WARNING - Using Credit Card at Interflora Online

kraygerson

Good evening all,

In August and September, my wife sent flowers to her mum overseas, using Interflora. As other contributors to the thread have done, she clicked the inviting 'Save money next order' thing. This was after submitting the order, so payment information had already been processed.

She did not enter her credit card information again. In other words, she neither gave nor (knowingly) consented for her credit card information to be passed to a third party.

Today she spotted a payment for £8 made to this Shopper Discount company on her September statement. I put the details into Google, which brought me here. We have since discovered an earlier payment of £8 to the same company.

The way in which people are being signed up to this paid subscription service is bad enough. What also bothers is that Interflora seem happy to pass on customers' credit card information in this manner.

She has spoken to the Shopper Discount people and they have agreed to
1. cancel the subscription we knew nothing about
2. refund her money

What we do not know is whether or not they intend to refund both payments. We shall see!

zeushermes

Just for the record, I too have been caught by Interflora's deceitful practice. Six debits of £8.00 from my credit card by 'Shopper Discounts & Rewards' after sending flowers via Interflora. After pursuing the matter I did get a full refund, however, it annoys me to think that I had to spend time and effort to stop these organisations from gaining interest on my money. This practice is simply theft.

MORPH3US

How on earth do people let them get away with EIGHT charges? Do you not check your credit card statements and query payments you don't recognise!??!

ashman18874

I only found out after 7 months that I was being charged £8 for their service, so I contacted their phone number only to be put on hold for 5 mins..then a very dour sounding woman said she would cancel my account.. i asked her about refunds and she put me on hold .. then cut me off. I called back and was put into a loop saying "visit our website to cancel our service"..

So I called webloyalty.com and to their UK office:
Web Loyalty International
3rd Floor
47-50 Margaret Street
London
W1W 8SB
Tel: +44 (0)20 7927 9600
Fax: +44 (0)20 7927 9652



I spoke to one of their people who said he would cancel my membership and also give me a refund, but did point out that If i didn't read the Ts&Cs then it was more my own fault, which I can agree with in part, but I don't agree the practices of Interflora who hid that cost and information quietly on their site. I won't be using them again or shopperdiscount.com but I have to say that webloyalty were very helpful and if you want to get through to someone "Human" then call them instead.

BlondBoy

Back in the day, I did a bit of work with Steve Richards, who I believe is still Interflora's chief executive.

For what it's worth, he's a very, very shrewd businessman - but he's also got a lot of integrity. And a nice guy to boot. I'd be very surprised if he would be happy about this situation. Presumably he's not aware of it.

I've no absolute knowledge, of course, but I'd suggest someone make him aware of it. Be very surprised if he didn't insist that the sign up was made much more obvious at the very least.

Steve-o

barak wrote: »

If you have a look at Interflora's Privacy Policy at http://www.interflora.co.uk/page.xml?page_name=privacy_policy -
under 'Direct Marketing' you will get a clue as to how this came about.

It must be as bad a so-called 'Privacy Policy' as I have come across.

As far as I could work out that seems to say that when you click Continue (or some other button) during the checkout process, you're automatically opting IN to them using your details in direct marketing. Surely that can't be right? It's a confusing read, that's for sure.

G'Meister

For people wanting to avoid this sort of thing:

http://www.cahoot.com/cahoot_products/other_products/cahoot_webcard/webcard.html

If the link doesn't work, goto Cahoot's website and click on other products, and then webcard (it's a one use card).

Martin's been recommending it for years (its free for unlimited use if you have a Cahoot account).

MORPH3US

BlondBoy wrote: »

I'd be very surprised if he would be happy about this situation. Presumably he's not aware of it.

I e-mailed Interflora and told them about this thread. They responded thanking me for letting them know and saying they'd take a look at the thread.

Their failure to even post a response or contact me back even makes me wonder if they ever bothered.

I searched for ages to find a directors e-mail address without luck or else I would have e-mailed them direct....

Very disapointing that they can't make the most of someone telling them about this to nip it in the bud!

M

BlondBoy

MORPH3US wrote: »

I e-mailed Interflora and told them about this thread. They responded thanking me for letting them know and saying they'd take a look at the thread.

Their failure to even post a response or contact me back even makes me wonder if they ever bothered.

I searched for ages to find a directors e-mail address without luck or else I would have e-mailed them direct....

Very disapointing that they can't make the most of someone telling them about this to nip it in the bud!

M

Understood - wouldn't disagree with any of that. No doubt they get a kickback from the signups, otherwise they wouldn't do it. That sort of deal would probably go to chief exec level. But the signup process' lack of transparency may not be obvious to him - striking the deal is what he'd do and let others manage the implementation. I may be wrong, but if Steve Richards knew that customers were feeling pretty ripped off, I don't think he'd be too chuffed. Interflora is a network of independent florists, so the individual businesses that the company is responsible to would hardly be keen either.

Why not try steve.richards@interflora.co.uk

If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll see what I can do. It was a long time ago and not even sure if he'd remember me, but happy to give it a punt. It's not a good situation for Interflora, its members or its customers, so applaud your efforts so far. I doubt they'll pull the deal, but I'd like to think they would act with some integrity and make it an opt-in, rather than a nowhere-to-be-found opt out, which seems rather shabby.


Chris

MORPH3US

Just got a reply off Steve Richards' PA after using the address above. He is unavailable but will reply to me next week.

Lets hope he acts to get this matter sorted. No one minds this sort of thing if its clear what you are agreeing to, but it obviously isn't for so many people to be caught out.

M