For Mother's Day this year, we thought we'd send flowers to Sonya's mom in Louisiana and to my mom here in Maryland. Sounds pretty simple right? Go to the web site, pick out the flowers you want to send, enter your credit card information and *VOILA*, flowers are sent to their doorstep. Well, that was all well and good, but there was something else going on that we didn't know about.
So, what's the problem you ask? I'll tell you. The other day I was going through our bank statement, like I do on a regular basis, and saw a random charge for $38.99 from company called "TLG*LiveWell". I had no idea what this was, so I asked Sonya if she remembered making a purchase from someone of that name. She said she had never heard of it. I did a little research on the good ol' World Wide Web to see what was going on.
I entered "TLG*LiveWell" into Google (I suggest you try it one day to see what I'm talking about) and found, I'm guessing, thousands of people who have experienced a similar "random" charge from this "TLG*LiveWell". All of which had no idea who in the hell they were. It turns out that 1800Flowers.com is in cahoots with them and somehow, some way, they sell your credit card information to them. Now, I'm not sure how they can do this, but I suspect that when Sonya was completing the purchase on the 1800Flowers.com web site there was a checkbox somewhere that needed to be deselected or our information would be available to them. She doesn't remember seeing that, but it was probably there (and probably impossible to see when you're finishing your order).
After doing a little research, I found that LiveWell is a subscription service that sends you coupons (electronically or via snail mail) for online or in-store shopping. I'd never heard of it and I DEFINITELY wasn't interested in their services. So, after digging a little deeper, I found their contact information and decided to give them a ring. Their representative told me that someone named "Sonya" had made a purchase through 1800Flowers.com and during the checkout process signed up for a membership with LiveWell (again, to her knowledge she didn't). It turns out that the first 30 days are free and you can cancel at anytime, but after that period you will be charged, in this case, $38.99. I have no idea if this was going to be a monthly or yearly charge. From the stuff I read online different people were being charged different amounts at different intervals.
I told the representative that we weren't interested in this service and, after his long rant about how we could save so much money with their service, offered to cancel our so-called "membership" and refund us the $38.99. I then proceeded to tell him that this was a shady way of doing business and that they must be ripping people off left and right. Judging by his tone, he had heard all of this before from a number of people.
What's the moral of the story? Well, I don't really have one except for when you make a purchase online, make sure you know EXACTLY what you're getting and who is going to have access to your information. Luckily I caught this random charge while going over our bank statement and was able to correct the issue. I can't imagine how many people out there just continue to pay and pay and when they realize it, it's too late.
Rant complete... don't use 1800Flowers.com. They suck.
