On Tues 2/14 at 6:43pm an hour and 13 mins after we closed Just flowers sends an order for delivery that day. By reading the card this clearly was a Valentines Day order that they sat on. We find the order at 8:30 when we open the order was made up and delivered at 10 am and they sent us a cancel at 12:18 pm and we denied the cancel at 1:27pm. We then received a phone call from them saying we could not deny and were told we should go pick it up which we said no way. So today I receive a charge back memo via FTD and to say I am ticked off would be an understatement but I am mailing them all the documentation and we will see what happens next but I expect everyone is going to be seeing a bunch of these things.
Chargebacks begin
- Thread starter steve
- Start date
Seriously Steve- What did you expect with Just flowers. Honestly- if you do fill for them, expect this and expect it on every order you fill for them.
lori042499
Well-Known Member
- May 3, 2006
- 6,457
- 4,226
- 113
- 53
- State / Prov
- MA
Steve, I feel for you, I really do, but I have to ask, Why are you filling for these people still? Is there really a logical reason? If so I would love to hear it...If this doesn't prove that you must not fill for them I don't know what will...
I did for a lot of years for many reasons, but I stopped last year some time for a few reasons...
#1 my sanity
#2 get rid of the complaints and problems
#3 not to further help ruin my chosen industry and field...
These are the best three reasons for separating yourself from all these parasitic floral brokers...Once you do this you will truely see how nice it is at holiday time not to deal with them and how utterly useless any wire service is to you....
I did for a lot of years for many reasons, but I stopped last year some time for a few reasons...
#1 my sanity
#2 get rid of the complaints and problems
#3 not to further help ruin my chosen industry and field...
These are the best three reasons for separating yourself from all these parasitic floral brokers...Once you do this you will truely see how nice it is at holiday time not to deal with them and how utterly useless any wire service is to you....
BOSS
FlowerChat Administrator
Louis Taylor
New Member
I would say 90 percent of the orders from this particular company normally get forwarded to a grocery store so we don't get hit with reject fee. The person that filled this order saw it was for $80.00 and it was to value and based on our cost which is less then wholesale cost the order was profitable and the flowers were in stock and they filled it. As for belonging to a wire service well if you have little or no wire out business its a very easy decision to walk away and more are doing it every day unfortunatly I still have a big wire out business although not what it once was still way to large to be able to afford having emplyees calling out orders.
lori042499
Well-Known Member
- May 3, 2006
- 6,457
- 4,226
- 113
- 53
- State / Prov
- MA
So this was a mistake by an employee or it was deemed to be an ok order to take..Yeah, I played that game in my head too..once I stopped taking these types of orders with no uncertain wishy washy terms my chargeback/complaint ratio went from 18% down to 2%...if you have to stress the possibility of a chargeback or a complaint and lose further money on what you are already in essence losing it makes so much more sense not to fill them at all..You are not obligated to fill anything you don't want to over the wire service...you can just fill for other real florists...You also know that the deceptive listings that you are so excited about legislature taking care of will still exist if you keep perpetuating their existance by giving them the opportunity to use your shop to fill...without you they have a hard time because they are in essence not real...the harder time they have getting the orders filled the less profitable, the less profitable they are the less sense it makes for them to stay in business....just sayin!!!!
There are far more moving parts in a large floral business then a small one and far more cost to go with it. You also have to be sure not to bite your nose off to spite your face. As I said 90 percent of those orders from that vendor do not get filled here, and we forward them to the local grocery store so they can lose money on it and I avoid 1.50 reject fee from wire service. Now that particular Grocery store with a couple of locations in this market delievered more orders on Valentines Day then all the florist in this market with exception of my business which does not speak well for the other 9 or 10 florist. This order was very profitable and for $80.00 if I send that to the grocery store I just gave them a profitable order remember they got lower cost of goods then whole sale also. I am not going to give them a profitable order and I am not going to eat a $1.50 charge.
As for the interenet legislation its a bill that will outlaw deceptive advertising or using the name of legitiment businesses in order to appear to be local it does not out law fair competition and if they chose to advertise as who they are they will be able to to do so. But my belief is while everyone pisses and moans about the wire services they have taking their eye off the ball. The battle is the internet and if we do not win that battle then you will not have that chosen industry to work in any longer. My hopes are that the wire business will drop enough that I can drop them in the next 24mths and I am sure others will too. but that does not put these guys out of business as they will change their model to shipping via a drop shipper and if you have not notice proflowers is doing ok in that department. What will put the biggest bite in them is to not allow them to act like they are in your town or to be able steal a real florist name in that florist town and redirect the order to their web site.
As for the interenet legislation its a bill that will outlaw deceptive advertising or using the name of legitiment businesses in order to appear to be local it does not out law fair competition and if they chose to advertise as who they are they will be able to to do so. But my belief is while everyone pisses and moans about the wire services they have taking their eye off the ball. The battle is the internet and if we do not win that battle then you will not have that chosen industry to work in any longer. My hopes are that the wire business will drop enough that I can drop them in the next 24mths and I am sure others will too. but that does not put these guys out of business as they will change their model to shipping via a drop shipper and if you have not notice proflowers is doing ok in that department. What will put the biggest bite in them is to not allow them to act like they are in your town or to be able steal a real florist name in that florist town and redirect the order to their web site.
anytimeflowers
Linda
Steve, may I ask this? How profitable is that order now?
I'm not trying to nail you to the cross, you have every right to fill to your heart's content and more power to you for being able to make it work. I just can't help but wonder if hind-sight tells you something that was not apparent in accepting an order that fit your parameters.
I'm not trying to nail you to the cross, you have every right to fill to your heart's content and more power to you for being able to make it work. I just can't help but wonder if hind-sight tells you something that was not apparent in accepting an order that fit your parameters.
The person that made the decision also does our buying, the flowers involved were all bought direct not via wholesale and she had in excess of 4.0 mark up on the order. Again it was handled as an exception because the choice was not to give a profitable order to what is our biggest competitor.
lori042499
Well-Known Member
- May 3, 2006
- 6,457
- 4,226
- 113
- 53
- State / Prov
- MA
And with these decisions come these problems and stress...these companies could care less if you or anyone else is hurt by their games..anyone willing to fill at the chance of having a complaint because you have no idea what was promised, the chance of having a chargeback for no apparent reason or the chance of damaging their own reputation damaged because of what the original company tells their customer about yours is opening the door for these problems and asking the vampire to come on in...contributing to their ability to function and sustaining the ongoing problems with them and their model...I know I have done it for the very same reasons as you for many many years...and I didn't always run a small business, I used to run a larger business in a very large metro area....so I know how hard it is to make these decisions, but once made the relief you feel from being freed from the crap is euphoric...I tried to leave the wire services for 2 tears and couldn't seem to make the decision, then one day I had had enough and stopped taking all Og orders, I found that there weren't vey many real orders out there, they were all taken by the evry companies I was now using my hard earned dollars to support, that made my decision to leave easier once I realized that I could still make plenty of dollars and keep them without the wireservice and all their "profitable" og orders..I too thought I was making profit from them and I was looking at each indiviual arrangement but really I wasn't..Good luck with all of this...
BOSS
FlowerChat Administrator
Steve -
Stick to your guns. JF played the 'it's not too late game' on V Day and lost on this one. Their bad selling should not be at your expense. Make 'em pay.
FTD should have a 'double pay' penalty payable to filling florists for instances like this.
Stick to your guns. JF played the 'it's not too late game' on V Day and lost on this one. Their bad selling should not be at your expense. Make 'em pay.
FTD should have a 'double pay' penalty payable to filling florists for instances like this.
Mikey the Flower Guy
It's a GREAT DAY to live, and love!
- Nov 10, 2002
- 9,206
- 3,792
- 113
- 72
- State / Prov
- Ontario
Shannon.....lay low a little......Steve has a very valid point, one that very few florists pay attention to!! Though the "culprit" in this episode is JF, it "COULD" be ANY of the hundreds of unscrupulous players out there, and this is an IMPORTANT heads up, regardless of Steve's decisions....
Mikey the Flower Guy
It's a GREAT DAY to live, and love!
- Nov 10, 2002
- 9,206
- 3,792
- 113
- 72
- State / Prov
- Ontario
this IS "utopian" by nature, however, we ALL know that it's highly unlikely to evolve into an even playing field, when JF averages out thousands of orders a month, and Steve sends out hundreds.....I AM a bit surprised that Steve's shop went ahead an filled the order the next day though...got scratching my head on that one!
anytimeflowers
Linda
I think it's all a numbers game. These people are not florists, they are hard-nosed business people.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that FTD will side with you Steve, I'm sure this is just a process.
The scenario probably reads something like this: Customer complains to JF because flowers were not delivered. In the mean time, Steve's shop busts their butts to get that sucker delivered because it's what we do. Even knowing all that transpired, JF follows their little rule book which says to do all of these things that they have done so far, all the while KNOWING that FTD will come out on the filling florist's side. IF the filling florist jumps through all of the hoops.
Like Cathy said Steve, you will come out of it with your money, it's too bad you have no option but to jump through the hoops they hold out for you in order to get it.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that FTD will side with you Steve, I'm sure this is just a process.
The scenario probably reads something like this: Customer complains to JF because flowers were not delivered. In the mean time, Steve's shop busts their butts to get that sucker delivered because it's what we do. Even knowing all that transpired, JF follows their little rule book which says to do all of these things that they have done so far, all the while KNOWING that FTD will come out on the filling florist's side. IF the filling florist jumps through all of the hoops.
Like Cathy said Steve, you will come out of it with your money, it's too bad you have no option but to jump through the hoops they hold out for you in order to get it.
Mikey the Flower Guy
It's a GREAT DAY to live, and love!
- Nov 10, 2002
- 9,206
- 3,792
- 113
- 72
- State / Prov
- Ontario
I'd like to see FTD try and get ME to jump through hoops, and how many they'd have to "replace"
You are right Mikey that order should not have been filled without a dialog with the sender but it did get filled. And my main reason for having posted this was there was such a mess created by several of these type companies back at Valentines Day that I suspect there are 1000s of these type of charge backs out in the mail. I not sure anyone else will admit to it thou giving I got torched pretty good here. But they did create one hell of a mess for themselves and they are going to try and recover cash any place they can.
anytimeflowers
Linda
Steve,
Sorry about that. Good for you for still posting this, "knowing" you would get gang-raped. (I put that in there for people to have some fun
)
Hopefully your post put a lot of florists into thinking mode and they will carefully go over their statements and get their money back, some could have easily let it slide or not even caught it without your warning.
Sorry about that. Good for you for still posting this, "knowing" you would get gang-raped. (I put that in there for people to have some fun
)Hopefully your post put a lot of florists into thinking mode and they will carefully go over their statements and get their money back, some could have easily let it slide or not even caught it without your warning.
Mikey the Flower Guy
It's a GREAT DAY to live, and love!
- Nov 10, 2002
- 9,206
- 3,792
- 113
- 72
- State / Prov
- Ontario
Steve,
Sorry about that. Good for you for still posting this, "knowing" you would get gang-raped. (I put that in there for people to have some fun
Hopefully your post put a lot of florists into thinking mode and they will carefully go over their statements and get their money back, some could have easily let it slide or not even caught it without your warning.
Steve, get some medical attention for that...I've got some...it comes in forty pounders.....