I was email a $15 coupon from Teleflora so went on their web site, and after about 15 minutes found the perfect bouqet of flowers for a luncheon I was having on May 7th. I called their 800# because the coupon was not registering online, and placed my order with a live representative. I ordered Polka Dots and Posies which is a pink and white elegant arrangement with a pink polka dot bow around a square vase. At the end of the call he informed me of their substitution policy and I stated no substitutions. I wanted the arrangement I ordered or nothing.
The day of my luncheon I went to the door and the florist stood there with a round vase holding cheap red, purple and yellow filler flowers with lots of greenery to fill up the small vase. Teleflora has most of their arrangements in "standard", "deluxe" and "premium" and I had ordered the "deluxe" which cost me $40 after my $15 coupon. So I refused the flowers and it made her mad telling me it was what I ordered. I said it was not and she went to the car to get her ticket to prove to me it was what I had ordered. Her ticket read "florist choice - mixed arrangement". I told her I did not order that and turned the flowers back with a signature from her for proof.
This Florist Choice police is like me saying here's my $60 you just send my whatever you want to. And their policy of not requiring Florist to purchase their product is like me running a McDonalds but deciding I want to sell Burger King from it. The customer doesn't get what they ordered but they can always go to Florist choice??? Rip Off!! Bait and Switch?!!!!!
I called Teleflora's 800# and nobody would offer to try and get me my arrangement so I asked to speak to a manager, no luck until I finally got Carrie Darr, Customer Service Manager over Customer Service. She was very nice saying the reason I got the florist choice was because they had sent me an email telling me noone in the area could fill my order, would I pick a second choice. When I didn't respond I got Florist Choice.
I told Carrie I get emails from Teleflora all the time. I had already receive a confirmation regarding the flowers so I had no reason to open anymore thinking they were more advertise-ment. Besides my order stated clearly and she verified it stated no substitutions, so they had no reason to contact me.
Carrie gave me a 50% coupon and we agreed a new arrangement would be sent May 9th but to my office this time - different florist. When I came back from lunch onthe 9th I was shocked at the junk on my desk. I took a picture of it and compiled an email showing the arrangement I received - nothing like what I ordered and now I was paying $60 - these flowers weren't worth $14.95 like you would get from Publix or Wal-Mart!! next to the arrangement I ordered - which was beautiful and full and the Premium version!! I wouldn't have paid $5 for this arrangement.
I called Carrie back as I emailed her and Tom Butler, CEO of Teleflora the results of the second delivery. In talking to Carrie by now I have also found out the florist they do business with are not required to purchans any of Teleflora's products!!! So how are they supposed to duplicate the arrangement on the website?!?! And again no substitution was said.
I called Carrie back again and it took a week but finally I got in touch with her and we agreed a third arrangement would be delivered and she would personally walk it through to be sure I got what I was wanting. May 16th it was delivered. Should have been a Premium and instead it was less than a standard and full of ferns to fill in because the florist said Teleflora didn't send enough money to make the Premium after they take their $10 out for local delivery charge!!! So now I'm paying $25 for delivery of flowers not worth $5.00!!!!
I refused the third arrangement and called the florist to tell her it was on it's way back and why. She didn't know why their girl sent me my second choice because they had the purple roses which was my first choice. I told her how the last week had gone with the other two florist and how upset I was and the owner said she would fix me the purple roses arrangement up very nicely, over the top! Well, I did pay for the Premier arrangement after all!!! I had an appointment so the 4th arrangement couldn't be delivered so I picked them up. When I walked in and she turned with the flowers in her hand I almost cried, screamed, threw something and collapsed at on time!! But I just said "okay" to everything she said "I already put them in a box" "I fixed them up nice for you" etc etc. and I left.
As I walked to my car I thought I cannot really be this picky or this much of a perfec-tionist!! I went straight home and called the flowers up on Teleflora's site. Took a picture of the 8 purple roses cut 6", she put in a square vase with a cheap purple ribbon tied into a knot around the vase and placed it into an email that contained a copy of the Teleflora arrangement I ordered - 12 beautiful purple roses cut 12 inches at least with lots of filler flowers. No ferns or filler greenery. Oh and it has a beautiful lavendar expensive cloth ribbon BOW around the square glass vase.
I emailed those examples to Carrie Darr, Tom Butler and the vice president and vice president of marketing of Teleflora on May 16th and have not heard a word from anyone since. I did reach out to Carrie about May 30th to ask that she please complete my remaining refund due back to me - They charged me twice for these flowers so had to refund me twice. . . only after I insisted.
So after almost two weeks I still had no flowers, was stressed, frustrated and upset witht he florist industry as a whole but Teleflora specifically. They have zero quality control and the reason they can stay in business is because 95% of their business is customers who only receive orders they didn't order the flowers so they don't know what the arrangement is supposed to look like - therefore nothing is ever said. It's a racket they are getting away with every day!!! And charging redicuous prices to do so!!!
Last week I went to Trader Joe's and spent $12 and bought the amount of flowers or more than what is in any Premium arrangement on their web site. They are beautiful! I will shop at my local stores from now on.