Defunct Simply Wisconsin CSA, refunds?

We were subscribers to the Simply Wisconsin CSA, which was popular on the north shore. A week before this week's season, they declared they were out of business and would be refunding money. There were a couple more emails through July about the refunds being processed, but we never received ours. Unfortunately, I lost track of the lack of a refund, and now, emails are unanswered and the phone line is disconnected.

Does anyone have any other contact info besides simplywisconsin@yahoo.com simplywisconsin2@yahoo.com or their now-defunct website or phone number? Anyone who knows Deb Hansen or someone connected to Simply WI? It seems a shame that they appeared to be honest and committed people, I even wrote a Highland Park Patch column about them, and now they appear to have run off with my money....

Ed,

If they are out of business, they may have no money to offer despite their best intentions.

Regards,

Then why the emails about sending refunds?

From: Deb Hansen <simplywisconsin@yahoo.com>
To: [us]
Sent: Monday, July 9, 2012 9:56 AM
Subject: Refunds are still being processed

Hi everyone,
Despite my best efforts, I am still working on issuing refunds to about 200 members of the 800 who signed up. I will be sending out refunds every day until they are completed

edb60035 wrote:Then why the emails about sending refunds?

From: Deb Hansen <simplywisconsin@yahoo.com>
To: [us]
Sent: Monday, July 9, 2012 9:56 AM
Subject: Refunds are still being processed

Hi everyone,
Despite my best efforts, I am still working on issuing refunds to about 200 members of the 800 who signed up. I will be sending out refunds every day until they are completed

I agree, Ed. If they cannot follow through on what they offered, they should, at the very least, update their former customers.

=R=

HI,

When people run out of money, they run out of options.

I have not engaged in CSA's, though many people here do. From a number of participants, I got the impression their fortunes rode with the farmer. If farmer had a bad week (month, season), they rode with it. When people outline what they received, sometimes a few radishes and a bunch of greens. They thought they were still being supportive. It can also happen the farmer goes bust.

I hope you didn't lose too much money.

Regards,

It hasn't been the best of years for farmers and I can see many small ones going under.

LikestoEatout wrote:It hasn't been the best of years for farmers and I can see many small ones going under.

Wasn't Simply Wisconsin a group of several cooperating farms?

=R=

I'm on the same boat with you guys. But you guy are luckier than me since you at least got some messages from them but I have nothing!

I ordered their products last year and felt happy with it so I continued doing business with them for this summer. I sent my payment thru paypal at the end of last year for 2012 regular season share, which runs from June to Oct. Unfortunately I forgot my order due to some personal issues. When I recall that I did made the order in July, I found they didn't send me anything, even a message! It looks that they just took my money and didn't do anything else.

I tried to contact them by email, they didn't rely. I called their number, but the line is disconnected. Also paypal and credit card dispute failed due to the long time gap. Then I filed to BBB, BBB cannot help me because Simply Wisconsin doesn't care about BBB.

Now I'm considering local small claim court. (I'm in Madison now.) Does it help a little bit? If anyone has the same thought, please let me know.

In parallel to my posting here, we went back to Simply Wisconsin via email a couple of times, and today we received a refund. I hope that is also the case for the other customer of theirs who posted here, and that they eventually get to everyone.

edb60035 wrote:In parallel to my posting here, we went back to Simply Wisconsin via email a couple of times, and today we received a refund. I hope that is also the case for the other customer of theirs who posted here, and that they eventually get to everyone.

You are a lucky dog. I post my experience (even worse than you )this morning but got deleted by somebody quickly without any notice. Very interesting.

tosa wrote:

edb60035 wrote:In parallel to my posting here, we went back to Simply Wisconsin via email a couple of times, and today we received a refund. I hope that is also the case for the other customer of theirs who posted here, and that they eventually get to everyone.

You are a lucky dog. I post my experience (even worse than you )this morning but got deleted by somebody quickly without any notice. Very interesting.

Our apologies. It was removed inadvertantly by one of the moderators (along with another post which did not comply with our Posting Guidelines). Your post has been restored above.

Thanks,

=R=
for the moderators

We're also former Simply Wisconsin CSA members who have never received a refund. We've sent many emails and left phone messages for Deb, but never get any response. Any suggestions on how to reach her or what else we can do?
Has anyone gone to small claims court?

Hi,
I too was a subscriber to the Simply Wisconsin CSA (actually for a few years and was happy with it then). Same situation, no refund, no explanation. I found this forum by doing a google search (since I really had no idea if others were in the same boat as me). But I also found another interesting link: http://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetails.do ... 1&offset=0

I'm not sure what that means, but I don't think I'll ever get my money back.

FYI, the last email I had for her was this: Deb Hansen <simplywisconsinalt@gmail.com>

this is the form reply I get when I send to it:
Hi, Your patience is appreciated. We have just over 800 members to
respond to with refunds, so it takes time. If you have not yet
received your refund, please be patient - ALL paying members are
receiving full refunds in the order their payments were received.
Also a reminder that I am unavailable Monday through Friday from 6 am
until 6 pm, and will require a minimum of 48 hours to respond to
E-mail.

Thanks.

Deb

Try simplywisconsin@yahoo.com. That's where we heard from Deb about eight weeks ago and did end up receiving a refund.

Thank you, edb. I actually sent my most recent email to simplywisconsinalt@gmail.com & simplywisconsin@yahoo.com.
From what I remember (from the CSA's prior emails) that the yahoo account was the original account that Deb said she would shut down (when she announced there would be no more Simply Wisconsin) and the gmail account was what should be used going forward.

Either way, I still have my fingers crossed. I would completely understand if members would have to take some sort of loss (I wouldn't understand logistically how we couldn't), but the fact that all communication has stopped and it has been so long makes me lose hope. The owner was always so responsive and helpful in the past, I am having a hard time believing that they would just "take the money".

I've been trying to get my refund for my full product share for the last few months. I emailed Deb a number of times and eventually offered her a payment plan, where she could pay off the refund in stages. I also filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection at http://datcp.wi.gov/Consumer/Consumer_C ... index.aspx, around the same time. She replied to my email about the payment plan and said she would send my refund in 4 payments each sent a few weeks apart, and she did send the first payment, but she hasn't sent another check since then. I don't know if the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection contacted her first and that's why she sent the first refund check, or if they contacted her after the first check and that's why she didn't send any more.

I received a letter sent from Deb about the complaint, and she says she's going to pay everyone back, but she's suffering financial hardship. She also said she was going to send the second refund check on October 22, but I haven't received the second check from her. I wrote a letter back to her and to the person at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection who is handing the complaint on October 26th, but I haven't heard back from either of them yet.

The emails I've gotten from Deb have all been from simplywisconsin@yahoo.com. She did say in one of her CSA mailings that that email would be shut down and that she would use the gmail address, but as far as I can tell she is only using simplywisconsin.com@yahoo.com.

I posted on this forum before, but my post was removed because I had included Deb's mailing address and some phone numbers that she had used in the past.

My husband looked into small claims court, but the information he found was that the court could rule in your favor, but it can't actually make the person pay you back. You'd still be the one emailing and sending letters and trying to get the person to pay.

CSASubscriber wrote:
My husband looked into small claims court, but the information he found was that the court could rule in your favor, but it can't actually make the person pay you back. You'd still be the one emailing and sending letters and trying to get the person to pay.

You can't squeeze blood from a turnip, organic or otherwise.

Unless they are really not very bright, the CSA agreement you signed should protect them from claims. The whole concept of a CSA is you share the risk. You may be out a couple of hundred dollars, but this year a lot of farmers are just going under. They shouldn't have claimed they were refunding when they weren't though, but I guess the incentive for them to follow through is pretty low and frankly a lot of farmers fold because of things like the drought, but the complete lack of business skills I encounter among them probably doesn't help.

This wasn't a problem with crop yield that happened during the CSA season, which could be expected to happen sometimes with a CSA. We all paid for the 2012 summer CSA, but the summer CSA was cancelled the week before it started. We didn't receive any produce for the 2012 summer season.

On July 9th, Deb said that she had fully refunded the payments from 600 of the 800 CSA subscribers, and that she would keep working on the refunds for the remaining 200. I don't know how many of the remaining 200 have received their refunds, but there are at least a couple of us that are still waiting. I feel that everyone should have received a partial refund, if there wasn't enough money to go around, instead of most people getting a full refund, and some people getting no refund.

For what it is worth, we supplied Simply Wisconsin with products for several years. They dropped from sight and never paid the over $12,000 owed for product we foolishly let them buy on a promise of payment. Those of you who are out only your CSA payment have it lucky. Yes, times are bad, but courtesy and clear communications have been totally lacking in this case. We feel badly for them but also very upset at our own financial difficulties caused by them.

This seems to be getting skeezier as more info is revealed. Assuming that this business is based in Wisconsin, I would advise ALL of you here to contact the Wisconsin Attorney General's office. Here's a good place to start - and they may very well want to get involved, as the dollar value of the consumer and producer losses that you all have presented is already in five figures:

DATCP (Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection)
1-800-422-7128, (608) 224-4953

General consumer complaints (auto repairs, pyramid schemes, investment opportunities, telemarketing, fraud, Internet fraud, landlord/tenant, sweepstakes, travel scams, charitable solicitors, etc.)

Consumers can also call DATCP to find out if there are any complaints against a company

Good luck. What a damn shame!

I am so glad I found this forum. I was a supplier of organic apples to Simply Wisconsin and have had the same payment issues everyone else has. As a matter of fact my husand passed away during all of this which makes matters much worse for my particular situation. The last three emails that I sent Deb have gone unaswered. I will admit several months went by when I made not attempt to contact her as I was up to my armpits in trying to figure out what I was going to do with our orchard. I am going to have to start action against them as much as I would prefer not to. I would be interested to know that last time anyone heard from them and if anyone has a current address for them.

Happy New Year and thank you! Here's to hoping 2013 resolves this for all of us. Joan

Wow - to date, five customers and two suppliers have posted complaints here regarding either refunds never sent, or payments for goods never rendered. This looks more and more like a serious matter.

You may all want to PM one another, and organize a joint communication to the Wisconsin AG, as noted above. Everyone's chances of recovery may be enhanced by the sheer volume of simultaneous complaints.

Again, I wish you the best of luck with this.

I was thinking the same thing. The amount owed me is $10,000. Perhaps, something similar to a class action might get us more action and attention than trying to get resolution individually.

I'm afraid that there is no blood in this turnip. In my last communication with Deb she said "you can take me to bankruptcy court, but we have nothing to pay you with." I filed with a debt collector in Madison who was recommended to me, but she was unable to collect anything. I think complaints with the AG or someone would yield nothing. They claim to have medical debts, etc. and I suspect they will just disappear and start over somewhere else.

orchardrun wrote:I was thinking the same thing. The amount owed me is $10,000. Perhaps, something similar to a class action might get us more action and attention than trying to get resolution individually.

I'm not a lawyer, but have worked in the legal profession for a couple decades. If there aren't any deep pockets, you'll be hard pressed to find a class action lawyer who will take you on. (Most work on contingency--meaning they get a share of anything recovered--so they'll only risk their time & money if they're fairly certain it'll pay off.) Additionally, by definition a "class" has to be similar, so there are probably two separate classes: Farmers and individuals.

Farmer producer wrote:I'm afraid that there is no blood in this turnip. In my last communication with Deb she said "you can take me to bankruptcy court, but we have nothing to pay you with."

I suppose she's referring to involuntary bankruptcy, which is uncommon and potentially expensive for the creditor.

Chiming in here rather late, having just joined this forum.

We too are out our membership from Simply Wisconsin last year. Deb Hansen told my wife via email that she would be refunding our money ($600) but has not done so, nor been responsive, so far, to our followups.

The failure to deliver any produce at all for the 2012 season, after collecting a great deal of money, is very suspicious. And while some posters above have mentioned getting refunds, we have only Ms Hansen's word that she paid back 600 of 800 subscribers.

In any case we have received nothing, and are ready to file a complaint with the Wisconsin Dept of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection. They do have complaints already on file. I believe that if they are aware of the amounts of money involved, there may be a criminal case opened, if there is not already. That would not produce any money for those who are out of pocket but might bring a certain amount of satisfaction, as it seems this is not just an unfortunate business collapse but outright fraud.

DATCP (Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection)
1-800-422-7128, (608) 224-4953