Call Kurtis: Where Are My Flowers?
FAIR OAKS (CBS13) — JustFlowers.com advertises on its website it's accredited with the Better Business Bureau with an "A" rating. It helped convince Mindy Linford to order a Mother's Day bouquet from their website for her mom in Pollock Pines. She ordered them the Tuesday before the holiday asking for a Friday delivery. The flowers never arrived.
"I'm really upset because they took my money," Linford said.
She estimates calling fifty times trying to find out why, but says she struggled to get an answer.
"When they find out you're not placing an order, they either hang up or place you on hold and then hang up on you," Linford said.
Other complaints on Just Flowers Facebook page read, "I discovered that she had not received her flowers." and "ruined my mother's day and $60 down the drain too."
Just Flowers is accredited out of the Los Angeles chapter, however The National office of the Better Business Bureau says none of the businesses in the Greater Los Angeles area have any letter ratings right now. The National BBB expelled the L.A. chapter in March for "recurrent noncompliance with BBB standards" after it reportedly accredited companies without checking their credentials.
Gary Almond of the Northeastern California Better Business Bureau calls what happened in Los Angeles troubling. He says it could be September before all 15-thousand businesses in Greater Los Angeles are reevaluated. In the meantime, businesses in the region accredited prior to the chapter being expelled will remain accredited. When asked if we can trust accreditations out of Greater L.A., Almond responded, "I wouldn't make that blanket statement that you cannot trust accreditations, because you'd have to treat that case individually."
Just Flowers told us in a statement, "Mother's Day is the busiest time of the year for florists and we do our best to make sure every order is delivered. But no complaint is too small, and every customer is important to us."
The company refunded Mindy and said they'd send her mother a bouquet of flowers for free with an apology. Mindy says she won't order flowers online again.
"I would say order from a local florist."
FULL JUST FLOWERS STATEMENT:
Unfortunately we were unable to deliver the flowers for that order in time for the Mother's Day holiday and the customer emailed us on Sunday, May 12th, that she would like to cancel. Her complete refund was issued by Monday the 13th. Usually credits take a day or two to process depending on the customer's bank processing times.
Mother's Day is the busiest time of the year for florists and we do our best to make sure every order is delivered. But no complaint is too small, and every customer is important to us. We have a team reviewing all complaints submitted through social media, and are reaching out to customers to help them with their orders.
Mindy's order was already resolved before we received your inquiry. But we appreciate your interest in helping our customers. If there are other customers who have reached out to you, feel free to pass me along their order information so I can make sure our managers take care of them.
Thank you,
John Chang
JustFlowers.com Inc.
