I had an absolutely awful experience with Laura and her business. In fact, this may have been the…read moreworst experience I've had as a customer, anywhere, ever.
I had been in touch with Laura for a couple weeks about buying two pullets. She said I could come by July 3rd at 1pm. We were coming from the east bay, and after realizing the traffic was getting increasing worse on CA-17, I texted her and asked if I could come by at 2pm instead. She said okay.
My 73-year old mother and I were in bumper to bumper traffic for 2.5 hours, trying to make it to Laura's farm. My mom was in town from SoCal for July 4th, and came along for a fun mother-daughter adventure. We finally got there, around 2:25pm, exasperated from hours of traffic. I texted Laura, per her instructions, that I was there at the farm. She then texted me back that I was late, she was "eating lunch" now, and would not come out to greet us. I said I was very sorry, we had been in awful traffic for over two hours, and I couldn't text since I was driving. I asked if we could wait until she was done with lunch. She texted back saying she would not sell me chickens anymore, since I was so rude for being late and not asking my elderly mom to reach out from her phone, informing her of the minor delay. She also said I should have predicted the increasing traffic before we left.
Keep in mind I was a brand new, paying customer, who had just traveled over two hours in stop-n-go traffic to get to her farm, for two pullets. I wanted to support a local farm, instead of a more commercialized operation. It was intended to be a nice outing with my mom, who I don't get to see often. We had devoted our entire day to this. We finally got there, and Laura was now refusing to come out, because we were nominally late, due to holiday traffic. I felt so embarrassed and bad for my mom, who agreed to accompany me on this super long drive, only to be met with bizarre, belligerent texts from Laura upon our arrival.
Laura proceeded to send me several walls of unhinged texts, chastising me for wasting her time, how she swept and cleaned up the coop for us, we were so disrespectful for being late, and she had to "hold me accountable". We read these texts while standing in her empty parking lot, completely baffled. We don't know this woman, we had never met her or even spoken on the phone before. We were new, honest customers, who had driven 2.5 hours to see her business. We just wanted to buy a couple chickens. It was such a nonsensical, hostile and unprofessional interaction, I genuinely wondered if she was impaired. She was not fit to interact with a customer, and I seriously question her judgement to properly care for these animals.
Then I had to drive the 1+ hour home (without traffic) and tell my kids I couldn't get the pullets, and they were so disappointed. Laura should seek professional help and take a course in customer service, at a minimum. I will be reaching out to the Aptos Chamber of Commerce, and letting them know of our experience.
Update (7/7) - we told the story at one of our 4-H meetings over the weekend, and everyone was shocked. Several of them are livestock breeders and said it's possible the chickens we wanted were sick or deceased, and Laura realized that after we already left. We were recommended a different farm, and we got our healthy, beautiful chicks from there the next day (for 1/3 the price Laura was charging), and encountered zero issues.
