Flowers not as pictured, bad customer service & bad value.

I bought a bunch of flowers for my mum, for Mother's Day. I ordered over a week before, and paid for them to be delivered the day before Mother's Day.

I paid £36, and was very excited as the picture of the bouquet I chose was beautiful. The flowers did not look like the picture, the picture was 9/10, what arrived was 3/10. When it arrived the bouquet looked tiny compared to the one photographed. There were hardly any flowers - at best, there were as many as you see in a supermarket bunch for £5. The flowers were different colours to those in the picture, and I had specifically chosen the bouquet for those colours - my mum's favourites. The flowers were also significantly different sizes to those in the picture, and this further altered the appearance of the bouquet I received from what I had chosen The decoration was frayed and damaged, the plastic wrapping was stuffed in the glass vase and it looked as if no effort was made.

The card was not handwritten as stated on the website, it was printed incorrectly (without apostrophes), onto a label and stuck in the card lopsided, again like no effort was made.

I don't usually complain, but I was so upset because they were for my mum for Mother's Day, it was the day before, and I couldn't replace them. I spent over an hour trying to get through to Interflora, they kept me on hold for ages, at a high price, and five times when I eventually got through the phone line was cut dead - it sounded like they hung up on me before I got a chance to speak. I imagine this may be because it was the day before Mother's Day and they were inundated with complaints. Perhaps it was a technical problem, but it occurred to me that the staff may have answered, then simply hung up after 5/10 seconds hoping people would just give up. Eventually I got through to a man, I told him the problem, he was not rude but he sounded like he was in a bad mood - this may of been his usual tone of voice though so I wouldn't like to accuse him of that. He put me on hold again whilst he spoke to the florist, then spoke to me and said the florist would come back with another bunch of flowers and take the first bunch. After an hour the florist came, with an equally disappointing bunch of flowers and he was clearly unhappy with me. I felt awkward and as though I had done something wrong. He didn't say anything bad, but was dominant and made me feel I had to accept the flowers, i felt as though i was being picky and rude. I showed him the picture from interflora of what it was supposed to look like in my defence and he just shrugged and shook his head.

I wouldn't say it ruined Mother's Day, but it really affected me on Saturday, I couldn't sleep that night because I was playing over it in my head. I don't like to complain and I felt guilty about it, but interflora are wrong to advertise with pictures of flowers they don't deliver. I felt upset about the florist being annoyed with me, but I was really hurt that I paid for a product I didn't get. I don't care about me enough to complain, but I love my mum more than anything, and I chose a really nice gift especially and what I had to give to her wasn't very nice. It took away the special-ness and the good feeling... It felt jaded and traumatic... I would never buy from Interflora again, if you're lucky enough to get a good florist in your area who replicates the photograph then you may be fine. But it's clearly hit and miss, and if you are like me you will end up wishing you had gone in a store and chosen them yourself.

The bouquets pictured on the interflora website are a fair price for there beauty - although expensive, it's a worthwhile little bit of luxury to make someone feel special. However, the bouquet delivered looked nothing like those pictured and was extremely bad value for money.