DESIGN 2000 FLOWERS & GIFTS

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This is material for a stand up comic's routine, particularly at the end. I'm already laughing at the fool who thinks he's not going to get reviewed on Angie's List. This review alone makes the high subscription rate WORTH IT. Maybe it will save you some trouble. I used a website, Ava's Flowers, that purported to be a "local florist" in Norman, OK, making same-day deliveries. I purchased a basket of living plants (OK, they were small, but they had roots and dirt and plants grow, right?) to be delivered. I bought the middle sized arrangement. There was a pop-up offering 15% off if I ordered within 30 minutes (turns out if you just reload the page, the clock starts over, cute trick tho). I placed the order, used PayPal, never got the 15% off. Called to see how to do that. "You need to order online." I had. Well, they'd give me 10% off. I said, your site said 15%. OK, 15% then. (I still do not have my refund.) A few hours later, my daughter texted me a picture of her gift. (Please note above description.) It was a little glass cube with two cheap white and purple orchids, six roses, three broad leaves curled up and a couple of sticks. I was disgusted. It was chintzy and definitely not accurate. I called the customer service number I'd called earlier to find out about the overcharge. They said, oh, that would be the responsibility of the local florist. Local florist? They said *they* were the local florist. OK, how about fixing it? Oh, we'll just go take back the arrangement and bring something on TUESDAY. I asked if they would like someone to come and take their child's birthday arrangement away , leaving nothing? Now they offered to leave the arrangement and would have to accept it. That wasn't going to work either, frankly. They suggested I call the actual local florist, and I did. No answer even though the arrangement had been delivered half an hour before and it was only 2 in the afternoon. I left a detailed message and asked them to please let me know how they would fix their mistake. This morning I got a call back. The first thing out of the man's mouth was that he did not like how I had left my voice mail. He claimed it was 15 minutes long (interesting, since the actual call from beginning to end was less than five minutes), the rest of his editorial comments were colorful and totally unrelated to anything other than his apparent mood or possibly his personality. Then he said that *my* first problem was that I didn't deal with *my* local florist, who, he said, was him, "unfortunately." At that point I told him if he wanted to fix his mistake, that was fine but I was not interested in his opinions about me or my personality. He escalated. I told him goodbye and I hung up. Pretty clear he had as good a grasp of "customer service" as he had of "accurate orders" or possibly "Garden Pleasures Basket." I didn't get a chance to tell him that according to the website of the company he contracted with, I was in fact dealing with a local florist. I specifically tried to find a florist near my daughter's home. So I guess we can add misleading advertising on the web (that's a first, huh?) to the mix. He called back immediately and as soon as I answered, began shrieking. I told him he was harrassing me and I had no problem calling the "local" police department if he didn't stop. He shrieked that I was harrassing him. I hung up. This boy needed more than any phone call could give him. He hasn't called back, thank goodness. The problem has not been fixed. I'm not holding my breath. You want a good laugh? The Ava Flowers people sent me an email inviting me to provide feedback about my experience, promising "You won't be disappointed with the give-away you'll receive!" LOL--guess what it was?! TWENTY PERCENT OFF MY NEXT PURCHASE..... I'm still laughing. Which is no mean trick considering my child did not get her gift, I paid just under $60 for it and received a good verbal beating as well.