from why back when that wasn't closed and I can't close it now and she doesn't give the ratings, the computer does and it's either + or -, a or f. Something like this was said. So I just look forward. But, back to my previous question. So, what do you think would be a fair warranty if you sold perishable nursery stock via mail-order?
(5) I left my unhappy, to say the least, employment at tyty nursery and started my own business in June of 2007. Since summer was upon us, I created a relatively small website ParadisePalmCo.com to sell palm trees so I could put beans on the table for my family while I worked on creating a much larger in-depth website (WillisOrchards.com) to sell fruit trees, etc. when the Fall got here. Which typically isn't until November in south Georgia. So, in January 2010 I decided to merge the content form the inferior PPalm website to WillisOrchards and have only one site to manage. This streamlined things for me from a management and an advertising standpoint.
(6) As far as fireant156 goes, I agree with you. Why would someone take the time to create such a lengthy post, including such links and contacts and suggestions of credit card actions on a forum in which they've never participated in its true purpose of exchanging ideas and info. about plants? I believe you all are intelligent and know the answer. If not who for sure, then certainly the logical reasons why?

In closing, I honestly am in good standings with the Dept. of Ag. as I routinely see my inspectors and their chief Barry Smith who seem to regard me and my company as "good" and cooperative to work with. Also, I have an amicable relationship with Mrs. Constable of the BBB who seems to be a nice professional lady and who gives me the impression she leans toward my point of view and decisions on the few cases we have worked-on together. No one has decided to give me 9 million dollars so I'll probably remove my 'for sale' listing, soon. So, it looks like I and WillisOrchards.com is going to be around for a long time to come. I actually started working in the nursery business when I was 17 or 18 and worked in agriculture prior to that so I really don't know of or want to do anything else. I and my employees really do work hard and sincerely try to 'do right' by our customers.
Should any of you want to talk about anything or if you do choose to buy a tree from me and a problem should arise, please feel free to call or write me. I will gladly take time to talk with you and will call you back if I'm not in.
Honestly and Sincerely Yours,
Jason Willis / 229-324-2285
jwillis1972@hotmail.com

Mr. Willis,

After thoroughly investigating your Web site and reading the various thread on this forum regarding Willis Orchards, I just want you to know that you have my full sympathy that you were the victim of a cowardly internet campaign. I honestly wish the moderator would just delete these thread--who needs to read that kind of unsupported vitriol.

Too bad that you can't ship to California: I would most definitely have ordered figs and bababerries from you :(.

If anybody wants to look up my page on this site to verify that I am not a shill, be my guest:).

An excellent response, Mr. Willis.

Perhaps this nursery has eaten into TyTy's business a bit too much.

Good to know my favorite online nursery will not be changing hands.

I ordered several fruit trees from Willis Orchards last fall (2009) and got them all (6). All in the ground and alive. This thread didn't pass the smell test from the very start for me.

Good response. When I was healthy, I had a small software development company and one of our new off-the-shelf products was constantly being attacked by the competition. It was sickening and I too hated if even one of our users was unhappy -- but you have to push forward and develop thick skin otherwise business isn't for you. The jerks who lie/cheat/steal do win many battles, but hopefully the war is long.

Oh, and just typing the name TyTy causes alarms to go off for many folks on this site...

Look at who started this thread: Account was first registered on May 27, 2010.

If the owner of Tyty is responsible for this smear campaign, then his nursery deserves to be boycotted.

Are you saying if the owner of TyTy isn't responsible they don't deserve to be boycotted?
Haven't you been paying attention on the forums?

Did I say that? I don't see where I said that. I am sure there are plenty of other reasons to boycott Tyty, I was focusing on this specific instance. If the person who started this thread is none other than Tyty, then I'd say we have yet one more reason to boycott Tyty. Even if Tyty was a great nursery, in my book, such an act is worthy of a boycott all by itself.

I realize this is an old thread but I just wanted to throw in my two cents. I purchased a second pomegranete and an All in one Almond tree from Willis. Both arrived in great shape and had been properly pruned. The pomegranete I purchased two years before grew well and had its first fruit this past season.

In the spring, when the leaves come out, I will double check to make sure that the Almond tree is indeed what it is supposed to be, but barring that possibility I must report that I have been dealt with fairly by Willis Orchard and I have been gardening for many years.

Best,
MT

Just as an additional FYI, I purchased 2 bare-root trees (a Collins paw paw and a Reliance peach) from Willis this January 2011 (before I had seen this thread), and both trees arrived in fine shape.

Here is a link that might be useful: dallasfruitgrower

This company is not trustful. I returned a dead tree root for replacement according to their policy. I called them two weeks after I mailed it out and I was told they did receive the dead tree root and would send out the replacement soon. However, I haven't got anything one and half months after. Then I called them again and again, and I was told they didn't receive the dead tree root which I returned. The guy asked me to show them the receipt from post office, this is really ridiculous because I just put the envelope in the mailbox and no way to get the receipt from the postman when he picked up the mails. So this is only an excuse that they don't want to give me replacement or refund.
Be careful with this company, don't buy anything from it. My experience with it is hundres wasted money, but even worse, lots of wasted time. This company has lots negative reviews on website. It was so bad for me that I haven't read the reviews when I purchased trees from this company.

Mr. Willis,
I took great care in researching the nurseries and products I purchased this year and was taken back by the crap posted in this instance. The intent is obviously malicious, and TyTy better take a class on internet etiquette, from a business law class. Check out their website! Bunch of posers trying real hard to use sex to sell some plants! Haahahaha No bananas for them!

Jason, you must take good care of your people cause I've never experienced a more professional and friendly department (even when I ran a retail nursery). Your products are all leafed out, except for the moonglo I hit with the mower!
Only recommendation: list your rootstock. It lends an air of transparancy the modern info savvy consumer is looking for. I'm sure you wouldn't skimp at this stage of the game.
Also, I am looking for a greater selection of jujubes like sugarcane, etc to buy from your nursery.

Keep up the good work and remember a lot of people want what you have worked hard to develop.
There's nothing like family owned businesses for the workers or the clients.
I'll be back.
Noogy