Moon Valley Nursery review: Scammers *beware* bait & switch credit card faud no signature charges

MOON VALLEY NURSERY IS A NIGHTMARE! BEWARE of bait-and-switch tactics and unauthorized charges on your credit card, which is blatant fraud. They verbally state they will take a minor deposit to hold a date, but instead secretly sweep the full contract amount behind your back. I was completely defrauded of $29,911.80 across four un-authorized charges pushed through my personal and business cards via an Auto-Pay blind spot a full month before any work was done. There was zero scope of work, zero invoices, and absolutely no written contracts to sign as strictly required for a California State Contractor—meaning they entirely denied me my statutory right to cancel.
They offer a "60% off promotion," but do not be fooled; you will never see it because their retail markup is over 800%. They sent inexperienced workers who looked like they had never used a shovel. They committed gross trade negligence: they completely smashed my landscape lighting, severed my underground sprinkler zones, planted entirely the wrong species, and then tried to gaslight me by telling me otherwise.
Worse yet, the plants arrived infested with live aphids and the trees immediately died. They left the heavy wooden nursery stakes tightly bound to the Podocarpus trunks, effectively strangling the trees until they rotted into an active, dangerous residential fire hazard that I had to pay a private gardener out-of-pocket to cut down. To prove this was not user error, identical Podocarpus trees that I planted on my estate 6 years ago continue to thrive in perfect green health under my exact same watering care.
I have formally filed a fraud case against their contractor's license with the State of California. A contractor cannot legally extract a $19,960.75 "Order Deposit" three weeks before delivery without an itemized contract signed and agreed upon by the homeowner (CA B&P Code § 7159.5). My file has been advanced to CSLB Enforcement Officer Marcel McGee (Suite 620) under active Case Number: S F [protected], and state investigators have formally directed me to escalate this to the District Attorney and California Attorney General for criminal elder fraud prosecution. Four separate unauthorized charges totaling $29,998. This is the absolute WORST company I have ever worked with. They have changed their corporate entity name three times to hide from their record—look it up. Protect your property, protect your seniors, and stay far away from this predatory ring!