Complaint Review: Organic Acres LLC

I signed up with Organic Acres LLC in November 2009 and paid $199.00 for a half garden with monthly maintenance fees of $59.95 paid for by automatic payments from my bank account. The business is to lease part of their land to have your own organic garden, no matter where you live in the United States. I paid the monthly fees for 11 months, at which time I told the owner, Jerry Howard, to down grade my membership. I down graded because for the entire 11 months I made several attempts to get help with the program, which is essentially an MLM. You can (supposedly) make money on 5 levels of all those that you get to sign up under you and/or buy into a half or full garden, or a General Store Membership. That is definitely the MLM model.

The land that Jerry Howard bought in Hubbard Oregon to run this organic garden scheme was used to grow Rhododendrons for about 25-30 years prior to him buying it. It use to be Dieringer Nursery at the same address, which is 17838 Monnier Rd NE, Hubbard OR 97032. Jerry Howard was also claiming organic certification of his crops. However, after checking with the Oregon Tilth, OCIA International Inc., CCOF, QAI, and the USDA NOP Program, all agencies confirmed that there is no record of any Organic Acres LLC at that address in Hubbard Oregon that has ever received organic certification.

Members of this program were told that we would all have a personal gardener with which to correspond about our gardens, regarding what we wanted to plant and when the harvest would be ready. No gardener was ever supplied. We were also told on one of Jerry Howards online meetings (another MLM component, which was basically a sales pitch every week), that the gardeners would wear a blue tooth with a camera so that we could actually watch our gardens grow 24/7 by web cam on the Internet. That never happened either.

Members were also told that we could take delivery of the harvest from our individual garden plots to our home anywhere in the U.S., or we could sell our harvest in the online Farmers Market and collect the income from those sales. I could never get any responses when attempting to find out anything about my garden or how to sell my harvest and collect the income from selling my garden harvest. When attending the online meetings, Jerry tells people to put in a ticket for any issues. I put in tickets and the person that answers them then tells you to attend and listen to the online meetings and to email Jerry, and provides his three different email addresses. So its just a big run around and I could never get any answers from Jerry or his ticket system that he defers you to. I have several emails (I kept them all) where I asked over and over how to sell my garden harvest and how I would collect that income. I could never get any response. The phone number is not manned by anyone and is never answered.  It is better to have a paper trail (emails) of attempts to correspond, which I do have.

There is also a General Store that members have access to where you can (supposedly) buy all kinds of organic goods, canned goods, spices, small appliances, etc. The General Store was credited with our monthly maintenance fees that we were suppose to be able to use to make purchases in the store. That was one of Jerrys big sells in his online meetings! I placed an order in December 2010 and attempted to use my store credits, but my entire purchase (over $400) was charged to my debit account, which would have casued my other bills to bounce. I was able to get Jerry to cancel that order, and he told me that no one would be able to fill the order until January anyway. I placed the order again in early January 2011 for over $400 and got no confirmation of the order. I inquired a couple of weeks later by email; no
response. I kept emailing and Jerry kept ignoring me. When he finally did respond he gave me some excuse why he could not answer emails. In essence, there is absolutely no customer service. It appears that he is trying to run this operation on his own with no one to serve his customers, which are the members that are paying him every month.

When Jerry told me, after several attempts with emails, that he had no idea when I was going to receive my $400 order from the General Store, that the fulfillment house had taken the month of December off, he offered to put the credits back in the general store and refund my $34.58 shipping charges, which you have to pay with a credit or debit card. I asked him to refund the shipping charges to the same account I paid from. He decided to put the money as credit into my general store account. This was over a month after I placed the order. So essentially, he did not refund the money because he put the money back into his online system where I had no access to it from my personal bank account where the payment originated.

I decided I was done being jerked around and being ignored for over a year and I wanted all of my money back, $894.58, that I had pumped into this so-called wonderful organic gardens MLM, and received absolutely no service.

When Jerry finally answered this email after several attempts again, he then chastised me because I didnt use the delivery service and ask for harvest to be sent to my home. However, the members were told all along that we could sell all of our harvest and collect that income, which is what I wanted to do, but could never get any response on how to actually accomplish this. Therefore, Jerry considered it my fault for not using the system the way he wanted me to use it, but for wanting to use the system for the way he informed us that we could use it! He also informed me we will make sure that those that try to stop us and spread lies get everything they have coming to them.

When I asked for all my money back, after telling him how disappointed I was with being constantly ignored with the complete lack of customer service, he agreed to refund my money but he was going to charge me a 10% restocking fee. To restock what I dont know because I never received anything from him that was sent back, so there was never anything to restock. Jerry claimed that this was part of the lease agreement. I have the email with the lease agreement I received when I signed up in December 2009, and the so-called restocking fee is nowhere to be found in that agreement. Jerry also told me that there was only a 60-day money back guarantee and that this was also in the lease agreement. It is nowhere to be found in the agreement that I received from him. Jerry claims that 10% is minimal since he planted all organic seeds for me and tended my garden. Well, I am going to get NOTHING from this, I could not sell my harvest, he sold it and made that income, not me. Therefore, he is not losing anything, as he will just resell the half garden that I supposedly bought with my $199 in December 2009! He promptly closed my online account and shut off my access when I asked for a refund, before resolving this issue.

However, Jerry Howard said in email on February 21, 2011, that he would still honor the refund even though the 60-day money back guarantee was past due (this is not in the lease agreement), but still minus the 10% restocking fee (also not in the lease agreement). He told me that his accountants only send out checks on the 10th of the month so to look for it in the mail around the March 10th time frame. I wrote back and told him I disagreed with the 10% restocking fee and I wanted the entire amount. He ignored me and never sent the check on March 10, 2011 as he said he would in his email.

Note: There is also a commissions component to this scheme. I had $21.00 and some change in my online account from commissions. I never requested this money, only the money from the garden I was never able to sell the harvest from, and the general store credits I was never able to get an order fulfilled, and the shipping charges for the attempted order I placed that was never fulfilled.

After several more emails and yet still being ignored, Jerry finally responded on March 24, 2011, and said again that he would honor the refund, but still minus the 10% restocking fee. I told him to send it, if he could actually feel good about keeping the 10% considering how he had treated me as a paying customer that never received any service or goods. Jerry stated again to look for the check in the mail in the month of April, it would be sent out on the 10th of the month. I have still not received the check. I am still making attempts to contact Jerry and he is not answering any of my emails now. I sent him a PayPal money request, and he is ignoring that as well.

All I want is simply the refund of my money, as Jerry Howard stated twice in email that he would honor. After all this time of being ignored and the hassle I have endured, I feel entitled to the full refund of all my monies ($894.58), without the deduction of any restocking fees, which is nowhere to be found in the lease agreement.

The bottom line is, if you do not want to throw your money in the trash, Do Not Do Business with Organic Acres and Jerry Howard in Hubbard Oregon! You Will Be Ripped Off!!