Absolutely awful service

Prestige Flowers - www.prestigeflowers.co.uk
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cfClark1966's review of Prestige Flowers - www.prestigeflowers.co.uk

“Absolutely awful service”

★☆☆☆☆

written by cfClark1966 on 07/04/2014

I ordered a bouquet the Wednesday before Mother's Day and upon being given the option to choose a delivery date, I of course selected for them to be delivered on Mother's Day. I received all of my order confirmations via email, which all stated my order would be delivered on Mother's Day. I was unable to track my order as the tracking information was not updated, so my order permanently stated 'processing'. It was when I was trying to find tracking information that I accidentally discovered a section in one of the emails which said my order was going to be delivered the day before Mother's Day. I queried this with Prestige customer services and was told that despite being able to select an specific delivery date, my order could not be guaranteed for that date. They said that if they were unable to deliver on Mother's Day, they would deliver the day before on the Saturday. I expressed my frustration at this. I could not understand why they let customers choose a delivery date if they cannot guarantee it. Surely that is just asking for complaints?! Of course, my delivery didn't turn up on Mother's Day, or the Saturday before, or the Monday afterwards. I asked Prestige for a refund as obviously I no longer needed Mother's Day flowers anymore since the day had been and gone and I'd had to make last minute alternative arrangements. Unsurprisingly, Prestige refused a refund or any form of compensation and just sent me an email quoting their terms and conditions and blaming the delay on the courier company they use. They told me I needed to allow 3 working days to lapse before they would even investigate where my flowers were. Apparently, orders can take up to 3 working days from the selected delivery date. After the 3 days passed, I contacted them again to tell them the flowers STILL hadn't arrived and that I definitely wanted my money back. I was curtly informed that due to flowers being perishable items, I was not protected under the Distance Selling Act or any other consumer law and so therefore a refund was at their discretion. All they would offer was to re-send more flowers for a date of my choice. After much arguing and to-ing and fro-ing I had no choice but to agree. I asked them to clarify whether my flowers would definitely be sent on the day I wanted this time. I was informed they would do their best - again, no guarantee. The flowers did arrive on the date I asked (a whole week after Mother's Day and 11 days after I'd originally ordered them). Up until this point, i hadn't told my mum that I'd ordered her any flowers, nor had I told her about the issues I was having with Prestige. Even though they would be a week late, I thought it would still be nice to surprise her. My mum text me to thank me for the flowers and to say that whilst she was grateful for the surprise, she would advise me to contact the flower company because the quality was so poor. She was supposed to have received a rose and lily bouquet. She sent me some photos of a half-hearted bouquet with a few roses which had already started turning brown, and which had arrived in a battered Royal Mail cardboard box. The bag of water they were in was mouldy. I can only assume this was the original bouquet I had ordered a week ago which has been sitting in some warehouse somewhere. Once they realised they had forgotten it, they simply re-sent it, rather than making up a fresh one. Of course I contacted Prestige again to vent my anger, and sent them the photos my mum had sent me to prove I wasn't just making it up. That was Saturday... I have still had no response.....
I'm starting to wish I'd just gone to the local supermarket and picked up and nice bunch of flowers because quite honestly, they would have been of far better quality, a fraction of the price and better value for money. I had never come across a company with such poor customer service and aftercare until I had the misfortune of dealing with Prestige.

  • Rose & Lily bouquet £25

    Goods purchased & cost

  • Up to a week late

    Delivery

  • Customer Service

  • Quality of website

  • Value For Money

Haas19's Comment

Written on: 08/04/2014

Totally agree had exact same problem useless company!!!

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