John’s husband ordered flowers for him for Valentine’s Day, using a Groupon voucher for FTD.com. That’s what a loving but frugal spouse does, right? Only what showed up on John’s doorstep were really dead. No, not buds that hadn’t opened yet.

It shouldn’t be too much to expect to order red roses on Valentine’s Day and expect them to be, you know, alive.

Here’s what was on the Groupon page. We don’t know exactly what his husband ordered, but they were expecting something fresh and lovely like this to arrive.

Here’s what John got.

“I called FTD and they promised a re-delivery on Tuesday, 2/18,” John wrote to Consumerist. “I accepted, but was disappointed when my ‘replacement’ order came– It was only 4 roses and a small teddy bear, nothing like the bouquet I was ordered the first time.”

It’s not as bad as it could be…well, assuming that John likes stuffed animals. FTD were supposed to deliver bouquet #3 today, but we haven’t heard back yet.

What leads to dashed expectations like this? As we learned last year, deals like this often end up costing your local florist money, even before they send multiple replacements. When you order from the national FTD site, the company takes a cut and then sends the order on to the local florist who actually arranges and drops it off for you.

You presumably have access to the Internet: that’s why we recommend going direct. We recommend calling up a nice local florist directly, or finding one online (being careful to avoid fake local florists.)

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