Flowerama deceptive business practice, selling arrangement not up to standards for price paid, poor customer service Clearwater Florida

On Monday, June 4th I placed an order in person at Flowerama for a funeral arrangement for Jonathan, one of my best friends, that passed away due to lung cancer. I was assisted by Carmen.

After looking at a workbook, I told Carmen that what I wanted was an oblong arrangement consisting of solely yellow flowers with one red rose in the middle. I wanted more unusual flowers, such as yellow tigerlillies and I told her that if the flowers were expensive for the size of the arrangement (I paid $99.95 for the arrangement and delivery charge together. The delivery charge was quoted to me as $9.00), that they could make it smaller and nicer. The colors were important to me because the yellow symbolized "Livestrong", Lance Armstrong's charity for cancer, one my friend had supported, and the red rose was in memory of my friend. It was to be delivered on Thursday, June 7, and it was.

I arrived at the funeral home (Moss-Feaster in Dunedin 727-562-2040) about 15 minutes before the viewing started, and the only people present were his immediate family. There were quite a few arrangements, and after speaking with his mother for a short while, I went up to the casket area and my arrangement was at the head of the coffin on a stand. From a distance it looked fine, but up close I was very disappointed. There were no tiger lilies or exotic flowers; there were mostly carnations and daisies with about four larger Gerber daisies. Two of the Gerber daisies were missing petals, one of them almost half (!), and one of the daisies, a whole one, was very wilted. The border (outside) of the arrangements was lined with yellow snapdragons, some wilted. A couple of the smaller daisies were wilty too. There was a single, small, red rose in the middle. That is it. I noticed everyone else's arrangements were very fresh and upstanding. (They were all delivered to the same holding area). I was very disappointed but did not say anything during the viewing or service because I felt it was not appropriate.

Friday, June 8th, I called Flowerama because not only did they not get the colors or flowers right (I only wanted yellow ones with one red rose, and they took the liberty to add white ones too), it was also not fresh and to me the arrangement was not worth the $90.95 I paid for it. I asked for a manager and ended up speaking to Bruce, a driver. He told me he delivered the flowers personally and that they were not wilted when he deliviered them, they were beautiful and intact.

Like I stated before, I was a little early for the viewing, and the flowers were nothing like he described. I decided to call Moss-Feaster Funeral Home in Dunedin, and I spoke to a Kathy Jennings, who answered the phone. She graciously looked up what time the flowers were delivered. I asked her to describe how they appeared to her and she told me what I had seen. I asked her if they could have been damaged between the delivery and the viewing, and she told me no, they are very particular about the way they handle the arrangements.

I called Flowerama back, and this time I spoke to Kat, the designer who made my bouquet. She told me that the arrangement looked fine when she created it, and she in fact, had yellow and white roses circling the red rose on the arrangement. I was at the viewing before it started and there were NO white and yellow roses circling the small red rose in the middle. There was only immediate family there and no one was walking around with white or yellow roses, and all the other arrangements were intact as well. Also there were no holes in the arrangement were the flowers would have been missing. I said fine, I was going to get the arrangement from the funeral home and bring it to show them. I called my boyfriend, who had also called Kat to speak to her, and he told me that she sent Bruce, the driver, back to the home to pick up the flowers.

I immediately called Kathy at Moss-Feaster back and told her that I did not want Bruce to take the flowers, that I wanted to see them for myself. But after another call to Kat at Flowerama, she said she needed the arrangement for any kind of a refund, and they needed to be the ones to pick it up. I immediately drove to the funeral home and took some photographs of the arrangement (Kathy accompanied me while I did this). I called Bruce the driver when I was finished and told him he could pick the flowers up. I went home.

Kat called me at home and told me that while she was happy to refund me the money for the wilting and damaged flowers, some flowers were missing from when Bruce first came to pick up the arrangment that morning, which was not true, because I was escorted to where they were and observed while I photographed the flowers. She also said there were holes were the white and yellow roses had been, and the flowers were missing. (There were never any flowers or holes in the arrangement and I have the photo to prove it.)

I cannot believe that even though not only was the arrangement made incorrectly, the flowers they used for it were old, and flowers they claimed they put in were not there, they wanted to dispute the fact, that I did not deserve more of a refund than for some wilted flowers. This was my best friend's funeral, I wanted to do something specific and beautiful for him, and I will never have another chance to do this. The flowers and arrangement were substandard, and to say I was disappointed is an understatement. The last thing that Kat said to me was that I can talk to the owner in the morning. They didn't make an effort to have her call me to rectify the situation and really were not too sympathetic to my complaint. I don't even want the money for myself, I wanted to donate any refund I got to the "Livestrong Foundation", in memory of Jona. I will never recommend or use this business every again for any reason and am extrememly disatisfied with the results in product and customer service.

Alicia
Clearwater, Florida
U.S.A.