Moses, good to hear from you! Hope you did not get hooked with bad seller.

I would add: choose the amount you are OK to lose.

Here, here!! Well said.

Moses, you nailed it.

I agree: if it seems fishy -like a brand new nursery offering tons of rare roses take a pass. If you really want to take a chance and its not too expensive, just order one..use paypal if possible, because its easier to get your money back.

On places like etsy or ebay, I always look at feedback. if its not 98% or higher I dont order. If they are new sellers I will wait awhile and let others be the guinea pigs if they want to.

Nefarious people who are trying to get you to buy something will almost always use tactics like guilt, greed, urgency to get you to buy or do something. They like to use worlds like "very rare!, one of a kind!, last one!" While those things might apply. Look and see how often they are using it in their advertising.

I would also add to Moses’ sage advice.. ”don’t make the same mistake twice”.

I ordered hard to find roses from a certain nursery, that turned out to be poor, sickly runts that died. Then the next year, I saw that the same nursery had another rarity that I had wanted for ages. Yes folks, I fell for it again! It turned out to be mislabelled and the others I ordered to make up the numbers were as bad as the first lot.

Maybe I should also add ”don’t waste your time and money chasing unicorn roses“