Interflora, the major flower delivery firm, has been accused of ripping off its online consumers.
The Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) have received complaints from internet customers who were invited to receive a £10 discount on their next purchase.
Customers who replied to an email sent from an internet firm called Shopper Discounts &Rewards were effectively made members of a scheme .
But buyers were not aware that Interflora would be transferring their credit card details – resulting in a £8 a month charge that would automatically be withdrawn from their bank accounts .
One angry customer said: "I ordered flowers for Mother's Day and have been charged £8 per month since. I'm a law graduate, so I'm not naive when it comes to contracts ."
"I did not knowingly authorise my details to be passed on to another company . Why would I? Why would any of us?"
Shopper Discounts &Rewards, along with its parent firm Webloyalty, are not thought to have acted illegally or broken any rules, but customers are claiming that the small print on the email did not make it sufficiently clear about what they were signing up for.
In addition, the privacy section of Interflora's website failed to mention that credit card details would be passed on; even though the site warned the firm would transfer personal information to Webloyalty if customers provided their email address and clicked to view details of the discount .
A spokesman for Consumer Direct, part of the Office of Fair Trading, commented: "You should always read through the terms and conditions of any contract carefully. This is particularly true for contracts made online as it is all too easy to just click the box to say that you've read the terms and conditions without actually reading them."
"You should also be slightly wary of offers for future discounts, as this may involve being asked to subscribe to a discount scheme which attracts a monthly charge and can be difficult to cancel."
A spokesman for Interflora spokesman said: "We always look into feedback with the aim of continuously improving our customer experience and we will do so in this instance."
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Interflora Accused Of Misleading Online Customers
Thu, 23 Aug 2007
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