I'm on in favor of enterprising little businesses, but one of the local news station had an interesting bit on phoney florists on tonight's news. It seems that some folks in Wisconsin have gotten a bunch of local phone listings with fake addresses and floral shop names. You find one in the phone - or is it the phoney - book, give them a shout, and order your flowers. Only the phone rings into a call center in Wisconsin where scammers are standing by to take your order. (Hey, what about Midwest nice?) They then call a real local florist and place your order for you. (Thanks!) The surcharge for this effort: $20.
This is all quite illegal, and Wisconsin isn't the only home to floral scams, which have apparently been around for a while. There's a piece on Florist Detective that gives more details on the scam. (It also mentions an FTC Consumer Alert on it, called "Petal Pushers." Which I'd thought of that!)
Anyway, we are, most of us, trusting souls when it comes to doing business. We see a name and address in the phone book, or online, and assume it's a real business. And most of us like to buy from locals.
I know that I've ordered flowers through one national outfit and been disappointed. In the worst disappointment, I sent flowers to my cousin after her brother died. It was January. The flowers came frozen. And the vase - well, you couldn't really see what it looked like from the catalog picture because of the size of the bouquet that was just spilling over the sides. Let's just say I was a bit surprised when I walked into my cousin's for the post-funeral get together and saw a bunch of dead flowers in a funeral urn. Ten years later, I'm still hearing pushing-up-daisies jokes. (You may have to have grown up Irish to understand just how this could happen.)
This floral fiasco encouraged me to start going the local route when I order flowers. I.e., I find a florist nearby to the recipient and order directly from them. At least that's what I think I've done. Who knows? I may well have been suckered in on this one along the line.
Good timing to give this scam some airtime during one of the big flower-sending holidays.
My favorite floral fiasco was when I was ordered by my mother to visit my grandmother, who I always hated, in her nursing home room, because it was her 95th birthday. It was all worth it when I saw the flowers that various relatives had sent. One florist shop had screwed up and delivered a pink ceramic figurine creation, probably originally designed in 1920, of a young mother pushing a baby carriage, with the flowers in the latter, inscribed with "Congratulations on your new baby!"
ReplyDeleteThis was a perfect opportunity--I looked at my grandmother with as straight a face as I could manage, and said "Really, Nana, I'm shocked--I didn't know you were even dating anyone."