Well, I must say that I am glad that I did not actually place my intended order on BloomsToday.com! Part of the process of ordering flowers with the "50% off" discount is agreeing to trial memberships with Blooms Rewards and IdentityWorldwide.com. As everyone should, I read the "terms and conditions" and learned that, for IdentityWorldwide.com, I was about to enter into an "agreement" with AgillaPro, LLC.
It read, 'These terms ("Terms" or "Agreement") shall constitute the agreement between Agilla Pro, LLC ("we," "us," or "Agilla Pro"), a Delaware corporation with offices at 15405 John Marshall Highway, Haymarket, VA 20169, providing a service called IdentityWorldwide.com, and you ("You"), the end user of this service'! The address herein is that of Blooms Today. A call to Blooms Today rendered the comment that IndentityWorldwide.com is a partner company and not one owned by Blooms Today.
So I performed an internet search for AgillaPro and found NOTHING AT ALL, other than that the domain AgillaPro.com is registered to Flowers Today (a/k/a Blooms Today). The registrant's email address was
[email protected]. Another search revealed that this is John Morley and his phone number is 571-261-2206. Before John began Blooms Today, he was the Director of Business Development at FTD.com and also the Senior Manager of Partnership Marketing at 1-800-Flowers.com. So he must know the flower business. So why, I wonder, is the company selling identity theft protection?
By the way, Agilla Pro is listed with the Delaware Department of State as an LLC, incorporated/formed on March 3, 2010 - file number 4795107.
Now, it took very little thinking last night to decide against entering an agreement with an LLC with a name which cannot be researched! I would have to say that Mr. Morley has been rather more successful in manipulative tactics than in proper marketing, seeing how many folks have complained that they were unaware they were agreeing to charges of almost $25/month in order to obtain a one-time discount (of a maximum of $35.00) on a floral order.
This morning I called 800-297-1548, the number for IdentityWorldwide.com. I reached the Blooms Rewards call center and asked the representative about Agilla Pro, LLC, the parent company of IdentityWorldwide.com. She, understandably, admitted not knowing anything. I asked to be put through to a supervisor and the call was on hold for nearly 44 minutes before they disconnected it. I called back and repeated my question and Jody in the call center rudely explained that I would have to email the supervisor at
[email protected]. I asked if it is not their practice to allow customers to speak to a supervisor and she repeated that I would have to send an email and hung up.
So it seems as though Mr. Morley is not very interested in customer service either, just marketing.
All of this, and I didn't even research Blooms Rewards. From the multitude of online complaints, it seems to be a rather useless program. However, I was focused on who it is that is gathering 'customers' identity information - a particularly frightening problem, especially in today's world.
If you want to order flowers, find an arrangement you like online and order it directly from a florist. The 27% or more that discount online floral services subtracts from the amount reimbursed to the florist is extremely excessive. It would be to everyone's benefit (other than to the online discount florist service) if we eliminated the 'middle-men'
A VERY INFORMATIVE article/video from WRAL in Raleigh explains this is better detail: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5105785/
It reveals, the online discounters are making enormous profits from doing nothing more than taking an order. Once that profit is skimmed, Pender estimated he receives, for example, about $26 to fill and deliver an arrangement that cost the customer $55. The result for the online customer is a smaller bouquet. Buying directly from the local florist would have meant a larger arrangement.
COMPLAINTS:
One of hundreds of disgruntled 'customers' who posted a complaint about the company found, 'If you want to post on their Facebook page..you have CLICK THE LIKE BUTTON to post your complaint...they will remove it within a week.
But the following are JUST SOME of the sites where irate 'customers' have submitted their complaints - I am taking the time to post this on each. Note that many folks did not take the time to read the 'fine print' ~ the website is obviously misleading - no - deceptive. Read the number of instances of failed delivery. Read the number of disillusioned 'customers' who were treated rudely. Then SHARE this!
http://www.ripoffreport.com/directory/blooms-today.aspx
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/bloomstoday.html
http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews145593.html
http://www.viewpoints.com/Bloomstoday-com-reviews
http://www.flowercomplaint.com/BloomsToday_Complaints.html
http://blooms-today.pissedconsumer.com/bloomstoday-ripped-me-off-20110627245571.html
http://www.scambook.com/browse/index/company/4866/Blooms-Today
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/blooms-today-haymarket-virginia-c49524.html
http://reviews.pricegrabber.com/blooms-today/r/7577/
http://blooms-today-reviews.measuredup.com/3943
http://www.yelp.com/biz/blooms-today-haymarket (only the most recent post from someone who lives less than 25 miles from Blooms Today headquarters is a positive one)
http://www.gmtruckclub.com/forum/f17720/bloomstoday-flowers-review-warning-
50%25-off-~-bloomsrwrd-blooms-rewards-today-57345/
http://local.wnep.com/talkback/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2654
