[Dejibo]

DS asked me to help him order some flowers for his new g/f who is having a b/d on the 26th of this month. Since I am a great shopper, I took the challenge.

ProFlowers had a simple bouquet of roses multicolored for $19.99 and a free vase, but by the time they added shipping, handling, processing fees, blah blah blah it was $39.99 for this set of $20 flowers! I chose to NOT order from them. Did an internet search and looked thru the massive amounts of discounted flower ads. Well...I found Blooms.com and they had a 50% off deal. Got a beautiful arrangement of pink/purple flowers (her fav color) and a gorgeous purple vase thrown in for free. Del charge of $4.99 (half of pro flowers!) and they didnt charge a premium to have them there on that special day (a wednesday, non holiday is NOT a special day!) and it all looked good. Tons of advertizements asking "want to sign up for this? or that? and how bout adding a teddy bear? or chocolates? and it was alot coming at me. In the end this $49.99 bunch of flowers cost $17.23 not bad but...

Got the email showing my order and it explained that my CC would be charged the WHOLE $49.99 PLUS a $9.99 charge to join Blooms.com and if I didnt cancel some identity protection program in so many days it would be another $14.99 AND blooms.com would keep charging me $9.99 each month till I cancel as they are an online membership only shopping club. In 3 business days they will refund the $30 to my debit card to make up for the discount I received by shopping today, but i would get the full charge first.

How confusing can it be to just order some flowers???!!! I mean who wants to chuck in teddy bears, chocolates, and oh yeah, an identity protection plan, with an online shopping club, and oh yeah, you pay FULL price and then we refund the difference in a day or two...OMG! when did "send Jo some flowers" turn into a marathon morning of calling to cancel all of these memberships that were hidden in the teeeny tiny fine print at the bottom of the "order now" button??

Im mad! I feel tricked. I had never heard of Blooms.com and now I feel like I was hoodwinked by a low cost bouquet. So, I have NO choice but to eat the cost of the first months membership, AND they wont let me cancel till at least 21 days has passed. I have to cancel between 21 days and 30 days to prevent the next months charge of $9.99 to remain a shop at home member of Blooms.com WTH???

Anyone else ever get trapped into one of these scams? It took exactly 30 seconds for my email box to overflow with ads from acne cream to zit relief. Good gravy! what did I do??

[Erin524]

When I was a telemarketer (I took inbound calls for that junk you see advertised on tv all the time. This was about a decade ago)

We would get people calling in for whatever junk it was they wanted. After we read thru all the script for that piece of junk, we had to read thru the upsells, which were mostly buying/shopping programs. I hated reading those because I could tell thru the wording, that they were phrasing things to basically trick people into saying "yes". We had to read everything word-for-word.

There were times tho, when I would get someone that I could tell didnt understand. I usually tried to make sure I emphasized certain words in the script, hopefully in a way that would help the person I was talking to realize what I was reading and hope that they'd say "no" to it. (which sometimes after I entered "no" into the order screen, the stupid order screen would make me ask the caller to agree to the crappy upsell...sometimes two or three times. Occasionally the caller would get really...peeved...because I kept asking. (I'd usually tell them sorry, but I was required to ask)

Whenever I order things and I see buying programs or "special" memberships for some vague service, I'll cancel before completing the order.

Dej, try calling your credit card company now and see if there's any way they can stop the charges for the stuff they've apparently tricked you into. It's going to be really hard for you to cancel it. They intentionally make crap like that hard to cancel. They're counting on you either not noticing the charges, or that you'll think it's a good deal and you'll try it. (or that you'll give up on trying to cancel it and will live with them charging you every month for a useless service)

Next time, tell your son to go to a florist, pick out the flowers himself, and deliver the flowers to the girlfriend himself. Cheaper, you dont get all sorts of weird charges to your credit card for junk you dont need, and I bet the girlfriend thinks that it's more special.

Hopefully you can stop those extra charges from getting onto your card.

[Kitty]

I never, ever use my debit card to order anything online. I've got a credit card just for Internet use. Only has a $500 limit. I pay it off immediately after ordering whatever it was I needed. I just don't trust any of those online businesses with my debit card info. Plus, it's much easier to dispute a charge with a credit card than it is a debit card.

I order all my cat food via the Internet. After placing the order I go to my banking's bill pay feature and pay the credit card back. That way I never end up paying interest charges and it looks good on my credit report.

[mochagirl13]

I use or try to use gift cards that way they can try the recurring charge but it won't work. They count on you forgetting to cancel. I bite the bullet most times and pay the extra shipping and handling fees with proflowers, ftd or 1800flowers. They use a local florist anyway.

Since your son and GF are in same area he should have taken them to her. Sometimes what you paid for is not what gets delivered.

[Dejibo]

Well, I found out that TDBank was charging me $15 PER MONTH for having my little debit card account (there is never any real money in it) and I was RIPPED! I went down, CLOSED the account (so too bad for those that tried to jump on today) and put my money back in the credit union where its earning interest, and the stock is held by members, not be CEOs and so forth. $180 a year for my internet play account is INSANE! No Way!!!

What a stupid day. now I had to run thru all those accounts I do pay for with my debit each month and switch it over to my new play account. UGH! What happened to customer service??

[karousel]

Originally Posted by Dejibo

What happened to customer service??

Unfortunately it is gone from most businesses. Very frustrating. That's why I'll shop and pay a bit more at places that have better customer service. And of course that means less shopping since it costs more.

I'm so sorry you had all these problems and all you wanted to do was order some flowers. Why are things so hard sometimes?

[Kitty]

Originally Posted by karousel

That's why I'll shop and pay a bit more at places that have better customer service. And of course that means less shopping since it costs more.

Me, too! I've got the choice of two grocery stores to shop and I always pick the one that gives the best customer service. For what I buy I'm not sure that one is less or more expensive than the other. I'm always going to go to Publix, though, because they know me there and they have the best customer service. They must be a good place to work because I see the same cashiers and baggers there consistently and I've been going there for nearly two years.

[legzzalot]

DS has a new GF?? WTH?? I didn't get the memo!! If you were in Virginia I would tell ya who to use. I love my little tiny local florist that has been in business here for the last 80 yrs. I love them and they stay in business for the very same reason.. their prices are great and they provide quality products and quality service. Which I have discovered is really hard to come by now a days.

I say after my 4th trip to the pharmacy in 8 days to get the pain meds I have been out of for 4 days because my pharmacist was too stupid to send a fax when their computer system failed. And after trip #2 to pharmacy #2 to pick up DDs script because they had to wait for the other pharmacist to come in and break open the capsules to mix with the liquid stuff because my 7 yr old cannot swallow half inch sized capsules.