Wow. That's so bad it's almost impressive.

Sounds like somebody ran a little short and started substituting.

"QUICK! Run down to Dollar General and get SOMETHING!"

gotta admire their balls on this. If they won't answer their phones, i'd try a CC chargeback. Forget the quality issue for a moment and focus on the 4.8 oz s 8 oz. That should help get the ball rolling

I learned my lesson a few years ago with FTD. ALWAYS go with a local florist, if you can.

"Tagged: scam" is totally right. What a bunch of crooks.

I can't use that site anymore - or FTD.com - because of errors in delivery. Once ordered a dozen red roses on FTD, ended up delivering a bouquet of multicolored variety. Which cost around $25 on the site. And I paid over $60. Never got my money back.

you have to go to be kidding. This isn't something you need to report to your attorney generals office. Let's not get ridiculous. 1800 flowers contracts local florists to fulfill their orders. It seems like the local florist who got your order either doesn't have chocolates or ran out. So some idiot kid or store worker went to the nearest store and picked these up. Its not some elaborate scam by 1800 flowers. its simple screw up by an inexperienced florist.

Hence the reason I always use Proflowers...I've always been super satisfied with their service.

If you want to use a national florist, proflowers is much better!

He's exaggerating the price by a factor of 100. 88 cents, not .88 cents.

FTD, and 800 FLowers are contract operations that send your order to a participating network florist. FTD was 'Florist's Telegraph Delivery', they've been around that long. Proflowers uses regional centers, they don't contract local florists.

i would issue a chargeback on your card, and focus on the size of your candy box (4.8oz) and that you could not get in touch with the vendor to resolve the issue.

@babaki: Yes, but its FTD that takes your money.

I used them this year as I did last year. Instead of a local delivery from a florist like I got last year, I get some flowers from New Jersey in a 1800flowers.com box that were all pressed down and looked very lack-luster...

I'll be going to a local florist from now on.

Wow, you'd think they would at least go to a grocery store and grab an armful of cheap boxed candy, at least.

I just used FTD For valentine's day. The flowers never got delivered yesterday. I checked the tracking #, and they were on the truck for delivery TODAY. I called FTD this morning, sat on hold for about an hour before i finally got to talk to someone.

She first offered me 15% off my shipping and to call the person and apologize for being late. I told her just to give me my money back. Doesn't do much good to arrive when the person won't be there for 4 more days. What a waste...

They are the biggest scammers in the business of flowers.
Normally I pick up on my own from a florist, however a friend surprised me and I needed to send them something in a hurry. I did using these clowns.
Not only did my friend receive something LESS than the 59.99 ensemble I chose, (I sent a link afterwards with the email they sent me) they refused to fix the mistake.

Only about a 25.00 mistake, on their florists part. I said the hell with them, hung up, went online and tried to cancel my account. Never want to do business with the crooks again.
Turns out that they make canceling your account online IMPOSSIBLE. It always comes back saying that they can't find your name / password to cancel. BUT the retrieve password option sent to THAT email works!!!
Called to point this out to them and they said basically we don't like to cancel people. But if I give them the following information, they will remove me from the system. The information included name address work and it's address, a credit card and security number!
I told them to F*** off. It is illegal for them to collect information from you of that nature to CANCEL your account.
When I told the lady this, she said it is what is REQUIRED to VERIFY that someone isn't fraudulently canceling my account...

I didn't know that the anti Cupid movement had made it this big over here in the US...
Reported them to the AG and BBB, form letter responses back as I didn't lose any money by not canceling. However if I ever get charged again from them, I can sue the pants off of them.

I ordered from 800 Flowers about a year ago and while my girlfriend got the 18 red roses I ordered, they were all wilting and overall in poor quality. Hardly worth the $60-$70 price tag.

I complained, but I never got any response back.

@notme93:
Again, might I recommend Proflowers...They give you a freshness guarantee and if I remember right essentially promise you the flowers will last at least a week. They ship them in a manner that when they arrive the blooms are not quite fully opened yet. You put them in water and within a day or two they are full bloom and last another week. Also, I've heard they have good customer service, though I've never had to use it.

damnit consumerist...now i want chocolate covered peanuts...

My fiance took pictures of the flowers I sent her for V-Day this year and they looked exactly like what I ordered...they were beautiful.

I gave up using these places. If we need to order flowers for something we find a local florist in that city via the online yellow pages, call them and order over the phone. We have had better success with that. Usually someone who has an ad about being in business for 20+ years or something that lends that they are rather large and been there a while seems to be a good indicator.

When I saw the candy issue all I could think was if this was a long distance romance situation where they didn't talk to each other constantly or just met the lousy candy delivery might have not been known to the sender.

@statnut: so what. im sure if he calls he can get a refund. the phones are probably just tied up because its the day after valentines day.

Par for the course. Does everyone see now why I hate 1800flowers with a passion? Because they contract local florists, each party plays it off on the other as their mistake. You'll never get a straight answer out of them.

When calling Corporate, I mentioned that my experience with them was inexcusable, and that it made me question whether I'd continue business with them. I was then interrogated as to my previous orders, to see just how much of a valued customer I was to them. Fuck them.

I issued a chargeback, but wells fargo has to wait a month for a resolution, then they'll process it. One more week 1800flowers, & ya'll are getting fucked like you fucked me!

1) Find a local florist.
2) Use them more than just once a friggin' year.
3) You both profit! (one monetarily, the other emotionally)

They could have gotten the $4.99 box of chocolates while they were at Dollar General. They still would have made a $10 profit!

@NotATool: Maybe he works for Verizon.

I don't think anyone does a good job with flowers. Last year mine were four days late from FTD - I'll forgive 1 day for the snow, but four? I sent my mother flowers through 1800flowers and she got a crappy dead bouquet. This year I told husband to use the local florist, and I got ugly carnations in a wicker basket as their "valentine's special." I'm going to take Toof_75_75's advice and try Proflowers next time.

@blondegrlz:

The other thing I recommend is to search around for coupon codes...Usually you can get special deals like 15%, 20%, free shipping, promos on specific flowers, etc... I have done that every time I order flowers (or really anything) online and I always save a nice chunk of money.

@Toof_75_75: You might want to pull it back a bit.

You're starting to sound like a company shill.

Dad always forgets, so I send flowers addressed to mom from Radar the dog and Smokey the cat...used Proflowers. The vase they suggested, arrived and was too small, not a huge deal...but I figured I'd give them the feedback so that they can think about adjusting things. Filled out the form on their website and sent off the email.

There was a PERSONAL response in my inbox within 5 minutes. The email showed that the CSR had actually read the email and responded to the things I said.

Makes me feel like if I have a real complaint they'd be right on top of it.

I'm sorry but I just can't feel bad for people who read Consumerist and get hosed like this. There's a search function, use it. There's been a number of stories about 1800flowers and every time a daily deal pops up with them in it, there's at least one comment about staying away from them.

@blondegrlz: I used ProFowers this year and the roses they sent are awesome! Plus they have a 7-day freshness guarantee.

The magic words to use when you *write* your letter disputing the charge are "goods not as advertised". Works like a champ as long as you provide reasonable proof.

I use local florists, and I rarely buy roses. not that my wife doesn't like them, but I do a better job on my own. pick the fresh ones, you can get some better arrangements just by looking around and spending a little time with the florist. I do it a couple of times a year, and rarely on valentine's day. I buy roses when they are on the cheap :)

I've gotten more rave reviews over spider mums and birds of paradise than over any roses. One time, i bought my wife (then girlfriend) a large bunch of birds of paradise, lillies, irises, and others. no roses... chose each thing by hand. every girl on her floor in the dorm immediately was envious, and I heard about it :)

@brent_w:

HAHA I thought about that as I was typing it, but you can look back at my previous comments and see that's not true. I really only am pushing it so much because each year there are countless stories of people endlessly pissed off by the flowers they bought online. I have used proflowers 3 or 4 times that I can think of in the last 2 years and have never had a problem. My flowers showed up a day late this V-Day because we had ridiculous snow storms, but I had ordered them to arrive on Tuesday anyways, so it ended up working out just fine. Also, weather isn't really their fault.

Flowers really are not a commodity -- the quality varies a lot and is evident immediately. A good local florist is your love ally, whether you are married, or courting. You will be rewarded by your sweetie if you find a QUALITY local florist and deal with them directly. Maybe your wife likes star gazer lillies or the smell of lilacs -- ask her what she likes subtly a few months before V-day. Discuss a nice arrangement with your florist. Pay for personal delivery, or pick them up yourself. This is not the time to shop based soley on price or use a national chain/1-800 number. I'm just sayin'. Maybe get your own chocolate, also, like from Godiva or Lindt or Sees, rather than risk chocolate that looks like deer poop showing up, you cheap dog!

whuutt? what you mean you don't like goobers

@Toof_75_75: Wow. Proflowers. No kidding. You you sure? Proflowers, yeah. Proflowers. Proflowers.

Purchasing stuff online is not always the way to go - flowers, in my opinion, is one of them. If you want flowers delivered, going "cheap" on the internet isn't going to impress your sweetie - as others have mentioned, find a trustworthy local florist that delivers.

My wife used ProFlowers yesterday to send an arrangement to our friends who just had their first baby. Not only did they send the wrong arrangement (one that was $20 cheaper), the flowers were all brown and wilted. Fortunately my wife went to the hospital to visit and saw what they had delivered, called and complained and got a full refund. At first she was offered a $20 refund (yeah, well, duh) and a 20% discount on her next purchase.

Sure, that's a real mollifier...an incentive to give them more of our money. No thanks.

@raleel: That is what I am talking about. You are a smoooothe dude.

@Crotty:

Everything you say is fine and dandy for you, but some of us don't mind saving some money if we can still get an excellent product (Hence, consumerist?). Also, before you go firing off about anyone being cheap, if you were awesome enough to buy See's candy perhaps you'd enjoy the story from earlier about some of their candy being recalled.

[consumerist.com]

And why isn't this a time to not spend money unnecessarily? I can't think of any reason to not get an equal product for a lesser price...

Wow, bet someone slept on the couch last night.

Everybody realizes that all these flower places are a scam, even your 'local' florist. They buy flowers wholesale from clearinghouses all over the world and ship the flowers in from whatever climate is warmest and least likely to enforce labor standards.

Give a potted plant from a local Greenhouse (The big boxes import these, too) and really support your neighbors.

True story: A number of years ago, I had a 1800flowers store nearby. I stopped by on a saturday about 10 minutes before closing time. As I was getting out of my car, someone from inside saw me and runs to the door, locks it and flips the sign to say closed.

I go up to the door and knock on it - we can obviously see each other, but she acts like she doesn't. I never bought from them because of that incident.

i always get my valentines flowers at whole foods; $20 for 2 dozen, I've never found a better deal.

Life is like a box of chocolates...

Trader Joe's has really pretty flower arrangements that are reasonably priced if you are willing to go pick them up yourself.

if you complain, 1800 flowers will usually credit you what you ask for, and they will do it very quickly.