Published: April 08, 2009 11:00 AM
Updated: April 08, 2009 11:40 AM
http://www.bclocalnews.com/fraser_valley/ahobserver/business/42686682.html#disqus_threadMichelle Vandepol
The Observer
Thinking of sending your cross-country friend a bouquet to celebrate or mark a milestone or holiday with them? Good idea.
“Recipients of flowers feel less depressed, anxious, and demonstrate a higher sense of enjoyment and life satisfaction. With so many challenges in today’s life, it’s wonderful to know that something as simple as a bouquet of fresh flowers can alter a person’s mood to something more positive.
"It is also important to know that people who give flowers make the best impression. They are considered more reliable, friendly and emotionally intelligent. The floral gift giver is regarded as highly caring, trustworthy, loving, successful, and as valuing achievement and beauty in life,” says local florist Sandy Lance, citing research done by the Society of American Florists.
But while caught up in the good feelings of picturing how those flowers will brighten someone’s day, be aware for the signs of flower industry fraud, more common now with widespread easy website set-up.
Every industry has the potential to have an unsavory side and you might think the flower industry would be different, but it’s not.
Getting and receiving flowers itself is a positive experience. But the risk in ordering flowers and sending flowers online is there, even with large, well-known companies because of the small set up shop affiliates they work with on a daily basis.
A lot of these are small basement operations with a good looking website. Some are just looking to make a bit of money brokering flowers. Others have something more sinister in mind.
The Florist Detective.com exposes cases like the local Cambridge, MA florist advertised through Google as a family business that’s been around for 90 years. It turned out to be a call centre in Mission Viejo, CA.
Beyond taking liberties in advertising, fraud can also be embedded in the actual transaction itself, trading a large dollar amount that both robs the florist doing the work and the customer who has paid for something larger than the item sold minus all the online scammer’s fees.
A fee case in point from the floral detective: a woman orders flowers from what she thinks is a well known online company.
Her order is a little over $60 with shipping and handling and taxes on top of that. She puts the total of $89.25 on her credit card.
What she doesn’t see is the fine print at the bottom of the page under a link marked 'Delivery' that says the following: "Due to the increased costs needed to secure and transfer orders, there is an additional relay fee that has been added into the net cost of the products on our website and will be deducted from the product amount to offset these additional costs. This fee will in no way affect the quality, size, or quantity of the item you purchase. We apologize for the need to deduct this fee but your order will still be delivered as pictured on our website and handled with professional care.”
Of course the size and quality of the arrangement are affected (where else would the extra money come from?) but the customer has completed the transaction already and most likely won’t be seeing the arrangement in person so has no way of knowing.
By the time the order gets to the local Cambridge florist, there is only $50 worth of flower order to work with and the florist will be taking the flack for the lack of promised arrangement.
Lance takes time out from assembling her upcoming Easter ordering list to give the down-low from a florist’s perspective.
“Regrettably the sending customer could be disappointed if they receive a photo of what has been received by the recipient, because the florist can only scale it down, and do it to the value that they have been given or they won’t be in business for very long,” she says.
This is not a new phenomenon. During her career as florist, Lance has heard of situations similar time and again.
In addition, some stories end with less than a too-small bouquet.
Imagine paying that much and having nothing arrive at the recipient’s house at all.
“Over the years there have been dozens of cases where residents have come into the shop and told us their sad story of having gone online to send flowers that were in some cases never even received. My advice is to use a website that actually gives you a shop's name, phone number and address, and make a short call to talk with them personally,” she says.
Her recommendation is Flowershopnetwork.com.
With Easter flower sales upcoming, enter into your transactions with your eyes wide open.
