Valentines Day Warning!!! BOYCOTT 1-800-FLOWERS!

I just want to remind everyone to boycott 1-800-FLOWERS.com.

For those of you that don't know, last year for Valentine's day I decided to send my wife some flowers at work. Having successfully used them in the past for less critical events (birthdays and such) I decided to use 1-800-FLOWERS.

In all fairness, I placed my order on the 11th, just 3 short days before Valentines day. Prior to completing my order I was prompted with an offer to pay a reduced shipping fee IF I chose to have the flowers delivered the day before or the day after Valentines Day. I chose to pay the extra shipping and handling fee of $19.98 to make sure it arrived on the day.

I mean, come on, I wasn't buying flowers, I was buying my wife bragging rights at work. I wanted to make sure that on Valentines Day she got a huge bouquet of roses that could sit on her desk and remind all of the other women in the office that the significant other in their lives hadn't done the same.

So... Valentine's day comes and goes, I sat by all day waiting for either the delivery confirmation email, an IM or SMS from my wife... NOTHING... Until 3:33 PM(AZST) I got the following canned email from 1-800-FLOWERS

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Thank you for shopping at 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. We understand that your order was scheduled to be delivered Thursday, February 14th. Unfortunately, due to high demand for Valentine’s Day deliveries and weather issues in select areas, we will be delayed in getting your gift to your recipient within the desired timeframe.

We know that you have trusted us with the delivery of your gift, and we are most sorry for the delay.

To ensure that your recipient will receive the gift, we have scheduled your delivery for Friday, February 15th. Please know that your gift will be delivered fresh and beautiful.

We shall contact your recipient to apologize for the late delivery.

Also, we shall issue a 20% credit on the delayed order, and shall extend to you a $20 Gift Certificate for your next purchase. We do hope that you will give us another chance.

Once again, we are very sorry for any inconvenience caused. Thank you for your patience and understanding.


Yours sincerely,


Chris McCann
President, 1800flowers.com

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So now it's nearly 4pm on Valentines Day, I've already dropped more than a $100 and now I have to run out after work and pick up some picked over Flowers at the grocery store... Really friggin nice... I spent most of my drive home calling 1-800-FLOWERS OVER AND OVER! Not once did I manage to get through to a customer service representative that day. Every time I called I got a canned message saying their call volume was too high and no one was available to speak to me. This continued on through the next day as I called demanding my money back, as in my opinion, they had failed to fulfill their contract. I of course wasn't able to get hold of anyone until after they had deilvered the flowers late the next day, by which time of course, they were unwilling to do anything to make this right.

Having spoken to many people about this, I know I wasn't alone in this. It's clear that this is an ongoing problem they have there. They knwo they are going to sell more flowers than they can possibly deliver in one day and they knwo they are going to screw somebody. They don't care. They will still take your money, promise you they will deliver it on the day and then if your order comes up in the wrong order, you get shafted.

If you're going to order flowers, order them from a local florist. At least if they screw you over you can go back in, in person and yell at them.