Ivy Leaf Florists in Grant City, KY ripped off & deceived customer, pathetic business behavior

In early October 2001, I made a complaint over the phone with Discover about a florist who did not deliver the goods in late September. I also filed with the Better Business Service. The business I had trouble with was Ivy Leaf Florist, 16 N Main St, Dry Ridge, Ky 41035 859-824-4434 / fax: 877-489-5323.) They were supposed to deliver flowers to a funeral home in Dry Ridge.

Members of my family and some of the members of the family of the deceased never saw the flowers. I myself was at the funeral home and looked around 4 times and never found my flowers. However one of the members of the deceased one's family (that I never knew) seems to be good friends with this florist. She told me that she never received the flowers. She told me that she only had a gift card from the basket, but no flowers. She also told me that it might have been delivered to the gravesite by accident. She told me that she knew that florist personally and couldn't imagine him or any of his employees being rude to anyone. As it stands, she wrote a letter to Discover Card telling them that she received the flowers after all according to the rebuttal statement I just recieved from the Better Business office.

In that rebuttal, Ms. Smith of Ivy Leaf Florists claims theirs to only be a small business. And inferrs that should be an excuse, for their rude behavior and poor record keeping techniques. They also claim to quote me exactly. Their "exact" statement uses quaint terms that are not part of my vocabulary. They accuse me of being rude and as the reason that they hung up on me 3 times! Tony Smith,(the owner) even said that I owed him an apology! I never used foul language. I just could not get my point across to them. They did all the talking. If I interrupted them, I was considered rude, and they hung up.

What ever happened for respect for the customer? From the beginning, my husband was treated curtly by them. I was then treated worse. I was grilled as to why I did not call sooner. I had gone out of town. I was in New York. In fact I was at "ground zero" in Manhattan. I thought that the business must have forgotten our flowers and did not bill us. 2 weeks later when I saw that they submitted the bill to Discover, I called them. The owner, Tony Smith was nasty because I would not give him my mobile phone number. As it was, they had already treated me awful. Whey would I give him my private number? I had already given him my home phone.

As for (co-owner)Ms. Smith's statment in her BBB rebuttal that they might have worked out a deal if I had been nice, that was never even a remote option. Deals cannot be made when the customer is ignored, hung-up on disrespected and basically robbed. Yes I was robbed of money for flowers that were never delivered to the correct place, delivered late, of never at all.

I asked Discover to take back payment for the flowers. They did so temporarily. However when the member of the family changed her statement and wrote the biased letter to Discover in favor of the florists (as she was personal friends with them), Discover applied the charge to my account again. Discover believed her. If the Florist had a signed receipt of delivery I might believe that as a reputable bit of evidence. Otherwise, if I wanted, I could get others in her family and mine to write letters stating that they never saw the flowers!

I hope that others learn about their deceptive dealings, since this matter appears not to be working out in my behalf.

All this time I thought mistakenly that I would be protected by fraud by using my credit cards when making a purchase. I was wrong. It seems to me that this florist business should bear the burden of proving that they did in fact deliver what they were paid to deliver. But as a "small" business they don't keep very good records. It also seems that when delivering flowers that someone there should sign off that they were actually received. But Ivy Leaf has no proof such as that and yet I have to cover their error.

It is too bad that others in her family, the ones I know personally never were comforted by the flowers. Next time I want to console someone with flowers I will take it to their home myself.

Possibly someone stole the flowers. But that does not forgive the rudeness and ill-manners that Ivy Leaf showed from the start.

I hope that others using this Grant County, Kentucky florist learn about their pathetic business behavior.