Here lately in the Boulder Blooms family, we have been having some problems with people receiving the flowers they supposedly ordered from us. There is a Boulder Bloom (no "s") that customers have been ordering from, but it is not a real flower shop with a true store front. Customers have been calling the business, placing their order, and then we will receive disappointed phone calls from them because they do not realize that they did not actually place an order with us. If this is something that has happened to you, be sure to call the storefront to make sure they have received your order.
Here is the scam:
This business is called a Deceptive Order Gatherer. Deceptive Order Gatherers piggy-back off of a local florist's name that usually incorporates the town's name (like we have the city of Boulder in our name, Boulder Blooms). This way people think they are getting a local florist. However, these gatherers are usually not located in the town, but they rely on a web presence to attract customers to call and place their order with them. We think this Boulder Bloom is using a service like yellowpages.com or something similar. Once you have placed your order with these gatherers, they skim money off of your order, and through a wire service they relay the order to a local florist. Then, the florist does not have the ability to create your order at full value because they have taken money from your order and paid for the wire service.
With our situation, Boulder Bloom is not even relaying the order, so then our customers' orders aren't being sent out at all!
This is a good reason why you should always call a local florist directly after researching them thoroughly online. When you call direct, you can speak directly to staff members who can see, smell, and touch the very flowers you're sending instead of a middle man! You can also avoid being hit with sometimes exorbitant wire service fees.
Here is some more information written by a member of the Floral Association of the Rockies (of which we are a member!) about this scamming. If this has happened to you...again, we are so sorry; we encourage you to read this article.
Moral of the story... in the background of your conversation, if you don't hear a bunch of people talking and scurrying around a messy store...
...or if you do not hear buckets of water splashing around...
...or the opening and closing of walk-in cooler doors...
...chances are, you should hang up the phone because you are probably not talking to us! We have had a storefront in Boulder for 8 years, and we have become one of Boulder's most trusted florists and eco-friendly businesses. We love what we do, we love our customers, and we love being part of this community. Again, to our knowledge there is no shop located in Boulder called Boulder Bloom, and we urge prospective clients to be sure call us to make sure that we receive your order!
