I just paid an expensive lesson for 2 pounds of cherries and 5 peaches. Yes, that’s right. One pound, a single pound of cherries cost me $43.90. By the way, they were delivered over a month late. It was “Thank You” gift for some great tickets to AT&T Park to see the Giants a month ago.

A couple of days after ordering that “Thank You” gift, I thought I’d sample their cherries so I ordered a box for myself. Stupid me. Neither time did I check for the weight of what they would send. My gift to myself cost me $56.90.

Since I was a Harry & David “virgin,” I didn’t think twice about checking why my bank account was debited for two different amounts for the identical product — a box of cherries for my friend with the Giants season tickets and a box for myself.

Yesterday, I was glad to see an H&D box on my porch which seemed large enough to hold maybe 3 pounds of premium cherries. When I opened the box, I was angry. Five peaches and one pound of cherries and a lot of molded sponge packing.

I just phoned Harry & David customer service and asked how many pounds were sent to my friend who’d given me the Giants tickets. The answer was “one.”

Talk about “laughing all the way to the bank”! After my experience with these two orders, I can safely tell you that Harry & David will always be thought of as the “Bernie Madoff of Gifted Fruit” around our house.

“Satisfaction Guaranteed”? Obviously, I’m far from satisfied with H&D. High prices, late deliveries and embarrassingly small quantities are enough for me to say, “Never again!”

Now that I’ve read all of the comments above about H&D, I’ll just chalk this up to experience and take all of my fruit gift business to Hale Grove and Pittman & Davis and stick with oranges and grapefruit. Their quality is Hale and Pittman have superior quality products and they have always delivered on time. I’ll go back to citrus and companies I know to be reliable and worth the money.

I’ve had it with cherries and Harry & David! I don’t know how they’ve stayed in business all these years. Might be that people usually order gifts for other people and gift recipients aren’t likely to complain back to the company. That’s the only thing I can figure. As for me, H&D made $100.80 off, but they’ll never see another dime of mine.

Nice to know I’m not alone,

Judy

The key is to love what you do, love what you produce, and love the people you want to buy your product. In the brain training field, there are so many shysters and slick snake-oil salesmen that if I didn’t offer a sense of total security with my products and services, I couldn’t earn any trust. Thing is, once people see REAL QUALITY and receive ACTUAL SATISFACTION, they become stark raving fans who SPREAD THAT TRUST to others!

T. Lavon Lawrence
Mental Fitness Trainer, Brian Training Author
http://www.dynamicmentalfitness.com

When a seller of goods makes a promise, especially a money-back or ‘merchandise return’ promise, they demonstrate that they have confidence in what they sell. Never is it a sound business practice to go back on that sort of promise!

Actually acting on the guarantee is another question. This year I had a run-in with Van Bourgondien Bulb Co (also doing business under a number of other names). They are 3rd party liquidators for unsalable stock–usually dead bulbs. Sometimes they are live but small and mixed up (they don’t know type, color, etc). Their guarantee says “order with CONFIDENCE…satisfaction guaranteed”.

Mine arrived dead and rotting. They stalled for time telling me that they were NOT dead but just dormant (like I can’t tell). Eventually when pressed they simply refused to return my money, and said they’d send another (which they won’t–by this time I was suspicious and checked on their reputation–and that is their M.O.).

Caveat emptor. Guarantees can be empty promises.