Freddie's flowers recurring payment

tessal

I signed up last Christmas to the Freddie's flowers service and the first bunch was lovely but is expensive at £22. They deliver flowers on a regular basis for £22.
However this is one of those services where if you don't cancel they send the flowers and charge you. You can cancel for up to 6 weeks but forget and go away and you come back to £22 of dead flowers.
After getting caught out like this twice I asked to cancel my order.
I got an email back saying, ok we have cancelled fo 6 weeks.
I emailed back saying emphatically no, I want to end the order for ever.
It has been an expensive mistake on my part as I have paid £44 for some wilted flowers I never wanted.
So l came home the other day to more dead flowers and find they have charged me again.
I sent them all the emails I had sent saying I wanted to cancel and demanded they refund me for the last lot of dead flowers.
And they have simply ignored me. It appears to be one of those nightmare scenarios where the company seems to just be able to keep taking your money without your permission.
Now on some level I suppose I am to blame for the first two dead bunches of flowers, and I accepted that and I paid dearly for my mistake. But after contacting them and clearly cancelling I am damned if I am paying for the last lot.
All the info seems to say if I tell the bank they must cancel, but that leaves Freddie in pocket and me £22 out of pocket for the last lot.
Is there any way of forcing them to refund this.
And I can see lots of people were drawn in by a free bunch of flowers but not me, I saw them at a Christmas fair and have paid for every bunch, the ones I wanted and the ones I didn't, so I do feel very ripped off.
Anyone got any advice?
Tessa

eskbanker

tessal wrote: »

All the info seems to say if I tell the bank they must cancel, but that leaves Freddie in pocket and me £22 out of pocket for the last lot.
Is there any way of forcing them to refund this.

I'd treat them as two separate steps - get the continuous payment authority cancelled at your bank immediately to stop any more payments being taken, and then concentrate on getting your cancellation confirmed and a refund if applicable.

What do the Ts & Cs of the service say about cancellation, are there any notice periods or minimum terms?

If you cancelled by email and they didn't acknowledge or confirm, you may have a battle on your hands if they deny they received it, so you may wish to send a letter by recorded delivery, but phone them first and find out what they say - I'd stick to the facts about cancellation of contract according to Ts & Cs, etc, rather than all the stuff about dead/wilted flowers!

Shakin_Steve

If you have a copy of the email you sent them, and it is addressed correctly, they can't really say they never received it. If it was addressed incorrectly, you would have received a message saying it could not be delivered.

eskbanker

Shakin_Steve wrote: »

If you have a copy of the email you sent them, and it is addressed correctly, they can't really say they never received it. If it was addressed incorrectly, you would have received a message saying it could not be delivered.

Neither statement is necessarily true - emails can and do fail to be delivered for a whole variety of reasons (although delivery/read receipting can prove useful if needing to prove arrival), and many mail servers don't send bounceback messages for invalid recipients (for one thing this would help spammers differentiate valid ones).

Armorica

Cancel with your bank. Be absolutely clear that you are withdrawing any mandate for you bank to transfer money to Freddie's Flowers.

PixelPound

They have responded to the email, so they can't say they didn't receive it. Check T&C in case they have a minimum term or cancellation period.
Cancel the CPA with the card provider, with immediate effect, tell them you don't want them to authorise any future payments. You may wish to show your bank the emails and request they clawback the payments as they were unauthorised after you had cancelled.

You mention wilted/dead flowers a few times - so if you had come back and they were not wilted/dead - would you have continued and not cancelled, or did you want to cancel anyway. How long before had they been delivered?

eskbanker

nic_c wrote: »

They have responded to the email, so they can't say they didn't receive it.

OP will hopefully be back to clarify but as I read it, they only replied to the first email, erroneously believing that OP only wanted to put a temporary stop on deliveries rather than fully cancelling the service.

tessal wrote: »

After getting caught out like this twice I asked to cancel my order.
I got an email back saying, ok we have cancelled fo 6 weeks.
I emailed back saying emphatically no, I want to end the order for ever.

[...]

I sent them all the emails I had sent saying I wanted to cancel and demanded they refund me for the last lot of dead flowers.
And they have simply ignored me.

If they'd responded to her email that had said "I want to end the order for ever", then why would she have needed to repeatedly send cancellation emails ("all the emails I had sent saying I wanted to cancel") and why would she then resend these a second time, when all she'd need to produce would be their email confirming the cancellation?

18cc

The advice given above is correct there is no need to go to the retailer freddiesflowers to stop payments you simply have to contact your bank and ask them to either cancel the direct debit if it was a direct debit or cancel the continuous payment authority if it was a card. The bank must do this immediately don't accept any excuses it is the law

In terms of getting back previous payments again you could ask your bank but there is no guarantee they will do it

sheramber

Have you tried phoning them?

https://www.freddiesflowers.com/terms-and-conditions#

It'll be a sad day, but if the time ever comes to part ways, please get in touch and we will cancel your account.

You might also be interested in our privacy policy.

You can call me on: 0208 396 6696.

Cheers,

Freddie