For Valentines Day, I ordered a “Silk red rose
in presentation cylinder” for my partner from www.bloominbritain.com
on 12th February costing £9.99 plus £4.45 for
postage. I filled in the online form, and specified 14th February
as the delivery date.
I received a confirmation email on 12th February confirming this
order and that my card would be debited and that the agreed delivery
date would be Valentines Day.
The rose was not delivered on 14th February, prompting me to
send a high priority email on the same day informing them that
it had not arrived and asking how I might be refunded. This email
was never replied to, and the contact details I was required to
give at the ordering stage, ie phone numbers and email addresses,
were never used.
On 17th February the rose was delivered. The late arrival of this
Valentines gift obviously caused me and my partner a great deal
of embarrassment.
To make matters worse, when my partner opened the “presentation
cylinder” (in fact a poster tube), it was discovered that
the “silk” rose was in fact foam. I had paid £9.99
for a foam rose!
On 18th February at 9.40am I rang the company to complain. I
was asked for a contact telephone number and told that a customer
services representative would contact me. I was not contacted
until 20th February. As it was an inconvenient time I responded
to the message left on my voicemail on 21st February. I left my
contact details on an answer machine at approximately 9.45am,
and was called back in the early afternoon.
Whilst the customer services representative that I spoke to was
very polite, he failed to understand that as an online trader
they are obligated to offer customers a full refund if the goods
do not arrive on an agreed delivery date. Since they offered customers
the service of choosing a delivery date online, they must also
offer them a commitment to abide by that agreement – particularly
when they confirm the arrangement via email.
The gentleman also neglected to answer my complaint regarding
the quality of the gift, and could not satisfactorily explain
why the delivered rose was not what had been described on the
site. The only compensation he offered was a refund of the postage
costs. Considering the inadequacy of the customer services staff
to respond to my initial complaints, and the inaccuracy of the
product description, I do not consider this to be suitable compensation,
particularly as the Office of Fair Trading states that online
shoppers are entitled to:
o Clear information about the goods or services
offered before you buy
o A full refund if the goods or services are
not provided by the date you agreed
(Office of Fair Trading web site)
After experiencing these problems , I visited the Which? webtrader
site - as Blooming Britain feature their logo as a seal of quality
- to check what guarantees I was offered by shopping with a company
that was a member of the scheme. This is when I discovered
that the Which? webtrader scheme was closed on the 31st of January
and that the online traders associated with the program were required
to have removed the web trader logo from their site by the same
date. By letting this logo remain they have offered myself
and other customers an assurance of standard that no longer exists.
On February 23rd I wrote them a letter, containing much of what
I have written here. Suprise, suprise - no response. A week later,
the Which? logo disappeared from their site, and another appeared
- a customer service award from The Euro Award Index. Upon
contacting The Euro Award Index, I received a nice email telling
me they had never heard of Blooming Britain and that they had
no right to feature such a logo.
The fact that I have been treated badly as a consumer isn't the
only issue here. ...
