1-800-Flowers Misses Valentine’s Day Delivery, Sends $20 Apology Vouchers

The sheer volume of orders of gifts delivered on Valentine’s Day means that someone will inevitably be unhappy with what they receive…or don’t receive. 1-800-Flowers customers were upset about the non-delivery, late delivery, or utter crappiness of their orders.

Not all gift recipients were left with empty vases, though. One Twitter user posted this handy “spot the differences” image on Twitter on Valentine’s Day. Sometimes the differences between an arrangement that someone ordered and what they received are subtle and even understandable during a busy time for florists. This… is not so understandable.

@1800flowers spot the subtle differences. http://t.co/lWhgUOUUQ8—

Adam Schaller (@GRadamWK) February 14, 2014

The company got around to responding on Twitter… today, on February 18th.

@GRadamWK I am so sorry for the delayed response and want to resolve this issue. Please DM your order info. Thanks,Tiffany—

1-800-FLOWERS.COM (@1800flowers) February 18, 2014

Maybe the company just got a bad batch of tulips. Here’s what another customer reported receiving:

#1800flowers fail …the right side is what we ordered, the left side is what was delivered. Never again! http://t.co/oYH4Z9Tror—

Taryn Taylor (@_Ttaylor137) February 17, 2014

It’s one thing to have the buds closed when the flowers arrive: getting buds rather than blooms just means that the flowers aren’t at their peak yet, and the recipient will have the pleasure of watching them open up and become all beautiful and stuff. Sending flowers that are limp or a vase full of greenery with incidental tulips isn’t okay, though.

Coincidentally, the response came after CNN featured the photo in their story about the drooping tulips. The customer finally managed to get through and receive a refund on Valentine’s Day, but even a refund doesn’t really make up for sending your love a clump of limp tulips as an expression of how you feel about her.

@1800flowers an update, after an hour and a half of phone calls I was able to talk to #customerservice and did get a full refund.—

Adam Schaller (@GRadamWK) February 14, 2014

At least you get swift and personable service after the company contacts you via Twitter, though, right?

#1800flowers what it's like DMing with @1800flowers after THEY ask you to DM them http://t.co/31G5DIzCAd—

Mark Thomas (@mark_thomas75) February 17, 2014

Someone’s paying attention, though: the company’s stock has fallen almost 6% over the course of the day as this story spread across the newsphere.

1-800-Flowers botches Valentine’s Day – and apology, too [CNN]

Why 1-800-Flowers.com (FLWS) Is Down Today [TheStreet]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

Goodbye Cords: Toyota Is Testing Wireless Charging Station For Hybrids, Electric Cars

Are you the owner of an electric car? Hate finding the charging station, then having to get out and actually plug-in your car? Well, fret no more because Toyota is testing a new, easy-to-use wireless battery-charging system.

The system charges a the battery of a plug-in hybrid or a pure-electric car by having the car park on top of it, Autoweek reports.

The system employs magnetic resonance that results from changes in magnetic field intensity between the coil positioned on the ground under the car and a receiving coil built into the undercarriage of the vehicle.

Part of the system includes a new parking-assist program that would help the driver position the car in a parking spot for the charging system.

To test the system, Toyota has given three modified Priuses to customers in Japan for one year. The customers will test ease of use, user satisfaction, misalignment rates and charging behavior.

If testing is successful, the new system could be introduced for personal and commercial use in a couple of years.

Toyota begins testing wireless recharging for electric cars [Autoweek]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Birds Eye Creates “Mashtags” Potato Shapes So You Can Eat The Internet

Consuming the World Wide Web, one potato shape at a time.

Because it’s just not enough to consume the Internet with your eyes/brain, Birds Eye is trying to get people to eat the darn thing with its new Twitter-themed “Mashtags” potato shapes. Ah yes, potato shapes — the redheaded step children of French fries and tater tots.

While Business Insider says “now you can eat what you tweet,” I don’t think any of these new shapes spell out “Someone please deliver me a pizza and a vat of ranch dressing.” But you get the point.

“The addition of Mashtags to our food range is an exciting development for Birds Eye. Social media is all about conversation and we’re confident Mashtags will resonate across various groups of people,” a senior brand manager at Birds Eye told BI.

It’s not just about hitching the company’s apple wagon to the social media star, he adds — it’s to make people stop using the Internet itself and talk to each other… about the Internet?

“We’re constantly looking for ways to innovate and inspire consumers and hope that Mashtags will get people talking around the table and help to make mealtimes more enjoyable.”

For now it sounds like these Internet consumables will only be available in the UK, starting next month. The rest of us will just have to go back to licking mobile devices in the hopes that we can get some of that Internetty flavor.

Birds Eye Created Hashtag-Shaped Potatoes To Help Remind You Of The Internet [Business Insider]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

NSA, Homeland Security Admit They Shouldn’t Have Blocked Sale Of Parody Merchandise

The two logos that resulted in cease-and-desist letters from the NSA and DHS (libertymaniacs.com)

No one likes being made fun of or humiliated (okay, some people do, but that’s part of a much larger discussion), but you can’t throw your authority as a big, scary federal agency around to stop people from mocking you, even if they’re making some money doing so.

This is a lesson that has (we hope) been learned by the folks at the National Security Agency and the Dept. of Homeland Security who have reached a settlement with a T-shirt designer after they banned Zazzle.com from selling shirts and other merchandise that parodied these two fun-loving organizations.

It all began back in 2011, when the NSA and DHS sent cease-and-desist letters to Zazzle, one of the largest online marketplaces for custom-produced merch, ordering it to stop offering certain jokey products made by one seller. These products included things like the faux NSA shirt that read “Peeping While You’re Sleeping” and “The only part of government that actually listens,” or the mugs featuring the logo for the Department of Homeland Stupidity.

The NSA had claimed that the merch violated the National Security Agency Act of 1959, which sets limits the commercial use of NSA official seals, while DHS claimed the violation of three separate criminal statutes in its cease-and-desist letter.

In 2013, the creator of these products, which he has sold through his own website for years and are available on Zazzle competitor CafePress.com, filed suit [PDF] against the NSA and DHS in a federal court in Maryland.

The suit, filed by Public Citizen on behalf of the shirts’ creator, argued that the use of the NSA and DHS graphics did not create any likelihood of confusion about source or sponsorship, and no reasonable person would believe that the agencies themselves produced merchandise with those messages. The plaintiff also contended that none of the statutes cited by either agency forbids the parodic use of the logos, and that if those statutes did grant those rights, then that would be in violation of the First Amendment.

In a settlement agreement [PDF] made public today, the NSA agreed to send a follow-up letter to Zazzle’s attorney to clarify that the use of these logos were intended as parody and “should not have been viewed as conveying the impression that the designs were approved, endorsed, or authorized by NSA.”

Meanwhile, DHS will tell Zazzle that it may have made an “overbroad” interpretation of the statutes cited in its cease-and-desist letter and that these laws don’t apply to “uses of the name, initials or seal of an agency for purposes of commentary about the agency.”

“I’m glad the case helped reaffirm the right to lampoon our government,” said the shirts’ creator in a statement through Public Citizen. “I always thought parody was a healthy tradition in American society. It’s good to know that it’s still legal.”

NSA and DHS Finally Acknowledge: Parodied Merchandise Does Not Violate Federal Law [Citizen.org]

NSA and Homeland Security Settle First Amendment Lawsuit Over Parody Logos [WSJ Law Blog]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Couple Fought Wrongful Foreclosure In Court, Emerged Victorious

It’s nice to hear about a battle of consumer vs. bank that ends with a consumer victory. Better still when it means that the consumer gets to stay in their home, which they were in danger of losing to foreclosure. That’s the heartwarming story of one California couple who fought back in court.

They spoke to a local TV station with the mission of letting other California homeowners know that they too have a weapon against wrongful foreclosure. Anyone can sue. They didn’t name their bank on the air, but did explain how after the confusion of the housing bubble and packaging of mortgage-backed securities, sometimes it isn’t immediately clear who owns the mortgage on a given house. It’s possible that the entity foreclosing on a house has no right to do so.

“This is of course something the banks want no one to know about,” their attorney explained to the TV station, “because otherwise you would have everyone running to the court trying to file a claim.”

Homeowners in other states may not be so lucky: as you may remember, California passed legislation a few years ago that gives homeowners special protection from abusive lenders and potentially wrongful foreclosures.

Rancho Cordova Couple Turns Tables On Lender’s Foreclosure Attempt [CBS Sacramento]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

FTC: Spammers Responsible For Millions Of ‘Free Gift Card’ Text Messages To Pay $2.5M

(Dan Zen)

You did not win a free $1,000 gift card like that text message tells you. It’s a scam, and the companies behind it are now paying million of dollars in settlements.

Twelve defendants that allegedly operated websites enticing consumers with bogus offers of “free $1,000 gift cards” for major retailers have agreed to pay $2.5 million, the Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday.

The South Carolina- and California-based defendants allegedly hired marketers to send more than 180 millions spam text messages notifying consumers they had won a free gift card. When in reality, the messages were used as a way to gather and then sell consumers’ personal information to third-party marketers.

According to the complaint, which was first filed in March 2013, when consumers clicked on the link provided in the text message they would be taken to a page to register for the free prize. During the registration process the marketers collected personal information about the consumer to be sold to third parties, the FTC said in a statement.

“This case halts a nationwide operation that took in millions of dollars by promising consumers free gift cards that it never delivered,” Jessica Rich, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “We’re pleased to stop these unwanted messages and protect consumers’ personal information.”

Under the settlement All Square Marketing, LLC; Threadpoint, LLC; PC Global Investments, LLC; Slash 20, LLC; Matthew Cook, Robert Nicolosi, Christopher McVeigh, and Michael Mazzella are required to pay $1,320,000, while SubscriberBASE Holdings, Inc.; SubscriberBASE, Inc.; Jeffery French and Jason Liester are required to pay $1,180,000.

As part of the settlement, the corporate defendants are banned from being involved in the distribution of unwanted span text messages, as well as from misrepresenting whether a good or service is “free”.

Operators of Phony ‘Free $1,000 Gift Card’ Websites Will Pay $2.5 Million in FTC Settlement [Federal Trade Commission]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Thieves With Hammers Pull Smash-And Grab On Costco Jewelry Cases During Store Hours

(joelgoodman)

Sometimes the crimes that sound like they could never be pulled off — especially in broad daylight with witnesses all over the place — end up being ridiculously successful. A couple of allegedly no good, very bad consumers took the most obvious and literal route for a smash-and-grab at not one, but two Georgia Costco,s using hammers to smack open the jewelry case. And then they of course, grabbed stuff, because that’s how a S&G works.

This was no Mission Impossible, midnight burglary involving some kind of slinky black outfits and laser avoidance techniques, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Police say the duo brazenly bashed open the cases in during shopping hours.

Officials say the two men were caught on camera walking up to the case around 7:40 one night. They pulled out a hammer and broke the glass, cops say, shoving thousands of dollars worth of jewelry into a bag and fleeing the scene.

“Absolutely, these individuals chose what they wanted to take,” a police spokesman said. “It took less than 10 seconds. And dozens of customers were in the store.”

Apparently they’d scouted out the store earlier in the day and probably thought “Hey, what could break glass? Ding, ding.

So far the suspects are on the lam, and cops think this isn’t the first time they’ve struck Costco — a similar crime went down after that one. Both times the suspects dropped their hammers, so they’ll probably regret it when it comes time to hang new pictures on the walls. Ha, take that! No decor for you!

Police seek Alpharetta, Cobb Costco jewelry smash-and-grab thieves [Atlanta Journal Constitution]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

Beachfront Site Keeps Washing Away? FEMA Calls Area “Low Risk,” OKs Condos

(uconnn)

It’s no surprise that waterfront property can be particularly prone to flooding. From the disasters of Katrina, Ike, and Sandy to the more everyday risks, building next to the water means you run a risk of finding that water in your living room one day.

That’s why flood insurance exists. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) provides that insurance, and they use FEMA’s flood risk maps to set their rates. You might guess that those FEMA maps would say that a low-lying beachfront luxury condo development in an area that’s flooded several times before would be considered high-risk. And yet as NBC News reports, you’d be wrong.

Generally speaking, properties with outstanding mortgages located in high-risk areas are required to carry flood insurance. In general, the system does work about the way it sounds. If you build on the banks of a river that’s known to overflow every couple of years, your federal flood insurance rates are going to be sky-high. If you live 20 miles from the nearest body of water and your house is on top of a hill, then your flood risk is probably a lot lower, and flood insurance for you is both optional and cheaper.

In 2012, Congress passed an act calling on FEMA and other agencies to reform the NFIP. Among the changes, insurance rates for properties in particularly high-risk zones are supposed to increase to match the “true flood risk.” This is where all those supposedly low-risk low-lying beachfront condo developments come in.

As NBC found in their analysis, FEMA has rewritten their maps to place over 500 coastal properties into lower-risk zones. Among the properties that have been marked as lower-risk are buildings that have flooded in storms before.

Although there are remapped properties (interactive map) in almost every coastal state nationwide, NBC points to one particularly egregious example along the Gulf Coast in Alabama.

The resorts of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach in Alabama “include a stretch of beach that was flooded by Hurricanes Erin and Opal in 1995, Danny in 1997, Georges in 1998, Ivan in 2004, and Katrina in 2005,” NBC says. The flooding from Ivan was the worst, when 14 feet of water slammed into the area, destroying buildings and causing flooding up to a mile inland.

That beach area in Alabama, logically, was classified as being at very high risk from a storm surge. But “was” is the operative word there. Now, it’s not:

Nearly all of the condominium towers are no longer in that high-risk zone, including a 17-story condominium built where the old Holiday Inn was wiped away by Ivan’s winds and waves, and another where the McDonald’s was a total loss. From 2011 through 2013, FEMA granted applications remapping 66 out of 72 waterfront condo towers in Gulf Shores to lower-risk flood zones or off the flood maps entirely. Four others have applications pending. Just two applications have been denied. And next door in Orange Beach, the map lines have been redrawn around four high-rise condo buildings.

Property owners benefit hugely from having their buildings placed into lower-risk categories. One building’s condo association collected over a quarter million dollars in insurance from Ivan. Formerly, they paid over $143,000 annually into the NFIP. Since the reclassification, NBC says, their premium is down to just over $8400 a year–a 94% drop.

Another condo building nearby, that collected just shy of $890,000 in damages from Ivan, has seen its rate drop 97%, from about $218,000 annually down to $6845.

Individual homeowners, who can have trouble with flood insurance, aren’t the ones benefiting. NBC says that nearby owners of single-family homes are paying up to $12,000 a year in flood insurance premiums, “as much as several large condo buildings combined.” Nearly all of the recently-exempted properties NBC found are either large commercial developments, or the multi-million-dollar second homes of the fabulously wealthy.

The changed risk assessment also affects how people build, an expert told NBC News. When a property in an area prone to flooding is considered at low risk, the owners may not build for flood conditions and so end up with an even higher chance of having their properties completely wiped out when the water rises.

The difference between premiums collected and damages paid has to come from somewhere, of course, and that “somewhere” is from elsewhere in the great morass of the federal budget. The NFIP currently has a deficit of $24 billion. The increased rates resulting from the reform act of 2012 were supposed to help dig the program out of that hole, but if high-risk properties are paying low-risk rates, that’s not going to happen.

Why Taxpayers Will Bail Out the Rich When the Next Storm Hits [NBC News]

by Kate Cox via Consumerist

Bitcoin Continues To Take Over: First U.S. ATMs Open In Seattle, Austin This Month

The wait is over. You can finally swap bitcoin for cash at the ATM. Okay, you can only do it at two ATMs in the United State, but it’s still a big step for the digital currency.

Robocoin announced Tuesday that it will install the first bitcoin ATMs in Seattle and Austin later this month, Reuters reports.

The kiosks will allow consumers to swap bitcoin for cash, or deposit cash to buy more bitcoin by transferring funds to or from a virtual wallet on their smartphones; unless you’re an iOS user. The ATM requires users to scan government-issued identification to help prevent fraud.

The Las Vegas-based company installed a bitcoin ATM in Vancouver last year, and plans to open a second in Calgary, Alberta this month. ATMs in Europe and Asia are also planned.

The use of the digital currency has steadily increased across the United States in recent months.

Overstock.com said did it $126,000 in sales on the first day it accepted bitcoin earlier this year.

In January, the Sacramento Kings franchise announced it would accept bitcoin as payment for tickets, team merchandise and concessions by March 1.

Back in December, someone purchased a Tesla Model S with 91.4 bitcoins at a Lamborghini dealership in Newport Beach, Calif.

The value of the computer-traded currency fluctuates widely. Currently, one bitcoin is valued at $636, while in December the value was closer to $1,000.

First U.S. bitcoin ATMs to open soon in Seattle, Austin [Reuters]

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Blind Man Sinks 3-Point Shot At College Game, Wins McDonald’s Value Meals For A Year

(KSPR-TV)

Raise your hand if you can sink a three-point shot. Okay, fine, I get it, you’re all great at basketball. Now raise your hand if you could do it with your eyes closed. Not so hot now, are we? That’s what makes it so awesomely remarkable and cool that a blind man hit a three-point shot during halftime of a college basketball game — winning him free McDonald’s for a year.

In a video that’s lighting up the Internet recently, fans at a College of the Ozarks basketball game go absolutely crazy when 54-year-old Michael hits the three-point shot perfectly, without being able to actually see the basket.

As if that wasn’t impressive enough, KSPR-TV has a follow-up story that shows just how many setbacks he’s had to deal with, and how he’s triumphing over all those obstacles.

While playing around on the court for the piece, the man nailed three-pointers left and right. That’s partly due to his involvement with a group called Champion Athletes of the Ozarks, a group that works “with individuals with all types of disabilities, all types of developmental disabilities,” explains a rep for the organization. Members play all kinds of sports, including baskteball.

“He would never have needed our program had the head injury not happened,” she explains of Michael.

Six years ago he had a series of falls that led to him going blind, and then in 2010 he lost much of his mental capacity. In 2013 he joined up with the program, and has been doing things that just can’t be copied.

“I know that if I do my best then everything else will be okay,” he says. “I like basketball so much that a lot of times it’s just being with the other athletes and thinking about how great it is to be able to play basketball.”

And then there’s the prize — free value meals from McDonald’s for a year. He says he doesn’t have much of an idea of what a year is but heck if he’s not going to enjoy it.

Check out the videos below to see his shot as well as KSPR-TV’s interview with Michael, who again, is better at basketball than you. Pretty awesome stuff.

Blind man who hit 3-pointer has incredible story [KSPR-TV)

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist