1-800-FLOWERS – You’re not fucking helping (long)

The BBQ Pit
#1

From the bottom of my heart, I’d like to thank all the drooling speds who work in customer service at 1-800-FLOWERS.

See, it all started this way… My new love interest (let’s call her “Beth”) and I had an Incredible First Date on Thursday night. Everything clicked.

Beth rocks. For years, I have been seeking the elusive Queen of the Cool Girls. You know the type – Cute, cool, reasonably low maintenance, can hang out with your guy friends, etc. Now, it appears I have found her. I am currently in the process of executing the Master Plan to make her mine.

Part of said plan involved sending a dozen roses to her apartment after our aforementioned Incredible First Date. Seeing as how I was incredibly busy on Friday, I was forced to go to 1800Flowers.com. I ordered a dozen roses, provided delivery details and put everything on my Amex. So far so good.

Within a few minutes, I received a confirmation e-mail from 1800Flowers.com:

Great. Beth will get her flowers before she leaves on Saturday for her trip. Hopefully, she’ll be pleased.

All throughout the day, I check with the delivery tracking app on the 1800Flowers.com website. For the entire day, the site lists my delivery as “pending.” (Gee, thanks for that informative level of detail there, dipshit.) As 4 PM rolls around, I start to get nervous. I refresh the page. Still “pending.” Fuck. I send an e-mail to customer support, hoping to get some help. I get only a confirmation sent back that says they received my e-mail.

At 7 PM, it becomes obvious that my flowers aren’t going to be delivered. I figure, “Fuck it. I’ll deal with this mess tomorrow.” Beth comes over to my apartment and we watch a movie together, and we have a Nice Second Date.

In the morning, Beth is back at her place, preparing to leave for a four-day trip. Again, I check the 1800Flowers.com site. Still “pending.” I log on to the customer service chat app. Within a few seconds, I am greeted by “Julie.” Judging from the length of time that “Julie” takes to type “Please Hold,” I suspect her mother gave her a handful of aspirin instead of a flu shot when she was young.

<paraphrase>
THespos:I have a problem with my order. Would you like my order number?

Julie: Please Hold.

[long pause]

Julie: What is your name?

THespos: [I give her my full name]

Julie: And the recipient’s name?

THespos: [I give her Beth’s name]

[long pause]

Julie: Please Hold

[another long pause]

Julie: I’m calling the florist.

[another long pause]

Julie: I’m sorry this wasn’t delivered. I can offer you a 20 percent credit and a 20 percent discount on your next order.

THespos: Do I get my money back for this order?

Julie: No.

THespos: I’m sorry, but that’s just not acceptable. Your company agreed to deliver flowers yesterday and failed. I believe I’m entitled to my money back.

Julie: Please Hold.

[extremely long pause]

Julie: I called the florist and canceled the order. We will issue a full credit to your credit card.

THespos: Thank you.
</paraphrase>
Yes, this sucks. Beth didn’t get flowers, but it wasn’t the end of the world. I could get her something when she got back from her trip. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know that things were being fucked up outside my realm of control.

On Sunday, I was sitting at my computer when an e-mail arrives from 1-800-Flowers Customer Service…

Fucking bunch of shit-eating shysters. I knew they’d try something like this. My response:

Yet another “We got your response” confirmation e-mail comes through within a minute or two. Twenty minutes later…

Well, their customer service reps were obviously in the bathroom whacking off when God was handing out brains, but at least they got this little problem worked out.

Or so I thought.

About 7 hours later…

Who the fuck is running their CRM initiative? Obviously he’s been blessed with an extra chromosome.

I fire back:

Yet another confirmation e-mail comes through. This time, though, I don’t hear shit from them.

Tonight, I get an e-mail from Beth.

Grrr…

Thank you, 1-800-FLOWERS. I now have the Queen of the Cool Girls wondering why I sent her a bunch of dead roses. And I bet the next credit card statement I get, there won’t be a credit to my account. I just know. Because you’re all a bunch of drooling encephalitic dick tuggers.

Thank you for your “help,” Julie. I hope a large prison escapee cornholes you with a post hole digger until your eyes pop out. God forbid you try to stick me with the bill. I’ll have someone at the fraud department at American Express cram a carefully-selected arrangement of thorny roses and poison ivy up your ass.

#2

That truly blows.

But hey, maybe in fifty years you’ll make the grandkids bust a gut with your story about how the first dozen roses you sent Grandma were dead.

#3

I never use 1-800-FLOWERS.com anymore…I take the time to go to the library and look up florists in the area I am sending to…I pick the funkiest (GOOD funky) ad and call them direct. It has never failed me yet.

Florists seem to have more of a stake in doing what they SAY they will do if you order from them directly.

PS…best of luck with Beth!!!

#4

Send Beth a link to this thread. If she’s anywhere near as cool as you’re making her out to be, she’ll get a kick out of it and be flattered…

#5

[Lili von Schtupp] Dead woses. How owrdinawy! [/Lili von Schtupp]

That sucks, THespos. I hope you get your refund with minimum hassles. She sounds like a great girl, BTW.

#6

What a bunch of cro-magnons. Perhaps next time you see her, you can surprise her with a dozen long stems that you personally picked out, then make a witty and suave remark, thereby winning her affection.

#7

Odd. The one bad experience I had was back in 1986, IIRC. 1800Flowers wasn’t the entity that screwed up–t’was the delivering florist in Florida–however, one of the bigwigs at the company called both the recipient and me to apologize. Also, I got a discount for my next flower delivery.

In case you’re wondering, the delivering florist didn’t bother to put a card on the flowers.

#8

Hang onto those emails in case you have to have the charge cancelled if the credit isn’t there. If you’re impatient, like I am, you can call the credit card company and ask if it’s been credited back yet, too.

#9

-Even cool girls don’t tend to be wooed by the conversational uses of the phrase “cornholing” and “dick tuggers”.

I would suggest telling her a largely abbreviated version of the above- hey, I wanted 'em here before you left, they didn’t do it, I tried to cancel, they still showed upm etc- and perhaps offer to buy her a rose, live and in person.

#10

“…send me dead flowers every morning.
Send me dead flowers by the US mail.
Send me dead flowers to my wedding.
And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave.”

No, really, us cute cool low maintence girls can deal with such things. Tell her the whole story and bond over it.
And ride 1-800’s ass till they give you your money back and agree to do your wedding flowers for free.

#11

Some of us do. Look how many cool girls read and respond to these threads. :wink:

#12

Thanks for the advice, folks. Beth and I have another date tonight (doubling with my sister and her fiance). This will probably make a funny story over dinner.

#13

Hey, catsix, what say we ditch these dick tuggers and make with the cornholing? ;):smiley:

#14

The song running through your head for the day brought to you by THespos and Kiss.

Nice story. You do realize of course that an update must follow?

#15

REALLY!?!?! Wow!

I hope that the waiter at dinner doesn’t mess up your order because I would hate to see what you wish on him/her!!

#16

I had a similar issue with them- they ended up sending my order to ME, the orderer! Fucking HELLO?? So I order flowers for my friend in NC, and they show up at MY house in NY? What the hell?

Idiots, idiots, idiots. Never, never use them.

#17

I used 1-800-FLOWERS once, back in 1992.

I had just met a girl as I was moving from Florida to upstate New York. For Valentine’s Day, I decided to send her some flowers. No web back then, so I called them up.

I was asked, “Do you want to send a dozen roses for only $80.00 plus shipping, handling, and tax?”

No, I replied, “I want to send this [approx. $40 bouquet] I saw advertised.”

[I couldn’t afford the roses, and I thought that they were too much, too soon, anyway.]

The telephone zombie asked me no less than five more times if I really wouldn’t rather send the roses.

I answered, “No thanks” each time.

So what happened? Girl does NOT receive the bouquet. I receive, at my home address in NY, an $80+ order of roses. My credit card was billed for the unsent bouquet AND the unordered roses that we’re sent to me.

When I spoke with them, they promised that everything would be taken care of, and all charges removed.

What happened? They sent the bouquet a week after Valentine’s, and didn’t remove any charges. They also insisted that I had ordered the roses.

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re saying that I ordered roses and had them delivered to MYSELF on Valentine’s Day?!”

I finally had to call Amex and have them remove the charges from my credit card.

I will never deal with that company again, and have kept to this for eleven years now.

BTW, the roses were very nice, but they didn’t do much for me. :slight_smile:

P.S. On preview, I guess I’m not the only one this has happened to.

#18

Alright. So I really don’t wish that Julie gets it up the pooper with a digging implement. I was just trying to make the rant a bit more entertaining is all…

#19

well… that is what you ordered, right? Granted, there was plenty of SNAFU and FUBAR involved, but in the final analysis, you ordered her some dead roses, and she got some dead roses…

#20

I actually don’t know the answer to that question. Are roses technically dead once one cuts them? I always thought they were alive until they got all dried out and stuff…

In any case, Ethilrist you know what I meant. :wink: