FloristDetective.com

Floristdetective.com and the Real Florist blog are featured in a story just out about spam in Yahoo Local:

Yahoo Mapspam now appearing near you

The folks at the FloristDetective.com have been doing a number of pieces on the tricks and tactics of non local order takers in the florist business.

Many of those practices are border line actions that imply that a florist is local without actually stating it…like getting a local exchange phone number that transfer to a head office who knows where. These are clearly deceptive practices but once they get the local phone number, the data flows through the phone company to Google and Yahoo and the presumption on the engines’ part is that they are legitimate local listings. They will frequently show up in Google with a pin but no address associated with the listing.

Recently though, RealFlorist.Flowerchat.com have uncovered more obviously deceptive listings in Yahoo where the entity will fabricate an address that is close to the city center (gaining ranking cred), provide a very relevant fabricated business title with City + Florist in the title (gaining more ranking cred) and adding a number of reviews (gaining still more ranking cred) to jump to the top of the local rankings for a popular search term in the larger cities like New York Florist, Los Angeles Florist or San Francisco Florist.

In each of the above cases there is clear evidence on the web that the local address is fake and in the spirit of journalistic integrity I called a number of other local florists to see if there was a florist located at any of the above addresses and uniformly the answer was:
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Please read the rest of this very meaty article over at the author's blog. (Bookmark his site or add it to your RSS reader since he keeps on top the happenings in Y and G Local.) Also - leave him a note of thanks for covering this issue... if you are so inclined. :)

Love that he even went to far to call the local businesses to verify the listings were fake!
 
I spoke to them once and they shared this tip with me to share with consumers: Call the telephone # and ask where they are located. If they cannot be specific or don't know/don't want to tell you then they are not truly a local florist. I've had people from out of state call and ask me where I am located, so it's catching on! Just thought I'd share...
 
I've been clicking around floristdetective trying to find the specifics of what wesleyberry is alleged to do - too bad it doesn't have a search function cuz I gave up without finding wesley on there. I did find a bunch of stuff about Kay's keeping $1.45 on an order.

Interesting thing I noted, many of the links to known skimmers are no longer active and go to dead links.

Is this the result of exposes by floristdetective or just good old fashioned karma?


time wounds all heels.

whaddya think?

Either way - I think it's kewl.
 
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bloomz said:
Interesting thing I noted, many of the links to known skimmers are no longer active and go to dead links.

Is this the result of exposes by floristdetective or just good old fashioned karma?
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it's called "cease or be deceased"...courtesy of the fine folks at floristdetective.:yourock:
 
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Hi CHR...I'm just tidying up mail as I had some comments today to a query, and I found this! Sorry, I pop in and out of here occasionally --as time allows--and missed this. The problem is you are linking into the wrong domain. Flowers Unlimited.com was taken when I got to this aspect 6 years ago or so. I believe it to be connected into a TF lookalike in Ireland, at least that's what I was told at the time....nothing to do with me.
 
Actually Flowersunlimited.com is owned by a Wellington FL company, and is a click gathering directory of mostly FTD, 800Flowers and other PPC marketers.
 
Besides using florists names as linkbait - what else is it that is so heinous that Wesley does - does he skim? The orders I've filled for him didn't appear to be skimmed.

Sorry I tried but couldn't find it on FD.
 
yes he does skim Bloomz, read the review I got from a customer online-


by Guest64368
Aug 21, 2008
I was charded 72 dollars by another florist for 1/2 red roses. Chuck S. of Drexel Hill recommend you. I called back cancelled the other order with Wesleyberry Flowers in Langhorne. They had already charged my card in 3 minutes. I had to wait 10-15 days now to get the money back. I called Belvedere and they charged $43, delivery included. Thanks
 
But did he transmit the order for less (not counting service fees)? That's skimming, or at least what I call it.

So far I haven't seen evidence of this in the orders I've filled for them

Anyone can sell whatever they want for whatever price but I'm concerned about consumers getting their money's worth.
 
Does anybody know what is going on over at florist detective? I have sent two e-mail queries and gotten NO response at all.
 
RWK said:
Does anybody know what is going on over at florist detective? I have sent two e-mail queries and gotten NO response at all.
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Good Question!

If you look carefully at the site, there has been no NEW information posted for quite a while.

Maybe they figured that they had said all there was to say (sorta like the patent office in the 1880's ) and there is no further need to stay in business?!

Bill
 
spread the word folks...

The newest addition... Our buddy Wesley at it again!

Still don't know why florists help him rip off consumers!

http://floristdetective.com/wesleyberryflowers.aspx
 
I am new to this. What is Florist Detective?
I am open to whatever will help me grow new customers and cut out the middle man if possible.
 
TAPDF said:
I am new to this. What is Florist Detective?
I am open to whatever will help me grow new customers and cut out the middle man if possible.
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www.floristdetective.com

Spend a couple hours reading through the site and you'll understand what it's all about. Information for florists and consumers alike about the deceptive nature of the flowers by wire gig.
 
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