When IS a purchase not a purchase?

[Simon Says]

Visit the TF website and slap bang in the center it says "Send sunshine and help a worthy cause!".

This takes you to their charity section wherein they tell you that they will "...donate 10% of your purchase to ALSF to find a cure."

Now we all know that to buy anything from TF they charge a service fee. But is that service fee, as their website describes it, part of the purchase or not? To get the piece, you HAVE to pay the service fee and that money comes out of your pocket so, surely, you purchased it, the service fee. And, there, if the service fee is $14.99, 10% of that goes to, in this instance, ALSF.

Wrong! Upon asking TF, they advise that the 10% is only on the product.

So, my question to Flowerchat members is to you think this is legit by TF, only giving 10% on the product or, as they write in their blurb, should it be 10% of the purchase (ie: including the service fee). My point is, for the sake of this question, ignore the charity and merits of that and focus on the definition of "purchase".

TF, I admit, are not the first and probably not the last to do this and I am sure it is (just?) inside the law but...

 

[concord]

I would rather send my money directly to the charity. I don't believe TF sends a dime to them no matter what their marketing says.

 

[BOSS]

That's common....When I was in a WS, I often advertised "Send FTD's for FREE".... at that time I had about 12,000 outgoing orders a year... The "free" part was that I did not charge a "$ervice fee"{, but in reality is was not "free"... I still collected 20% plus a $7.00 rebate....

Legally, it's in the wording... TFTD's wordings are usually bogus, designed to confuse the issue...

 

[Simon Says]

That's common....When I was in a WS, I often advertised "Send FTD's for FREE".... at that time I had about 12,000 outgoing orders a year... The "free" part was that I did not charge a "$ervice fee"{, but in reality is was not "free"... I still collected 20% plus a $7.00 rebate....

Legally, it's in the wording... TFTD's wordings are usually bogus, designed to confuse the issue...

In your reference of sending FTD's for free, the send element to the customer was free of charge. The floral element was not claiming to be free.

I contend that "purchase" applies to all elements - all right, except perhaps tax. I think that TF should have stated "product", especially as the fine print makes no distinction. I really think it is smoke and mirrors again - and they have plenty of practice at that.

 

[secretgarden]

When we do these sort of things it is on the TOTAL purchase less the sales tax. We have considered excluding delivery in the % but we thought that would be too confusing and mislead the customer... guess we were right

 

[theRKF]

I always assume it's on the product only, not the related service fees.

When we've done similar promos it's also been on the specific product or service only, not add-ons, etc.

 

[bootcampguy]

I include one charity every major holiday and "give" 10% of the product only back to them. They in turn push people our way, some end up staying with us. There's also a band of "gypsy" buyers out there that move around based on price or cause. It does work........