There is a famous quote believed to be from Edmund Bourke which says something along the lines of "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
While it is very romantic and poetic I don't think I agree with it. I think
that perhaps this should read "All that is necessary for the triumph of
evil is for people to think they can get away with it".
Let's look at ebay, thieves steal money from people by selling things that do not exist. The people who run ebay could stop them, at the very least they could remove listings and ban people who are reported for selling seeds that do not exist, but they don't. Both the sellers and the people who run ebay are criminals. Lots of good people try to stop them by trying to report these fake ads, but nothing happens. These ebay thieves think they can get away with it (currently they both CAN and DO get away with it) so they continue to do it, and evil prospers.
Below are a bunch of pictures that I have found on ebay listings, many of them have made a lot of money from selling fake seeds. They are not my pictures.
I have written a few other posts about commonly sold ebay seeds that do not exist: blue and black strawberries, blue roses, and blue watermelons do NOT exist. Please have a read of them, they may help you stop ebay thieves selling you seeds that do not exist.
Lily of the Valley seeds
I love lily of the valley, it is extremely difficult to grow it from seed, but not impossible. It is also difficult to get it to produce seed, again it is not impossible. Lilly of the valley comes with white flowers, some varieties can be pink flowered, and I am told that there is a variegated leaf form. That is all. None of these multi coloured ones exist and they never will exist.
It gets even worse, the following disclaimer was on the fake seed lily of the valley ebay page, they don't consider themselves liable for selling fake ebay seeds!!!
"Triple Phoenix shall not be liable for any instances where sold items are found to be inaccurate, erroneous, defective, deceptive or misleading, whether caused by negligence of or any other cause whatsoever.
Triple Phoenix will not be held liable for misuse or
any health problems relating to or using any one of the products sold through
this eBay store."
Make no mistake, the people who run Triple Phoenix ebay store are thieves. Writing a disclaimer does not change the fact they they are deliberately misleading people. What they are doing is known in legal terms as theft by deception. Please never buy anything from anyone who does this.
Make no mistake, the people who run Triple Phoenix ebay store are thieves. Writing a disclaimer does not change the fact they they are deliberately misleading people. What they are doing is known in legal terms as theft by deception. Please never buy anything from anyone who does this.
Amazing multi-coloured Butterfly Bush seeds
I don't know a lot about this plant but am told by some dedicated butterfly bush growers that this does NOT exist. The thieves who made this ad steal tens of thousands of dollars from people each year through selling fake seeds. Please do NOT buy them.
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| Rainbow butterfly bush does NOT exist |
White Dove Orchid seeds
Apparently there is a plant called the white dove orchid (possibly Habenaria radiata or Pecteilis radiata), its flowers are rather beautiful. Unfortunately the images below are photoshopped.
Orchids are notoriously difficult to grow from seed and many require aseptic tissue culture or complex mycorhizal interactions to germinate. You should NEVER buy ANY orchid seeds from ebay.
Flowers such as in the images below do NOT exist.
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| This flower does NOT exist |
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| This flower also does NOT exist |
Blue or Black or Purple tomato seeds
Wow, with so many thieves making so many fake ebay ads where do I begin? Some are based on real things, others are completely made up, you need to know what to look for in order to prevent ebay thieves from selling you fake seeds.
The below picture was for sale as "Black Russian" tomato seeds. Black Russian tomatoes do exist, they are more of a muddy brown tomato, they are a substandard yet extremely popular heirloom variety. Tomatoes the colour in the picture DO exist, I currently grow a few of them.
When the seller is claiming that this picture of a tomato that does exist, yet their picture is a completely different variety, you know they are up to something. Chances are these thieves have simply got some tomato seeds from a red tomato and will send that to you. In five month time when your seeds fruit it is far too late for you to do anything.
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| This tomato exists, but the seller will NOT send them to you as they claim it is 'black Russian' |
Real blue and purple tomatoes do NOT exist. There are plenty of varieties that are named blue or purple which exist, I grow some, but they look nothing like these photos. Even the Genetically Modified (GM) blue tomatoes that you will likely never see and never have access to their seeds do not look anything like these colours. Do NOT buy seeds of tomatoes that are these colours.
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| Tomatoes this colour have never and will never exist! |
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| These seeds are for sale as "purple tomato" seeds. This is not even a tomato! |
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| Ripe tomatoes do NOT exist in this colour and likely never will |
Rainbow tomato seeds do NOT exist. The seller will probably send you tomato seeds, but they will not turn out to be anything like in these pictures. Different colours on the same truss is not possible, green and red (or whatever the ripe colour is) yes, but more than one ripe colour on the same truss no.
If you want unknown tomatoes seeds, just go to the market, buy a tomato, and plant its seeds. It will be cheaper, you will get to eat the fruit (minus the seeds), plus you will not be funding these ebay criminals who are selling seeds that do not exist.
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| Rainbow tomatoes do NOT exist. Being local from Australia does not stop them from being thieves |
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| Some of these colours do NOT even exist in tomatoes, multi colours on the same truss do NOT exist |
White asparagus kind of exists, you may have eaten some, but seeds for white asparagus do not exist. White asparagus is produced by putting something over the soil so when the spears emerge they do not have access to sunlight, the result is sweet white spears. You can do this to any/every variety of asparagus. I have done it with green varieties, I have done it with purple varieties. You can NOT buy seeds of white asparagus as there are no varieties of white asparagus. There will never be any white asparagus varieties, any albino asparagus can not survive as they would not be able to photosynthesize.
When an ebay seller is selling seeds of white asparagus you may be sent an inferior unnamed variety of asparagus or possibly something else that is not asparagus at all. Never buy anything from thieves who sell white asparagus seeds.
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| Seed for White Asparagus do NOT exist |
These ebay thieves are selling radish seed and claiming they will grow to look like a foot. They will not. There are several different ones of these being offered by ebay thieves. The radish in the picture grew odd, then the photo was slightly manipulated.
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| Radish does NOT grow to look like this |
Some amazing coloured vegetables exist, which makes this kind of theft work so well. Radishes do not come in blue like in this picture, they never have and they never will. Some of the other colours exist, but they have re-coloured the picture so it is unlikely they have ever seen them. These thieves buy bulk radish seed for cheap and repackage it to send to you. You have no way of telling what variety you will get, but you do know they will NOT look like the ones in the picture!
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| This thief sends you seeds fast, but some of these colours do not exist so they will send you something else |
Carnivorous plants
I like carnivorous plants, when I was a teenager I learned a great deal about them. Unfortunately most people know very little about carnivorous plants so ebay thieves easily take advantage of them. I have heard of people buying what was claimed to be 'giant venus fly trap' seed, only to be sent Gypsophila seed. To be safe, I would not buy any carnivorous plant seed from ebay.
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| Blue Drosera do NOT exist (but I wish they did) |
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| Blue Pinguicula do NOT exist |
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| This doesn't even look real, but ebay thieves make big money selling fake seeds |
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| So many ebay thieves, so little time... |
I love string of pearls plant and think that they are amazing. I am growing some lovely green ones at the moment. In real life most are green, and there is a delightful and rare variety of variegated string of pearls plant.
Unfortunately blue string of pearls plant does NOT exist. It never has and it never will. These thieves make me so angry because this plant is so pretty that they don't need to lie about its colour.
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| Blue string of pearls plant does NOT exist |
Multi Coloured Succulents
The picture on the right is the real colour, the picture on the left is where they have changed colours and listed this on Ebay. Take a close look, that is part of the same picture. I want to grow these one day, but am not willing to buy seed through ebay as there are so many thieves who have changed colours in an attempt to steal from me. Hopefully I find plants for sale in real life one day.
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| Rabbit Ear Succulents are NEVER multi coloured |
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| Monilaria obconica are all green, thieves have changed the colours in this picture to try to steal from you |
Multi Coloured Flowers
These look amazing don't they, unfortunately they do not exist! There are heaps of different fake multicoloured seeds and bulbs for sale on ebay. Most of these pictures are white flowers that have had their stem divided and put into coloured die, the die travels up the stem and goes into the white petals staining them. Some of these pictures are photo shopped. If you ever see any multi coloured flowers, do some research to see if they are real, the pictures below are fakes.
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| Fake ebay seeds |
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| More fake ebay seeds and bulbs |
Someone kindly mentioned to me a little while ago that they are trying to warn people about not buying blue lily. I don't know much about lilies, but I know that blue ones don't exist. I had a look and ebay is filled with seeds and bulbs of blue lilies, there is page after page of blue lilies. I feel depressed from seeing how many thieves are taking of advantage of people with these. Unfortunately they do NOT exist.
These ebay thieves will send you some seeds or bulbs, and if you grow them long enough they will flower, but they will not be blue. By this time it is too late for you to do anything about it. Please never buy anything from anyone who sells seeds or bulbs of blue lilies as they are thieves!
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| Blue lily do NOT exist |
There are very few true blue coloured fruits or flowers. If you see any that look amazing, the chances are high that they do not exist. Some flowers, like cornflowers are kind of blue. Please do some research before funding ebay thieves. It does not matter how cheap they are, do NOT be so ignorant as to fund ebay thieves without at least trying to do some research to see if they are real or not. While you can never be certain that you are buying the real thing from ebay, if you are buying something that does not exist you will certainly not get what you paid for.
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| Blue dahlia do NOT exist |
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| Blue dahlias look great but are NOT real |
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| Blue Raspberries kind of exist, but they are never this colour |
Seriously, what is wrong with people? There is no such thing as a plant that has been bred to be bonsai, almost any tree seed can be grown out and made into a bonsai. So anyone selling bonsai seeds are just selling tree seeds and are trying to steal from you (remember, the legal term is "theft by deception"). These ebay thieves have taken this a step further and have re-coloured bonsai images. The blue maple below does not exist. You may get a maple seed, if you grew it out it would never turn that colour.
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| Blue bonsai maple seed does NOT exist |
This list is no where near complete, there are many pages of fake ebay seeds. Please do a little research before buying anything and be extra careful buying seeds from ebay as ebay is full of thieves.
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| The bright blue and purple do NOT exist, don't buy ANY seeds from these thieves |
I know sometimes people buy seed in bulk, repackage it into smaller packets and sell that. If you have done this and are selling fake seeds then you are just as bad as the people who you bought the seeds from in the first place!
Often I hear people say that if something looks too good to be true then it probably isn't real. Unfortunately in this case it does not help as most of the vegetables I grow and eat look and sound too good to be true! If you want to see the perennial vegetables, annual vegetable seeds, berries, and edible herbs I have for sale please click here.
