This is round 7 in our Worst Company in America 2008 contest, DeBeers vs 1-800 Flowers.
DeBeers: Controls over 70% of the world’s diamond mining and has been accused of artificially constricting to diamond supply to inflate prices. Their advertising also teaches us that you’re not a man unless you get your wife or lover the biggest rock you can.
1-800 Flowers: Readers have complained about receiving dead or the completely wrong flowers.
This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2008 series. Keep track of all the goings on at consumerist.com/tag/worst-company-in-america/
STILL OPEN FOR VOTING: Starbucks vs United Airlines, Exxon vs Crocs, Google Vs Sony, Ticketmaster vs Wachovia, Facebook vs The American Arbitration Association, Comcast vs Menu Foods
Diamonds: she’ll pretty much have to
@bonzombiekitty: I guess all those diamon commercials I see on TV are for the other DeBeers.
DeBeers. Blood diamonds = evil. On a related note 1800flowers has actually sent good flowers the few times I’ve used them. Maybe I live close to one of their shipping locations.
@Ghede: Yeah, speaking of which, why was 1 seed Kansas up against poor little 16 seed Portland State?
Um, that’s the way these tournaments work. It’s set up so the crappy contestants get the boot early, and the scrappers in the middle get to fight it out for a chance to take on the giants.
@nuttycakes: Good point. I guess I’m less of a sucker in that respect, plus any chance you get to make a woman literally pee her pants with excitement should be taken full advantage of.
@blondegrlz: I’ll keep that in mind.
@cheddarpants: I did that too! I got connected with a guy who was able to give me good prices on rings/bands, but I was hoping to be able to pick my style so i looked at loose stones, but they all ended up pricing about the same everywhere. I think it’s a really good idea to go with a wholesaler if you just want a ring, but not if you want something very specific.
Do what I did: Find a lady with smaller hands. You can get away with buying a smaller (cheaper) diamond. You don’t want a huge-ass rock sitting on a small, petite hand. It looks poorly proportioned.
Also, my #1 tip for diamond shopping: Avoid the mall stores like the plague. There are places out there where you can get a better stone for the same price (or less).
$10,000 will make an entire family happy.
A diamond will make one woman happy.
Your choice.
Debeers is just plain evi
Amazing. So many peoples views are based on a dislike of an long-standing marketing plant. It’s not like DeBeers invented the ‘x months salary’ thing in the last year.
As a note, DeBeers tries to avoid the blood diamonds. They have their own mines, such as in South Africa, as well as some off-shore items. The majority of their business isn’t even for the consumer market. Most diamonds are for the industrial side of things.
One question: Can a company be eligible for ‘worst company in America’ when their headquarters is in South Africa?
@jmuskratt: I’m with you.
deBeers FT”W”
i’ve used 1800flowers a few times to good success. and i can even say that the roses they sent lasted far longer than the local shop. unless they’re being picked by 13 year old slave labor…
f the diamond industry all together. it’s corrupt.
love transcends all materialistic bribery. most people don’t get that.
It’s too bad that if DeBeers wins it all (as they quite-possibly should), there’s not nearly enough DeBeers news to go around. They’re like a puppetmaster: you only see the hands when they mess up the illusion.
It’s tragic, really.
To echo what CRNewsom said…not much is harder than diamond, but gemstones are still pretty hard. On the Mohs scale, sapphire and ruby are 9, emerald around 8, garnet around 7, hardened steel around 7-8, and opal around 5.5. My mother’s 40 year old opal engagement ring has held up pretty well…though she DOES take it off when she’s in the kitchen.
@Michael Belisle:
Maybe my mother-in-laws diamond is the exception, but my FiL bought it 20 years ago for $18k. My wife got it when her mother recently died, had it appraised for $80k, and the jeweler who did the appraisal offered her $60k for it on the spot.
I got my wife one of those lab-grown diamonds (they call them cultured diamonds) for her engagement ring. It wasn’t enormous or anything, but it was a high quality stone. Maybe I didn’t save a lot of money, but the price was right and as someone else mentioned, I can be sure that it’s not a blood diamond. I got it from Apollo Diamond and I liked it so much, I’m probably going to get her another one.
No question, DeBeers.
Back when we were still dating, I made it clear to my wife that she’d never get a diamond from me. Fortunately, I’m convincing, and she finds my little rants entertaining, or endearing, or something like that. I’ve already made other promises that I’ll have to live up to later, but I’m perfectly happy with that.
i read a book a while ago about the chocolate industry in the early 1900s, how they enslaved africans to work on cocoa farms under harsh conditions…many of them end up dying from mal-nutrition or being killed by a british solider for trying to escape (which still happens today, but this book was about the cadbury company way back when)
i image the diamond industry is alot like this but worse. debeers.
@cheddarpants: Definitely do that!!!! I bought from an online wholesaler. It was 1 carat certified (w/all the papers to prove it) with good clarity, color and cut (can’t remember the specifics)for about 2k. Since I bought it online I was terrified and took it to a jeweler to have it appraised. They valued it at $4,400.
Really? No mention of slave labor? That’s my #1 reason I’d vote for DeBeers over all other competition, including Comcast. But hey, children dying in diamond mines halfway around the world? Who cares, I missed the latest episode of Lost because my cable went all screwy! *Le sob*
My problem with the diamond trade involves the premium on buying retail. Why are diamonds like cars? When I walk out of that store, my $5,000 diamond is suddenly worth $2,500. I don’t get that concept.
I don’t mind diamonds, though. They can look good in the right setting. I appreciate that they’re not for everyone or that some people prefer other stones, but people who act cool because they’d “never get a diamond” are just obnoxious.
@SpenceMan01: Good, bad, they’re all essentially worthless.
@CRNewsom: I didn’t know that sapphires were so strong. Clearly I should speak with a reputable jeweler before my boyfriend buys the ring.
@Sudonum: It’s possible that it’s not an exception; that article is 25 years old and mostly of interest for the details of DeBeer’s brilliant strategy. Google tells me that appreciation is normal. I guess the return depends on how savvy the purchaser was.
But I hope your wife didn’t sell it on the spot to the same person who did the appraisal? (Whatever you did, I’m sure you considered it thoroughly and made the right decision based on your circumstances.)
I’m trying to imagine Sean Connery bedding Tiffany Case to stop Blofeld from destroying Earth with an orbiting floral bouquet, and failing.
Nonetheless, it’s DeBeers for me.
I guess if it were a year ago I would’ve voted for 1-800-FLOWERS but since I saw the documentary on the History Channel about DeBeers and since I guess you could say that their artificial supply constricting indirectly causes some of the crap that goes on in Sierra Leone I’m throwing in for DeBeers. Also, I’m getting ready to buy a rock soon and I’m not looking forward to paying for it.
Can a company be eligible for ‘worst company in America’ when their headquarters is in South Africa?
@catskyfire: Yes. Sony and Toshiba are in this too.
In the immortal words of Ron White.
DIAMONDS!!!!
That’ll shut her up!
Proflowers.com should be here instead of 1-800-Flowers. My order (2 doz roses) for my wife all died within 3 days. I worked in a florist in college and roses were supposed to last a good week or longer.
When I completed their satisfaction survey I told them I thought they had a poor product. They did call me and offered to replace the order, which they did. So they get bonus points for that. Yet when the replacement order arrived, these flowers also died in about 4 days. I will not be giving them any more of my business. I get better flowers at the grocery store, because I can choose them myself.
If you don’t know how to pick a good rose, it’s kind of like picking a woman. Give the hips a little squeeze, and if it’s nice and firm, it’s a keeper! If it feels soft and wilted, move on and make another choice.
Just watched a BBC News piece on DeBeers in Botswana. The company made sure every “manager” interviewed was black African. Give their PR department a raise!
@catskyfire: They do business in America, so yeah, I’d say they are a company in America.
Plus, they settled that price-fixing suit a couple of years ago, so their execs can freely walk the streets of America!
“A diamond is forever”
The funny thing is that they aren’t.
One of the useless bits of trivia I seem to remember from chemistry class is that diamonds are an unstable carbon allotrope and will eventually (over a very, VERY long time) turn into graphite and normal temperature and pressure.
I always thought it would be amusing for someone to sue DeBeers for false advertising over that
@holocron:
I think at 10K or above, the absolute most you could get back was 45%. I think it scales down depending on how many people apply.
DeBeers is definitely worse for all the aforementioned reasons, but I have to mention that recently, I sent a woman I was seeing a bouquet of roses for Valentine’s Day via 1-800-Flowers, and they simply were never delivered. No notification of delay or delivery issues or anything of the sort — they simply did not show up, although my card was charged in full. When I finally realized what had happened, I called and they admitted the flowers weren’t delivered, but could offer no explanation. The money was refunded, along with a $21 coupon off my next order, which I will never use. Avoid!
I spent only at most $500 on my wife’s ring, and she cherishes it more than anything.
Am I cheap? maybe… but then again it’s the thought that counts not the ring!
I have to go with DeBeers. No one ever died for a bouquet, except maybe the flowers.
1-800 Flowers is a ripoff though. A far better solution for sending flowers to someone not in your area is to Google around for a florist local to them and arrange for delivery. It’s far cheaper, and you’ll generally get a better selection and fresher flowers. I’ve used this method with great success.
What is with these lopsided polls?
@utensil42: Actually, sapphire (corundum), along with rubies, is an extremely hard mineral, you can’t scratch it.
WTF? Dead roses or blood diamonds? Not even on the same scale. Frankly, I don’t give a crap about someone getting the wrong flowers. What I do care about is the large numbers of innocent children and adults being forced into slavery to mine diamonds and being maimed or killed in the process. I’d rather get wilted roses than a dead kid any day.
I’ve had my sapphire engagement ring for quite a while now, I don’t take it off for any activity, and it has yet to scratch. And it’s gorgeous.
DeBeers’ practices cost lives. Their inflation of diamond value and tight control of the diamond market have created circumstances that make it reasonable for people in diamond rich regions to finance civil war and arms trade with diamonds as both the currency and the end-goal. Simply in areas of conflict, if you control diamonds, you control guns, power and government. The kimberly process helps, but not by a lot. I’d say DeBeers is pretty high in the running for worst company in the world.
@KarmaChameleon: Doesn’t 1-800 Flowers ship from local florists anyway? so it’s the same flowers you’d get from a local florist, except you’re adding an unneccessary middleman.
I second going directly to the local florist, but I’d also recommend getting shipped directly from the grower.
I certainly agree that DeBeers is quite up there on the evil scale, mining, deaths, exploitation, thats some bad stuff.
But as far as 1800 Flowers goes, I more question their flower selection practices. Where do the flowers come from? Is the “local” seller using harsh pesticides on their flowers? Not only are the “cides” bad for your health, they are certainly no good for the land there are sprayed upon. I have had a few friends in the flower business and they would often have slight rashes or respiratory afflictions. They would shrug those symptoms off as “expected job risk”.
The story of flower farm workers begins to blend in with the story of many farm workers all over the world, questionable employee treatment, and questionable land stewardship practices.
@speedwell:
shallow relaionship huh?
@22rifle: Still with the man 10+ years later, so I suppose we could tolerate each other for a while, eh?
@Michael Belisle: She won’t sell it for sentimental reasons. The appraisal was for insurance purposes. It was also a highly reputable jeweler.
This really isn’t a contest at all. The Diamond industry is probably the only truly evil industry in this world.
Name one other company that that sells a completely useless product nobody needs, at absurdly inflated prices while propping up their market with a monopoly enforced by violence, political corruption, psychological manipulation, criminal activity, and slavery. Just one.
Christ, even Halliburton makes a few useful products that aren’t designed for killing people.
I had to place my vote for 1-800-Flowers, solely on technicality–while DeBeers may possibly be the most evil company in the entire competition, most of their evil is perpetrated internationally, and this is about the worst company in *America*.
@awa64: As I mentioned above De Beers does business in America. Why the hell would you restrict the competition to only companies headquartered in America? Location of a company’s headquarters has no effect on its impact to consumers – does it matter that Daimler has sold off its interest in Chrysler? Would you also rule out companies if majority of their shares were held by foreign investors? I don’t get this arbitrary “they’re not headquartered in America so I won’t vote for them” thing.
@mrmcd: Funny you should mention Halliburton. I’ve heard good things about briefcases made by Zero Halliburton.*
*Not affiliated with the defense contractor that gave a big fat golden parachute to Dick Cheney, I don’t think.
DeBeers has blood on their hands. They may be the worst company in the world.
Screw 1800Flowers! Try being a retail florist and have them. They are absolutely horrible to deal with. I could give you 100 incidents, but I gotta go to work in the morning…