urbanflorist.com

I wanted to send a Christmas gift to my old friend in Cleveland, OH. I found a company on line advertising flowers and gifts with delivery everywhere in the USA. The name of the company is Artisan Flowers and Gifts (urbanflorist.com), Vancouver, BC, Canada.

I placed an order on 12/13/05 for a Christmas gift basket to be delivered on 12/24/05. This item is listed on the website as "Christmas warmer basket". As of today, 6 pm on 12/29/05, nothing has been delivered. I called the company. The Customer Service gives only the option to leave the message (during regular business hours). I called the sales and reached a person by the name Aaron. He refused to give his full name. He said that I requested the delivery on 12/24, but they gave no guarantees and therefore he did not see any problems with them being so late. He refused to give the name of the supervisor. He refused to cancel the order. He put me on hold, and in 3 minutes the line was disconnected. During our conversation, he did not apologize, but made the argument that legally they are protected since they have all kinds of warnings on their website.

I did not think I have to explain that the Christmas gift has to be delivered by Christmas, otherwise it loses its meaning. Instead of doing a surprise gift, I had to call my friend to find out if he received something from me (only to learn that he didn't). My credit card was charged by Artisan Flowers for the amount of $46.51, although the on-line bill had the amount of $41.48.

Update – two hours later

At 8 pm my doorbell rang, and there was a delivery guy. He brought a big torn box (I took a picture) addressed to Harold (my friend in Cleveland) but with my home address for delivery. Inside, there was my gift basket with a dirty letter size piece of paper with my text (I made a copy. Black marks are not from my copier, it is on the original. It is black and white). Apparently, it was what they advertised as a mini card. The basket looked very differently from what I saw on the website. There were no flowers or any other decoration unlike on the picture posted on line.

As a result, I wasted money, got the basket I do not need, failed to send a Christmas gift to my friend, disappointed him saying that he should have received something from me, spent time on the phone and now have to find another gift for delivery.

Maya