Blooming Britain www.bloomingbritain.com - Prior August 2006 Review

Overall Rating

I requested a delivery from Blooming Britain on the 27th of May 2006. It was a birthday surprise for my sister. I got a message saying it would be delivered on the 26th due to the bank holiday. It was not delivered. A sticker was left on the outside door to the block of flats, with a telephone number for Amtrak several days later.

My sister chased this up for about a week. Each time Amtrak said the goods were on the van, so they did not know what the items were. In the end they said they delivered the 'week and a half' old flowers and left them outside the flat. That they had been buzzed in by someone in the block of flats. They had not left a delivery docket, so we only found this out after several other phone calls. There was no mention of the chocolates or vase. Blooming Britain have refused to communicate with me on this matter. They are using an unreliable postal service. I have sent them at least 4 emails, and none have been acknowledged.

Members' Comments onpadu's Review

• madchris1001 on 19th Jul 2006

  As an ex member of the Blooming Britain staff I could no longer stand ideally by when I read the torrent of complaints. Now don't get me wrong, Blooming Britain and its owner did let customers down, but he certainly is no crook or fraudster. Nothing untoward is happening. The company has simply gone out of business. Why? Cos it grew too fast. This time last year they only had 5 staff, latterly they had over 39! They simply could not cope with the growth and the demand for the service.
  Another thing that let Blooming Britain down was the staff. It was found for example that the florist department had embezzled over £80,000 of the company's money! No wonder they had cash flow problems! One of their ex managers was also up to no good, deliberately trying to sabotage the company, thieving and even coaching members of staff how to sue the owner for trips and falls that never occurred!
  Blooming Britain was also being held to ransom by the software and IT guys. These guys were demanding commission on every order, or they would shut off the web site! From what I hear Blooming Britain had paid them over £100,000!
  Believe me, the owner did mean well. He tried to trade out of the situation. He tried to get on top of all the customer complaints (courier let them down at Valentines Day and Mothers Day). He even tried to give every customer who complained a free hamper!
  Blooming Britain also had IT problems where emails were not being downloaded for days due to a server fault. There were also telephone problems with the switchboard the Landlords forced them to use (the switchboard was unable to cope). Watchdog confirmed this when they done a review of Blooming Britain.
  The owner called in a consultant who promptly recommended that he close the business and go bankrupt! I'm angry at that cos I lost my job and from what I hear it was very bad advice given from the consultant as the company could have continued to trade, pay us, pay suppliers, refund customers and pay himself!
  The owner tried to enter into a protected trust but the suppliers did not agree so he is now bankrupt and he is going to loose his home. Was it his fault that things went bad? Yes. However, it was not orchestrated and it was not intentional, he is not a crook and he is not being investigated for fraud.
  Although the owner gave us only 30 minutes notice that the business was closing I still felt sorry for him. As I mentioned, Blooming Britain had been plagued by bad members of staff.
  How do customers get their money back?
  You may want to contact the local trading standards office in Hamilton. They will confirm that there is no fraud and the business simply went into receivership. If you do think Blooming Britain are crooks or criminals you may want to contact the police but I assure you that there was/is nothing untoward going on.
  Hope this helps and good luck getting your money back.

• hcerrie on 24th Jul 2006

  My heart bleeds for him, he still took my money and my daughters gift knowing he was in trouble. Dreadful man, if knowing he was going out of business then he should have not deducted the money from peoples accounts, AND HE WAS A SOCIAL WORKER!

• jimbob580 on 14th Aug 2006

  I just typed www.bloomingbritain.com into my address bar and guess what happened?
  
  Yep...... a brand new web site came up selling flowers!
  
  How does that work if they are in receivership?
  
  Jimbo

• madchris1001 on 25th Aug 2006

  It works, Jimbob cos the domain name has been sold. Thought that was obvious.

• jimbob580 on 30th Aug 2006

  It may be obvious to you because you where an employee, but to the rest of us mere customers it's not. I can't believe that anybody would want to buy the domain name of the brand with the reputation that Blooming Britain has.