Complaint Rating:

father died a little over one month ago. I am my mother's only child and her only support system. She is living alone about 2000 miles away. Try as I might, I was not able to travel to her home to spend Mother's Day with her. Thus, this Mother's Day my mom would not only be grieving the loss of her husband but be spending the day alone.

I decided to try to cheer her up a bit and send her a bouquet of flowers. I ordered the flowers on the Tuesday before Mother's Day and requested that the flowers be delivered on Friday. I did this so if there were any problems with the delivery that there would be an additional day available to correct the problem and get the flowers delivered.

The flowers were not delivered on Friday as scheduled. I received no notice from FTD that they did not fulfill the order as promised.

I find out on Saturday that no flowers have been delivered to my mother. I call FTD.com and stay on hold for 35 minutes. While on hold I listen to a message over and over again telling me that it is not too late to get flowers delivered for Mother's Day, they can deliver on Sunday, etc, etc, etc. When I finally get someone to answer the phone the FTD person tells me that my mother’s flowers are "scheduled to be delivered". And that's all she says. I inform her that it is already getting fairly late where my mother lives and “Dale” (the “customer service” person with FTD) says that she knows this and that my mother’s flowers will get to her “sometime next week”.

I explain to Dale that this is not acceptable and that FTD needs to make this right and get flowers to my mother for Mother’s Day. Dale refuses. I inform Dale that this issue needs to be resolved, I explained to Dale the circumstances regarding my father’s death, etc and Dale states “don’t get no attitude with me”. I had not had any attitude, had not raised my voice, I had simply stated that I required that this issue be resolved.

I asked to speak with Dale’s supervisor. She argued with me for over five minutes and then finally put me on hold for another 10 minutes. Then Tiffany the supervisor picked up and said that there was nothing that FTD.com “is willing to do” to resolve this situation. Tiffany said that “all florists nationwide are working tomorrow” and that she will try to get someone to deliver. I explain to Tiffany that my mother lives in the bible belt. Florists there do not work on Sundays no matter what day it is.

Tiffany informed me that I did not know what I was talking about and continued to tell me that this was not FTD’s fault, it was the fault of the people who were supposed to “mail” the flowers. I informed Tiffany that I did not order flowers that would be several days old after being “mailed”, I ordered “fresh” flowers for my mother. Tiffany then stated that she would refund my money and that I could just “figure out something” myself as to how to get my mother some flowers for Mother’s Day. I asked to speak with Tiffany’s supervisor and she said no.

At this point I was so upset I had to let my husband continue with the conversation because I was in tears.

My husband then began to speak with Tiffany who told him that she could find a florist to get flowers delivered to my mother. She makes an attempt and then comes back and tells him that no florists are open for deliveries in my mother’s area. This is the same thing I had already said to her but she never bothered to apologize for arguing with me about this. Tiffany then states that she is authorized to do nothing but refund our money. My husband asks to speak with Tiffany’s supervisor.

First Tiffany states that she is the only supervisor in the building. Then she states that no supervisor can do anything more than she can. Then Tiffany says she doesn’t have a supervisor. Suddenly she puts my husband on hold and miraculously her supervisor, a person named Vicki Morgan, is on the phone.

Vicki makes an attempt to help but says that there is no way for them to process an order to get to my mother in time for Mother’s Day. Vicki states that although their own recording states that you can order flowers still, that the recording is not true. Vicki also states that this is all our fault because if I had read the description of the item I chose for my mother that it clearly stated that the flowers were not being handled by FTD, they were being mailed by someone else and that if I wanted a guarantee that the flowers would be there on time I should have chosen something that FTD handles themselves. Vicki states there is a clear warning about this

Here’s the link to the item:

http://www.ftd.com/528/catalog/product.epl?product_id=FU18

I don’t see a clear warning that these items will not arrive by mother’s day. I don’t see a notice that we shouldn’t order these tulips if we actually want our loved one to receive the item on time.

Moving on….

Vicki comes up with a plan that she SWEARS will work. She states that FTD.com and JustFlowers.com are actually affiliates and part of the same company. She states that if we will let her cancel our FTD order that we can call Just Flowers and that they GUARANTEE delivery for Mother’s Day. Vicki states that Just Flowers is the ONLY way we can get the flowers to my mother.

We are very nervous about this idea. Vicki states that she won’t call over to Just Flowers, she won’t take care of it herself, that we have to take care of it. Without any other choice, we decide to go to Just Flowers. Vicki gives us a number to contact her directly if there are any problems, states that she will be available on Sunday if there is a problem and assures us that delivery with Just Flowers is GUARANTEED.

We call Just Flowers and speak with John Long. John gives us a little different story than Vicki did but he does assist us. John states that Just Flowers cannot guarantee a delivery time but does guarantee a delivery DAY. He tells us that any arrangement we order will be guaranteed to be delivered on Sunday, May 13, 2007.

We start placing our order and realized that FTD’s solution was for us to go to Just Flowers and pay twice as much for an arrangement. Regardless, we proceed. We make arrangements for flowers to be delivered to my mother. John Long GUARANTEES that the flowers will be there on Mother’s Day.

Sunday arrives and I speak to my mother. No flowers. We contact Just Flowers and speak with Ebony. She states that they called their florist in my mother’s area and left a message because the florist is closed today. NO one bothered to contact us by phone or email letting us know that they didn’t fully process the order. We explain the entire history of what has happened to Ebony. Ebony made it very clear that she was not the least bit concerned over what had happened. She simply stated that she would refund $10.00 off of our purchase price and they would “guarantee” they’d deliver the flowers tomorrow. Or she said she’d give us a refund and leave us high and dry when it comes to getting flowers to my mother for Mother’s Day. That was it. No flowers, No apology, no apology bouquet. Nothing. We asked to speak with Ebony’s supervisor.

Ebony said her supervisor wasn’t in. Then Ebony said her supervisor wasn’t available. Then she said she’d have her supervisor call us “whenever they are available”. Then she said that her supervisor was there but couldn’t come to the phone. My husband informed her that he would like to be put on hold and wait for her supervisor. (Note the chain of lies. Supervisor goes from “not in the building” to “not coming to the phone”.) Ebony put my husband on hold but never got her supervisor.

My husband calls back to Just Flowers and speaks with Christina. Christina was the only person working on Mother’s Day who was polite, told the truth and did exactly what we asked. As soon as she picked up my husband asked to speak with the supervisor and Christina got her on the phone.

Heidi, the supervisor, spoke with my husband at length. We told Heidi that we felt that after all we have been through with FTD and Just Flowers that a $10.00 off discount was not our idea of resolving the issue. Heidi stated that she could refund the money but she would not send an apology bouquet or an apology of any kind to my mother unless we paid in full (minus the offered 10 dollars) for the original botched order. Heidi was informed that we were guaranteed delivery and she stated that Just Flower’s policy is that delivery is NEVER guaranteed and that she cannot make up for an employee telling us something if that something was against their policy. She would take no responsibility for what John Long or Vicki Morgan had promised us because their promises were a violation of their company policy.

We asked to speak with Heidi’s manager. Heidi tried very hard to not have us speak to her manager but she did relent and state that she’d have him give us a call. The manager did eventually call. Danny Kaufman did eventually contact us at home and he stated that he was the “highest ranking customer service manager”. He stated that he had no supervisor himself. He was rude, would not resolve the issue and supported every single thing that Just Flowers and FTD.com had done in handling this situation. He refused to send an apology bouquet to my mother. He said he would rather write her a letter instead. We were not interested in my mother receiving a form letter from an individual who wasn’t even interested in correcting such a huge blunder. Also, we wanted my mother to receive flowers as her mother’s day gift, not a letter from a complete stranger. We declined his offer to write my mother a letter instead of sending her flowers. We asked repeatedly to speak with Danny Kaufman’s supervisor and was told over and over again that he did not have one.

My husband did ask Danny Kaufman why it was that he was willing to send my mother a note and not a bouquet. Was it because it would cost money to deliver flowers as a way of apologizing for messing up her flower order? Danny Kaufman stated “I’m not going to walk into that trap”.

So here we are with no flowers on Mother’s Day for my mother. We called Vicki Morgan back with FTD.com. She stated she would be available today if there was a problem. She’s not in and not returning any messages.

Eventually through our credit card company we should be able to get all of the monies refunded. Both FTD.com and Just Flowers were resistant to issuing refunds and Just Flowers refused until we went up a few rungs on the supervisor ladder. The issue here wasn’t the money, it was trying to get flowers to my newly widowed mother on mother’s day. Through this ordeal we never cussed at anyone, never called anyone names, never screamed. We were firm and steadfast in our resolve to get flowers to my mother for mother’s day.

In return, we were repeatedly lied to, we were argued with, I was called a name by one of the FTD staffers (Dale) and I was insulted by Tiffany. We endured much verbal and emotional abuse all because 2 floral companies (who are obviously part of the same company) wanted to take money for flowers that they did not intend to deliver.

The irony of this whole situation is that floral companies are successful because they offer the product of sentimentality. Sending flowers as a way of expressing the sentiment of love, appreciation, apology, and caring. Yet, these same floral companies expressed no sympathy or empathy over our situation and were not willing to use their own product to express the sentiment of how deeply they regretted the mistakes that took place. They advertise for you to send flowers as a way of saying “I’m sorry” but feel that it is an unnecessary step when they are the one who has committed the offense. We were more interested in their sentiment than we were in their refunds or 10 dollar discounts.