BAD BUSINESS 1-800 FLOWERS BOYCOTT A world without florists? Hard to believe? I use to think so, until I agreed to help my new husband with his family run florist, located in a river town community in Hunterdon County, NJ. A profession of floral scents and visual beauty, what could be better? It definitely wasn’t the floral profession per se that pushed me over the edge. Flowers bring smiles, add joy to other’s life, color blue worlds with comfort and love. They are the ceremonial segue into the eternal world, as well as the ointment of beginning new ones. No, it was the outlandish practices of 1-800 Flowers, as I watched how a company single handedly ruined a family’s livelihood of 15 years with NO remorse. It was their constant thievery, lies, the badgering, their illegalities, in which they are permitted to practice. A corporation whose sole purpose is to put florists out of business. Have them say differently is a bold face lie. Their pathetically low pricing, no room for profit, orders placed by telemarketers who are obviously located in another part of the world, who can barley understand, much less comprehend the english language and their price increase button, use it and you will pay dearly, as well as their reject button. For the rural florists, like ourselves who are slaves to the wire service, the use of the Mercury system not only interfaces with other wire services, thus keeping track of orders, it in essence provides a paper trail. A practice 1-800 Flowers does not prefer. They try their best to skip that procedure, then deny the order ever happened, thus the florist does not get paid. What I didn’t expect was how low 1-800 Flowers was willing to go for their almighty dollar. The ego that is manically infested within the lymbic system of Jim McCann’s brain, honing refuge in his prefrontal lobe, to play out under his command granting his employees permission to conduct business with arrogance. It seems that 1-800 Flowers has given itself the proclaimed right of dictating how all funeral directors lay out their funeral parlors. I know this, because when our shop delivered flowers to our local funeral parlor, the disgruntled customer, who was obviously ousted by her family, complained that her arrangement, created exactly the way the she wanted, was not placed at the forefront on a pedestal at the church! That which no florist has control over. Not only was our floral shop docked money, but when I to complained to 1-800 Flowers, they said they did ‘not like my attitude ‘ and docked us more money! That I’m pretty sure is called theft. Which I was beginning to find out was also another endearing practice from 1-800 Flowers. 1-800 Flowers began docking money from us, stating we did not confirm or deliver our orders, when in fact we did and had proof. Remember earlier how important I mentioned a paper trail was? This is exactly the reason why. A lawyer asked us to put together a ‘pattern’ of 1-800 Flowers illegalities, I put together 4 inches. 1-800 Flowers should be investigated. 1-800 Flowers would send us pathetically low price point orders. I would ask for a price increase, that’s why they have the button, then spend the next hour or two, being verbally assaulted and bullied, in general preventing me from doing business with other paying customers. Even when I would cancel the order, 1-800 Flowers would send the same order through - deja vu. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I rejected them. I equate their practices to water boarding. Jim McCann’s business practices, is America’s answer to Guantanamo. That episode, cost our shop over six hundred dollars. When the ‘error’ was brought to 1-800 Flowers’ attention, they shuffled the problem to their sister company, BloomNet. I equate these two companies like this, 1-800 Flowers commits the crime, BloomNet is the sweeper. Our shop would not get the money back, but ‘credit’ would be applied over 6 months!! Any expenses like rent, electric, payroll, product - we still had to come up with the money to pay for, big deal tell that to JCP&L. Pretty sure Jim McCann was able to pay his mortgage with the money he has manipulated away from our shop. Along comes Mother’s Day of 2014, our rep then and only then called, after months of reaching out to him. Matt Walker called to give us our predictions for Mother’s Day, I said bring it on. 1-800 Flowers set us up to purchase flowers for their projected orders, expecting hundreds of orders, (not uncommon for that week), but then ‘suspended’ us with no warning at all. Mother’s Day came and went with only 14 orders! A complete violation of 1-800 Flower guide lines set into place by none other than, Jim McCann himself. Our shop lost at least $10,000. The following Monday, orders began to dribble in as if nothing had happened. But the damage had already been done, and with no remorse. When I complained, no one cared. So I wrote a letter to the Almighty delusional Oz Jim McCann himself. His office referred to me to an Alex Gomez from BloomNet, remember the sweeper? Mr. Gomez fought tooth and nail for us and was generally disgusted by 1-800 Flowers, embarrassed by their behavior. I received a call from Matt Walker, who told me, ‘he had nothing to say to me.’ Humm, then why call? A Jeff Altadonna, we’re still waiting for his call months after the fact and a Tim Szymanski, who said he tried to call our shop, but only got our recorder. Ha ha ha Tim, we don’t have a recorder and our shop is open from 9-6 M-F and 9-5 on Saturday. Face it dude, you lied. There were times when I was legitimately concerned for Mr. Gomez’s welfare. Especially when days would go by and I didn’t hear back from him. I seriously thought 1-800 Flowers snuffed him. After 4 months of getting no where, Mr. Gomez was told, never to speak with us again. Wow! On so many levels, wow. Yet, 1-800 Flowers still wanted our shop to do business with them! In fact soon after Mother’s Day, I wrote a letter ceasing to do business with 1-800 Flowers, our shop is still getting billed from that company and harassed by their lawyers. So a world without florists? It’s very much a reality unless something is done, now. One thing wire services don’t comprehend is, they need florists. They need the mom and pop brick and mortar shops. They do not exist without florists, period. We make the arrangements, not FTD, Telelfora or 1-800 Flowers. They do nothing but try to set an illusional market price, to their irrational price point. They sit in a cubicle in a far away country or in some basement or some fancy high rise somewhere, processing orders and taking money, your money, lots of your money. 1-800 Flowers will promise you anything you want to hear, just so they can take your money. They will promise you, outlandish pricing, dates, times, out of season flowers just so you press that ‘submit’ button. Then florists are left to renegotiate a fair price so the customer isn’t raped and the florist can still eat at the end of the night. Anyone including Jim McCann who tells you different, is lying. A lot of these people can’t even name the flowers they promote. When ordering flowers this holiday season or for any occasion or ‘just because’, is to call your local florist directly. Actual florists do the funerals, we do the weddings, NOT 1-800 Flowers. And not the cyber telemarketer that ‘claims’ to be local, when in fact they’re not even located in the same state or country. That in itself should be illegal and in some states it is. Scroll down the webpage, find the brick and mortar building. Put that florist’s phone number in your quick dial. Build a relationship, like the ‘old days’. They will help you with everything. The money then stays in America, helping local business, stay in business. You’ll get more for your money and people who actually care about you, instead of some corporate CEO, who pays his employees pennies on the dollar, can you say sweat shop?
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 00:47:06 +0000
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