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Weird begging email from Rogue Valley Roses

11 years ago

I received an email this morning ostensibly from Rogue Valley Roses asking desperately for 3000 British pounds to pay an emergency robbed-no-passport-stranded-in-hotel situation. Obviously it's a scam, but I'm wondering: did anybody else receive this?

Carol

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Comments (15)

zaphod42
11 years ago
Did not receive from Rogue Valley, but a few months ago, received the same message from a local yarn shop I'm on the email list for. I knew the owner and called over to the studio. Their email had been hacked.
floridarosez9 Morgan
11 years ago
They were hacked. I got a similar one from another rose nursery. When I contacted them, their system had been hacked into. Somebody seems to be targeting rose nurseries for some reason.
Related Discussions
Does Rogue Valley Roses do this alot?
Q
Comments (50)
May 15, 2017 - I'm posting this as many places as I can to warn people. Apparently RVR is under new management and they just stole $32 of my money. Details follow. AVOID ROGUE VALLEY ROSES, NEW MANAGEMENT DISHONEST. I've had excellent experiences with Rogue Valley Roses in the past. However, they are under new management and they just stole $32 of my money. To be precise, I ordered two roses this spring, they were healthy and grew well, but when they bloomed, it became obvious that one of them had been mislabelled - they accidentally sent the wrong rose. No big deal, just send me the right rose or refund my money. I sent three emails, got no response whatsoever, so I went to phone calls. Got a man who never gave me his name and wasn't particularly polite, made it clear he didn't really want to be bothered. He told me the company was under new management, they'd been backlogged and were struggling to catch up and would get to my issues as soon as they could. I waited a week, nothing, so I called back. Same again. Last week, after three emails and three phone calls, I told the guy I wanted my money and I wanted it within three days, no more postponements. He said, "Okay, I'll use PayPal and send you an instantaneous transfer so you can have it right this minute." I said fine. But, it's been three days and the money isn't in my account. So I called back and he said, very self righteous, "I refunded your money last week." But he didn't. I don't have the money. I even logged into PayPal to see if anything was being held in PayPal rather than put in my bank account. Looks like Rogue Valley Roses has stolen $32 of my money.
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Jeri Jennings Rose now at Rogue Valley
Q
Comments (15)
It wouldn't tell you a lot. My plant went from pot to ground in Jan., and is still reasonably immature. I don't really expect a rose to put out a lot of bloom while it is going through a major period of growth, as this one has done over the past few months. It's setting buds now, and I expect a nice fall flush. I think I'll see much more bloom by spring and, with maturity, more summer bloom. It's put up several vigorous basals in the past couple of months, and is beginning to arch. I expect it to reach the "arching 5-6 feet" it's billed to achieve. In the meantime, it is well-clothed with very clean, very dark green foliage. That's a BIG deal in my climate! Jeri
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Outstanding service from Rogue Valley Roses
Q
Comments (14)
AVOID ROGUE VALLEY ROSES, NEW MANAGEMENT DISHONEST. I've had excellent experiences with Rogue Valley Roses in the past. However, they are under new management and they just stole $32 of my money. To be precise, I ordered two roses this spring, they were healthy and grew well, but when they bloomed, it became obvious that one of them had been mislabelled - they accidentally sent the wrong rose. No big deal, just send me the right rose or refund my money. I sent three emails, got no response whatsoever, so I went to phone calls. Got a man who never gave me his name and wasn't particularly polite, made it clear he didn't really want to be bothered. He told me the company was under new management, they'd been backlogged and were struggling to catch up and would get to my issues as soon as they could. I waited a week, nothing, so I called back. Same again. Last week, after three emails and three phone calls, I told the guy I wanted my money and I wanted it within three days, no more postponements. He said, "Okay, I'll use PayPal and send you an instantaneous transfer so you can have it right this minute." I said fine. But, it's been three days and the money isn't in my account. So I called back and he said, very self righteous, "I refunded your money last week." But he didn't. I don't have the money. I even logged into PayPal to see if anything was being held in PayPal rather than put in my bank account. Looks like Rogue Valley Roses has stolen $32 of my money.
...See More
Rogue Valley Roses Will Be Shipping to Canada
Q
Comments (3)
Good to hear from you Anne. I often think about you and your garden, though I don't often post and don't often see your very often any more either. I guess I'm an old timer and mostly a lurker these days. I think the last time I corresponded with you was about a rose called Morgengrus. Sadly it didn't do much for me and it is gone now. Though the bed where I planted it seems to be in decline and it may not have been the rose. Most of the roses in that bed are nine or ten years old now and I think that they are worn out from the yearly winter kill to near the crowns. I remember hearing somewhere that roses grafted on Multiflora wear out after ten or twelve years and that seems to be what is happening in my front bed. The old plants have massive woody knots at the graft and were not putting out vigorous basal breaks last summer as in the past. I think the soil may also be getting tired because the bed is crowded with roses, delphiniums and perenial fox gloves. So, I plan to dig it up this spring, put in fresh compost and manure and replant with new roses, including those from RVR. Hopefully, that will fix the problem. I hope that you are doing well and that your garden is also doing well and bringing you joy. Good to hear from you again, thanks for the reply. Happy New Year and a happy, healthy gardening season to you. Jayne Austin and a hint of things to come this summer. Cheers, Rick
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melva
11 years ago
I got one too..I am sure it is a scam!
jerijen
11 years ago
This is a very well-known scam.

Please notify the nursery in question, so they may fix the problem.

Jeri
mike_rivers
11 years ago
I got the same thing. I doubt that notifying the real Rogue Valley people will accomplish anything. The response email address given in the scam is just a yahoo.com address that anyone could obtain, no hacking into the real Rogue Valley site required.
rosefolly
11 years ago
This same thing happened recently to my husband, messages to all his friends and family begging for money to help him in Madrid. He was actually in Iceland at the time. We think his email was hacked while he was in the Reykjavic airport. I would imagine that by now the nursery knows all about it, and very likely any emails you would send them will just go to the criminals who stole their account. Service providers generally close such email accounts as soon as they realize that the activity level is peculiar.

Just don't send the crooks any money.

Rosefolly
TNY78
11 years ago
I did.t get the one this morning, but I got one last year from Wells Midsouth Roses and was equally confused...I assumed Verlie's website had been hacked.

Tammy
saldut
11 years ago
I got one from that Fla. Nursery, awhile back...now I'm getting messages w/a link from names in my address list...no message just a link...guess my machine has been hacked, part of the 'Magic of Modern Machinery'...sally
User
11 years ago
I got it, too. I'd heard of these scams, but this is the first time I receieved an email like that.

Has anyone notified Rogue Valley? Even though the return address is a yahoo.com account, they obviously got all our email addresses from Rogue Valley. So it seems like something there got hacked.
alameda/zone 8/East Texas
11 years ago
I also got one - put it on blocked senders list. Do these criminals actually think anyone would fall for such a stupid scam?
hoovb zone 9 sunset 23
11 years ago
I also got one - put it on blocked senders list. Do these criminals actually think anyone would fall for such a stupid scam?

I read an article about this sort of thing. The messages are deliberately very stupid, because they are looking for extremely gullible people. There are some out there, and they are exactly who scammers are looking for.
eahamel
11 years ago
I got one a couple of years ago from a friend who was in town and hadn't been traveling. Then I got one from someone who runs a local dog rescue. I was on their e-mail list. She was traveling and her money was stolen and she really did need money to pay her hotel and food. That was a real one! But it was very different in content than the ones from the scammers.

When I get them, I e-mail them back and tell them I've reported them to the FBI, and copy it to scam@fbi.com, so they can see it. Of course, there is no such e-mail address, but they don't know that.
carol6ma_7ari
Original Author
11 years ago
I notified Rogue Valley Roses, on Dec. 14, via the "contact" form on their website.

Carol
melva
11 years ago
I did the same thing..Janet sent me an email thanking me.
onederw
11 years ago
It begins, "I'm writing this with tears in my eyes," right? It is indeed a well known scam. I had received the same message a couple of years ago, not ostensibly from Rogue, but from a dear friend in her 80s. I was sent it again last year. Obviously, it must work on some people--and of course if the message goes out to thousands of people at a time, it doesn't take a very good batting average to be successful.
Who would be the most likely to respond to an urgent plea from someone in need? In general, mature women. We can be gullible (who else would believe the plant label that says "never needs staking?!). But gullible isn't so far a stretch beyond empathetic. What makes people decent human beings also makes them targets for these scams.
There is a very good web site where you can check out all sorts of hooey that gets circulated on the web--the Urban Legends Reference Pages, aka Snopes. If the scam/rumor/fish story is one they haven't heard of, you can also submit it to them for investigation.

Kay

Here is a link that might be useful: Urban Legends Reference Pages

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