Ohio Mulch

I ordered mulch on 4/30 for delivery on 5/9. Never received the product even though they completed the transaction and took my money on 5/1. Website said to email about inquiries and did that 4 times got no response, connected with their online help and was told the manager would call me the next day, never got a response. Called and was directed to the person in charge and left a voice mail never got a response. Have called corporate three times and was told I would get a call back and never got one, been a customer for over 10 years but guess that means nothing to them

Our address is Columbus taxes and services including snow and trash, Westerville address and New Albany schools. Therefore, our drivers license and id's all state Westerville. However, the person at the counter, based on our reciept was Carlos, was very unhelpful. He stated that he had to charge us because our id didn't state Columbus. I asked him if he would be willing to look up our address on the internet to verify that we were Columbus residents and he stated" That is not my job." I said it is a valid request for customer service. I stated that my church uses them for their mulch sales and he stated after I told him the name that he had never heard of them nor did he care. He was doing the city a favor and as the manager, he just needed to check the id. I proceeded to pay the charge and figured I could try to straighten it with the city. On my way out, I did say that for good customer service he could have taken 2 minutes to look up my address, it wasn't that hard. He proceeded to create a verbal fight with both me and my husband saying that he didn't have to take this back talk, etc, etc and that we were trespassing. I told him I have already paid you for your service and I will finish my drop-off and be on my way. No need to create an issue. He was already upset and proceeded to follow us out to the drop off site and yell at us to leave. I told him that I had paid and that I'm just finishing up and I have no further need to have a discussion with him. He then used foul language at my husband when my husband told the agent to leave me alone. The agent then proceeded to call the police as though we were trespassing. I am disgusted by this incident and plan to let the city know what is going on. But I think other Angie's list customers should know that there are many other locations of Ohio Mulch that probably provide much better service and you should NEVER use this one!

I should preface this report by saying that they had little competition, since another company did not respond to my request for gravel, a second company took my order, but never delivered it, and a third company was completely out of decorative gravel. Who knew it was so difficult to get decorative gravel in Columbus, Ohio in the middle of the summer? I previously had a good experience buying mulch from Ohio Mulch, so I decided to try to get some gravel from them. I went to the website, but the photos of the gravel are tiny and generic rather than showing the detail of the different types. I sent an e-mail request for more information about the gravel types and got an automated response saying that someone would get back to me ASAP. I never got an actual response, so I decided to call and ask about gravel types. I called the distribution center, who referred me to the Riverside location. I called that location, but they accidentally hung up on me. A couple of weeks later, I finally went to the Riverside location to actually look at the gravel and see if it would work in my landscape bed. The employee did show me the gravel types, but they were out of the most attractive river rock, and the samples were still dirty enough that I couldn't see the actual stone colors. I decided to order anyway, but the employee said she could not help me calculate how many bags I would need and couldn't even go on the website to try to see if there was any information about it on there (something about company policy against internet use). I gave up and went home, found an online calculator for gravel needs on a different website and placed the order with Ohio Mulch online. Things got better from there. I received an automatic e-mail confirmation of my order and was able to pick my delivery date. I also got a phone call from a live person confirming my order and leaving contact information in case I had any questions. The gravel was delivered on time and placed on the driveway exactly where I wanted it. Inside of the bags, the gravel was very muddy, which I didn't expect, but guess I understand. It ended up being fairly attractive once it was rinsed off. The end result was fine, but it was a real do-it-yourself process trying to figure out what kind of gravel they had and how much to order.

I am not sure if the delivery was on time. The 60 bags of mulch were shared. The mulch was supposed to be black hardwood mulch but we were given dark brown (that wasn't obvious until it dried in the beds). We received, what said on the package was "100% organic, screened" extra dark hardwood mulch. It was less than organic nor screened. The mulch had a lot of debris, lots of pieces of plastic, bottle caps, a 10 in plastic covered wire as well as other miscellaneous items. It also, after being on the ground overnight, produced a large orange fungus blob as well as much white downy like mold. This mold has seemed to affect the lower branches of our pine in the front yard. Unfortunately we didn't know about the mold until after it was spread. It also smelled horrible. We were very unhappy with our purchase, but after already spreading it on the ground we feel that there can be nothing done. We just wanted to warn future consumers.

I began preparation work early Thursday morning, spending the entire day killing time, waiting for them to arrive (they were unable to give an estimated delivery time). At 2:30 p.m., they finally called and said that their truck broke down (apparently they have only one) and that my mulch and topsoil couldn't be delivered until Sunday. This was Memorial Day weekend, by the way, so I had a cookout planned for Monday evening and had taken two days of vacation to get my work done. They refused to give any kind of compensation (not even one of the TWO delivery fees that I was paying) for putting off delivery for 3 whole days. Sunday morning came, and again, I waited. I found out that they didn't even open until 10 a.m. so I called around 11 a.m. to see when it would be delivered. The answer was "as soon as the driver gets here". What good is a topsoil company being open if they don't have a driver? They finally showed up at 1:30 p.m. They had to make 2 trips, because they have 1 truck.

I ordered such a large load that they had to deliver it in two trips. It did not cost extra for the second delivery due to the limited capacity of their truck that day. The driver was great and very professional. The price was great as well. The mulch came on the same day that I ordered it. Great company. Great product. I am very satisfied.

The person taking our order over the phone was very friendly and polite. She advised us that we could call the day before the delivery was necessary, except if delivery was on a Saturday. We called on Monday requesting a Tuesday delivery. They could not advise us of a delivery time, but said that it would be before 6PM. We waited for delivery on Tuesday until 6PM, but no mulch arrived. On Wednesday morning I called to ask about our order. The receptionist said that it had been missed because of a broken fax machine. She advised that the mulch would be delivered today (Wednesday). I asked if we could be given a priority since or order was being delivered a day after promised. She said she would ask her manager to call the Blacklick office, from which the mulch was actually originating, to request the priority delivery. We waited until 3PM on Wednesday to receive our mulch. Apparently no priority was given to our missed order.

One day after I ordered mulch, I changed my mind and asked for a different type of mulch. Because the clerk did not communicate the change to the dispatcher, the wrong mulch was delivered. I called them and informed them of the mistake. They promptly returned to my home and removed the incorrect loose mulch using a bucket truck and pickup truck, and returned later to deliver the correct material. I am certain that they lost money on this transaction, but they did not hesitate to make things right, regardless of the cost.

The delivery truck did not come at the promised time. I waited several more hours, until noon, and then called the company to see what was going on. They said that another customer with a larger delivery had been put ahead of me, and that the delivery wouldn't happen until "sometime" later that day. I told them that not adhering to their promised delivery time was a bad way to do business; I had already wasted half the day waiting for them. The manager offered to make amends by waiving the delivery fee. When the topsoil arrived around 2 pm it turned out to be composted mulch, NOT TOPSOIL.

No problems. Received more than expected.

THEY DID STACK IT NEATLY IN THE DRIVEWAY. I NEED A LOT MULCH SINCE IT HAS BEEN SEVERAL YEARS. I HAD THE YARD MEASURED AND NEEDED 121 BAGS AND THEY HAD THE BEST PRICE GOING FOR THE BLACK MULCH. THE COMPOST BAG IS TRULY MISLABELED AND CAUSED CONSIDERABLE CONFUSION. TWO PHONE CALLS TO THE OFFICE VERIFIED THAT I HAD THE RIGHT STUFF BUT I SPENT NUMEROUS MINUTES ON HOLD AND HAVING TO REPEAT MYSELF SEVERAL TIMES. THE MULCH WAS TO BE DELIVERED ON MONDAY BUT IT WAS A DAY LATE WITHOUT ANY TYPE OF NOTICE.

WE PLACED AN ORDER W/OHIO MULCH (WESTERVILLE LOCATION) ON A TUESDAY FOR 8 YARDS OF MULCH TO BE DELIVERED ON SATURDAY IN THE AFTERNOON. WE CALLED AT 2PM WHEN THE MULCH WAS LATE. WE WERE ADVISED THEY HAD AN ISSUE W/THE DELIVERY TRUCKS AND WOULD ARRIVE BY 7PM; AROUND 4PM WE RECEIVED A CALL ADVISING THEY WOULD NOT MAKE THE DELIVERY UNTIL THE FOLLOWING DAY. WE ADVISED OHIO MULCH WE WOULD CANCEL THE ORDER IF THE PRODUCT WAS NOT ON OUR DRIVEWAY BY 10AM SUNDAY. OHIO MULCH INDICATED, BY THE SUPERVISOR, THAT THEY WOULD MAKE SURE IT WAS HERE BY 10AM WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THE ORDER WOULD BE CANCELED IF THAT WAS NOT MET. AT 10:07 WE CONTACTED OHIO MULCH AND PROCEEDED TO CANCEL THE ORDER PER OUR NEGOTIATED TERMS. OHIO MULCH ADVISED THE ORDER WAS ALREADY ON THE WAY AND THERE WAS NOT A THING THEY WOULD DO ABOUT IT. OHIO MULCH WESTERVILLE WAS THEN INCREDIBLY RUDE STATING THEY CANNOT GUARANTEE A TIME OR EVEN A PARTICULAR DAY. OHIO MULCH IS NOT A COMPANY TO SPEND YOUR MONEY WITH. VISA IS NOT PAYING.

IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PLACED ON THE SIDE OF THE DRIVEWAY AND IT WAS THROWN IN THE YARD. I CALLED THEM AND THEY CAME BACK PLACED IT WHERE IS SHOULD HAVE BEEN AND REPLACED THE TORN BAGS. I APPRECIATED THEIR RESPONSIVENESS.