Help, my cancelled florist wont give me my money back!

duckie88

I was wondering if anyone had any advice that may help. Over a year ago i booked with a local florist for them to do my wedding flowers. I booked because the girl we met was fantastic and really seemed to understand what we wanted. I have since then found out she has left so a few months ago when we started going for meetings to arrange the flowers we had another staff member take over the order. She was pretty useless (often getting the names of flowers wrong!) she did not seem to understand what we wanted at all despite several meetings and countless pictures (she also regularly changed stories about how we could have some flowers, not others ect). Finally i had had enough of her and we found another florist (who i am happy to say is not only much better but is much cheaper too). We visited the shop to cancel the order with the original florist expecting them to say they would have to keep the original £30 non-refundable deposit but to give us the £300 part payment my grandma had made a few weeks back as a wedding present. However they are saying that they will not refund the full £300 as they have consultation costs they need to cover. They also say they have put a £40 deposit down on some flowers so they need to cover that (although so far they have offered no proof of this).
Does anyone have any advice on where we stand? I thought as we paid on a credit card we could recoup it through that but the credit card company did not sound optimistic with our chances when i talked to them earlier!

LEJC

How long is it until the wedding?

Its probably quite a tricky situation,but I can understand your worries.
Have you been in and calmly and reasonably talked over your concerns,based upon the fact that you decided to give this florist your business because of the florist they employed.
Are you able to see some evidence of the new florists work at all and if you were to see some would that perhaps go some way to restoring your confidence in the shop.

Did you get given a contract as such or at least a receipt detailing the fact that as part of your package for wedding flowers you would have consultations ie the price of £x includes flowers as detailed plus consultation fees...it does seem very harsh that they wont give you your money back based on the fact that they want to charge you for talking to them.
I understand the potential of them forward planning and putting down a deposit on what they need to order in for your wedding but realistically that shouldnt be happening months before your wedding which is why it would be good to know when the wedding actually is...
When you originally plaaced your order were you asked to pay such a large amount or did you choose to pay the extra money up front from your gran...in some ways I can understand you being told there is a cancellation fee of maybe 20 or even 25% of the total cost but in honesty its very unfair to withold all the extra money you gave them too.

Perhaps my advice would be to either go back and ask to speak tp someone senior if youve not already done that and see if it can be resolved or the next stage would be to formally write to them stating that you appreciate that you will need to forgo a deposit but you expect the other money to be returned as you have not received full terms and conditions in the form of a contract....i assume you didn't!

You also need to establish how much the "consultation fee" is and again proof the they have indeed placed an order with their suppliers

give them 7 days to respond and perhaps take some advice from citizens advice....
Alternatively if you took out a wedding insurance it might be worthwhile phoning that company to see if its something that would be covered or if not then as they deal with the wedding business frequently they may have a suggestion on the best way forward

hope you can get something sorted.

74jax

What did your contract say? You mention a £30 non refundable deposit, is that all that is mentioned in the contract? Doe it state that consultations are chargeable or does it state 1 x brides bouquet £100 etc?

floss2

Check your contract and speak to your local Trading Standards office - they will be on your Council's website.

duckie88

Thanks for the advice. The wedding was 6 weeks away when they are claiming that they put a deposit down with David Austin (something they never mentioned to us when we saw them a few days earlier and seeing we still had not had a final quote we may have at that point turned round and said we did not want that variety after all!) Also our new florist has said that she does not order flowers until a couple of weeks before the wedding at the earliest as flower prices vary daily. I know they are not all the same but im still finding it hard to believe they have actually put a deposit down.

As for a contract there wasn't one. Other than a £30 non-refundable deposit nothing was ever said about extra costs incurred if we cancelled. We were told we could pay little bits off as an when we wanted or just pay the final amount at the end. I have spoken to the manager who essentially told me I was a nightmare customer and that I am spreading lies about things (such as them breaking a teapot we lent them to practice the flowers in). She didn't really seem to know what was going on as she thought I was cancelling because I thought they wouldn't let me have peonies (I had already said I was cancelling because I wasn't happy with the service being provided) She also told me the £300 was needed for delivery. When I asked what they were delivering as I wasn't having any flowers from them she starting telling me that she was ill and couldn't be dealing with me now.
I have spoken to Citizens advice who told me to send a letter. I will do this not that I think it will help much at all!!

LEJC

duckie88 wrote: »

I have spoken to Citizens advice who told me to send a letter. I will do this not that I think it will help much at all!!

actually putting your complaint in writing will make it official and the florist will need to respond...its unlikely that they will ignore your letter...

At that point they probably have 2 options...to counter claim what you say or refund your money...I would suspect that potentially they would be as grateful to reslove this with you as you are with them(and I mean that nicely)...so will probably offer you your money back rather than risk any further upset on both sides.

clrat25

Didn't want to just read and run - I'm a florist too and was shocked that your original florist has kept ALL your money, and how rude of them to tell you that you were a nightmare customer! On the rare occasion that we've had a wedding order cancelled we have refunded the bride in full any money she's paid in advance. I know that some florists do take a consultation fee - you've taken up some of their time and they take a fee for it much like any other tradesman would charge by the hour. In general, we place our wedding orders with our local wholesalers between 1 and 2 weeks beforehand, no deposits needed, however David Austin is different I'm afraid - we've never used him before so I don't know what his exact terms are, but he is the only supplier of the garden roses that I know of and your florist may well have had to pay a deposit to secure the roses you wanted for a particular date.
Hope you get things sorted and most (if not all) of your money back.
Sorry I can't be any real help,