When Joe ordered flowers for his fiancée’s birthday last week, his order wasn’t too fussy. He wanted 24 yellow and orange roses and a stuffed dog, delivered to her workplace, on her birthday. Things happen in the flower-delivery business, we know, and seasonal substitutions are normal and to be expected. What he didn’t expect, for his $70 or so, was to have half the amount of roses he ordered, in the wrong color and with the wrong stuffed animal, delivered to the wrong address, and nearly on the day after his fiancée’s birthday. [More]
garden of discontent
FTD Delivers Wrong Roses And Wrong Stuffed Animal To Wrong Address At Wrong Time
By 7.21.11 — Updated: 3.1.13
FTD Sends Your Mom More Craptacular Flowers Than Expected
By 5.18.11
It’s not that we expect miracles from florists on major dead-plant-giving holidays. But the least we can expect is for the recipient–presumably, someone we give a crap about–to receive the item that we chose and paid for. Sarah’s mom’s birthday was the day before Mother’s Day this year, so she decided to use a LivingSocial coupon and order up some beautiful flowers to honor both occasions. [More]
Was FTD Just Overwhelmed This Valentine's Day?
By 2.15.11
Was the combination of a flower-centric holiday and a controversial Groupon promotion too much for FTD to handle? The network didn’t spend this Valentine’s Day just sending puny flower arrangements to people’s moms. For many people, they just went ahead and didn’t deliver the flowers at all. Two readers who took advantage of the Groupon discount shared their stories. [More]
The Consumerist's 2011 Valentine's Day Garden Of Discontent
By 2.15.11
On Valentine’s Day, we are expected to show loved ones how much they mean to us by giving them dead plants. For extra style points, we pay strangers to bring these dead plants to the recipient for us. However, florists are unfathomably busy on Valentine’s Day. So busy that we almost feel bad criticizing when things go wrong. Almost.
The Consumerist’s annual Valentine’s Day Garden of Discontent is a collection of flower or gift deliveries that aren’t what the recipient had in mind–and sometimes aren’t even close.
The Valentine's Day Garden Of Discontent
By 2.17.10
On Valentine’s Day, we are expected to show loved ones how much they mean to us by giving them dead plants. For extra style points, we pay strangers to bring these dead plants to the recipient for us. However, on designated flower-giving holidays, the extra demand means that florists can really screw up. Here is this year’s crop of Valentine’s Day flower failures from the Consumerist Garden of Discontent. [More]
FTD Doesn't Bother To Find Florist, Makes Your Grandma Sad On Her Birthday
By 1.28.10
Erin has a Valentine’s Day warning for Consumerist readers. Not only is FTD part of the nefarious WebLoyalty cabal, but she tells Consumerist that they’re also happy to take customers’ money and conveniently forget to dispatch a florist with actual flowers. [More]
1800Flowers Sends Order, Doesn't Notice Florist Is Closed
By 10.15.09
Chelsea wanted to do something nice for her grandparents’ anniversary, since she couldn’t be there to celebrate. She decided to send them some flowers through 1800Flowers.com. Unfortunately, she had no way of knowing that the local florist handling orders in her grandparents’ area closed on Saturdays, and chose Saturday delivery.
