Prestige Flowers -SCAM, AVOID

Jenzo

I've seen a few other people describing their terrible experience with this company and I want to add my voice in the hope that if enough of us make their appalling practice public, the word will spread.

I ordered the Mother's Day flowers offer in May 2015. Stargazer lilies -her favorites - with pink roses. They looked great in the photo, but Prestige delivered a field of greenery with 5 dead roses and a few never-to-open lilies. Now only was the quality awful, there were far fewer flowers than shown in the photo; NOTHING like description.

I got a neighbor to take photos and sent them to Prestige and complained. They took 10 days to reply, insisted they hadn't received the photos and that it was now too late, then suggested my mother had not put flowers in water (???) and after much arguing back and forth offered me a £5 voucher towards future purchases (as if!). They flatly refused to refund or replace, claiming I had not complained within the 3 day time limit (I did complain within 3 days; I actually tried to complain on Day 1, but they don't answer the phone. On Day 2 I tried again and was left on hold for 35 mins over 3 calls without ever getting to a human being. On Day 3, I emailed. Oh, and, since they offer a 7 day guarantee, where does this 3 day limit appear from anyway? But you can argue logically with them till you're blue in the face; they just ignore emails and go around in circles. This is their standard modus operandi btw, I've seen hundreds of reviews stating the same thing.

My Mum was 92 and died just afterwards, I was devastated that her last Mother's Day was ruined by this dreadful company's calculated theft -because there's enough evidence to show that that's what it is. when I called her I thought she was in tears. She thanked me flatly for the flowers. I asked her if they were nice... She didn't want to hurt my feelings by telling me the truth but I guessed there was a problem and asked a neighbour to go round. The photo she sent me was shocking. Even after I told them all this, they still refused to refund. Evil, nasty people. The complaints process is a game for them, they'll send you round in circles for weeks, just for the hell of it. Look them up on Trust Pilot to see 100's of equally terrible reviews.

HOW TO GET A REFUND: Thanks to another reviewer on Trust Pilot I learned that the ONLY way to achieve this is:
(1) Get photos if you can, as early as possible, send and record date.
(2) Complain. A lot, It'll get you nowhere but you need evidence of having complained and 'given supplier an opportunity to rectify the problem' for step 3 to work.
(3) Complain to your debit / credit card company or PayPal.
(4) At this point, when Prestige is contacted by PayPal (or card co.) they will try and get you to drop the complaint by saying 'we want to resolve this but once you pass it to another company it's out of our control'. Don't fall for this. They're not going to refund you, they're trying to scare you into passing the deadline with PayPal or card company. Persist with Paypal / card co.

It took me over 30 emails and 6 weeks, but i did at least get my money back. What I can never get back is the day I didn't know would be my mum's last Mother's Day, when I was desperately ill and couldn't visit so sent flowers instead... dead ones, thanks to 'Prestige'.