Teleflora Fake Local Florist Websites
Last week we have discovered again another website that is using our business name, address and contact phone numbers. By typing in the words Florist 92780 in Yahoo the search results shows a link to a Teleflora Store Front. This website has been put up by Teleflora a company that we are members of that we use to send flowers for our customers outside of our delivery area. 
This website has a select number of images that are from Teleflora that consumers can actually place orders on. It has been explained to us that the website cannot be removed (even though we have requested it) Because we are members of Teleflora. The website will continue to operate and will continued to be indexed by the search engines. We also had asked that if we were to give our notice to Teleflora that the link would be removed if we were no longer members.
This is the second time that Teleflora has put this website up even though we had requested it to be removed the first time almost a year ago. Last year Teleflora notified us as well as its members that if a Teleflora member did not have a Hosted website with Teleflora that they would provide the free store front. The link was removed from the Find A Florist Directory However the link remained active until it was recently indexed by the search engines.
You may ask yourself why would we be upset that a company like Teleflora would put up a free website that contains our contact information. The intention of Teleflora is to provide a way for consumers to place their internet orders using this website looking for our Everyday Flowers website. Once the order is placed on the free website the order is then sent to our store through the Dove Network. Once the order has been sent we are required to fill the order to value.
However what the customer does not know is that a percentage of the actual order is kept by Teleflora (27%) of the amount of the arrangement. They also charge a delivery fee which during the check out process actually shows up as a delivery fee but when the order is processed the charge is changed to a service fee which is also kept by Teleflora.
Our hands are tied because there is no rules or regulations on the internet. The problem would be easily resolved by sending our notice to Teleflora to end our membership but because we have purchased our POS (Point Of Sale) system from Teleflora if we decided to end our membership we would be left with a system that would never be updated or have any kind of support.
We are warning our customers to please do not place orders on the website. We hope to have the matter resolved however at this time it looks like it may stay up for now.
This website has a select number of images that are from Teleflora that consumers can actually place orders on. It has been explained to us that the website cannot be removed (even though we have requested it) Because we are members of Teleflora. The website will continue to operate and will continued to be indexed by the search engines. We also had asked that if we were to give our notice to Teleflora that the link would be removed if we were no longer members.
This is the second time that Teleflora has put this website up even though we had requested it to be removed the first time almost a year ago. Last year Teleflora notified us as well as its members that if a Teleflora member did not have a Hosted website with Teleflora that they would provide the free store front. The link was removed from the Find A Florist Directory However the link remained active until it was recently indexed by the search engines.
You may ask yourself why would we be upset that a company like Teleflora would put up a free website that contains our contact information. The intention of Teleflora is to provide a way for consumers to place their internet orders using this website looking for our Everyday Flowers website. Once the order is placed on the free website the order is then sent to our store through the Dove Network. Once the order has been sent we are required to fill the order to value.
However what the customer does not know is that a percentage of the actual order is kept by Teleflora (27%) of the amount of the arrangement. They also charge a delivery fee which during the check out process actually shows up as a delivery fee but when the order is processed the charge is changed to a service fee which is also kept by Teleflora.
Our hands are tied because there is no rules or regulations on the internet. The problem would be easily resolved by sending our notice to Teleflora to end our membership but because we have purchased our POS (Point Of Sale) system from Teleflora if we decided to end our membership we would be left with a system that would never be updated or have any kind of support.
We are warning our customers to please do not place orders on the website. We hope to have the matter resolved however at this time it looks like it may stay up for now.
posted by Everyday Flowers | 11:52 PM
3 Comments:
At this time. The link has been disabled. We have not heard anything else from Teleflora so we will wait and see what happens next.
Used to be that wire service networks were allies of florist and very well respected. Those days they are certainly gone. Today they are more competition than anything. A little healthy competition is fine, however, most wire services have resorted to under-handed antics such as what they have done to you to gain a much larger customer base. I to have Teleflora's point of sale system and am stuck with them. I make it a point to try to go out of my way to educate customers on how to insure when ordering online or over the phone they are talking to a real local florist.
Thank you for your post. It is a problem within our industry and we to take the time to educate every customer about these kind of things.
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