Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This evening I rise to give my own, personal consumer alert. I know that Minister Bradbury does this on quite a few occasions. But this was an issue that was close to home and that affected me and my daughters and I decided it was time for me to do my own consumer alert. This is related to a company called Ready Flowers. Like all young people, my daughters access things on the internet. Sally did so on this occasion on 9 April to purchase some flowers, 25 long-stem roses for my oldest daughter, Stacey, who resides close to Gladstone. Sally jumped on the internet and went to the first site that popped up. If you Google it you will find it is one of the sites that pops up immediately and is first in the listings of florists. But I warn consumers out there about this particular company.

She placed the order and a few hours later received a response saying that her card had been debited $231. Not long after that, she received an email saying that they could not process the order because there was a supplier issue. In fact, this company was so incompetent that they sought a florist down in Boyne Island, which is basically an industrial area. I am not familiar with any florists down in that particular area. They should have sourced the flowers from a florist up in Gladstone to get them to Stacey's house. The order was not even processed.

Bearing in mind that that was on 9 April, on 3 May Sally contacted the company about refunding the money, because no money had been returned to her credit card account. She subsequently contacted them on 6 May and still there was no money returned. It was the same old story over and over again. Being a proud dad of my two lovely daughters, I tried to do this. I got the run-around something chronic, I tell you. In fact, I called them this morning and was told that I would have to wait approximately 10 weeks for them to process the refund to my daughter's account. They then went on to claim that it will come down to the finance department looking at their daily budget and deciding whether the claim will be processed. My concerns have been raised with the ACCC. I spoke to them today. They are acting on this quite decisively, so I am impressed with their action in this area. If you go to the 'refunds and cancellations' section on the company's website, it indicates that requests for refunds will be processed within 14 days. They are not meeting their own requirements under their refunds policy.

This company has not gone unscrutinised by other organisations. The Sydney Morning Herald first uncovered this particular company. An article in that newspaper says:

Scores of complaints against an Australian online florist accused of ruining Valentine's Day surprises by failing to deliver has prompted co-ordinated action by fair trading bodies.

  …   …   …

The company was receiving so many complaints on its Facebook page that it briefly disabled it …

They shut it down. That gives you an example of what this company is doing and what they are trying to hide by shutting down their electronic communications. The Sydney Morning Herald article said that the company is owned by the Hegarty family from Western Australia. It is managed by director Thomas Hegarty, who now lives in Hong Kong. When you ring the company you get transferred to a call centre over in Hong Kong. That clearly demonstrates the shadiness of this particular company. The article went on to say:

According to an ASIC company extract, the company's directors Deborah and Peter Ross Hegarty are located in Manning in Perth.

After reading this article, you realise that this company has been the subject of a number of warnings and copious complaints on the internet.

Consumers out there should seriously take note of Ready Flowers when they are booking flowers online, particularly on days like Mother's Day or Valentine's Day—or any other day—and consider other options. I have friends in the florist business. They run Sandgate Road Flowers. They do not do online bookings but they are a competent and very competitive florist that I know is trusted, on the north side of Brisbane. People should be looking in their own backyards and using florists there as opposed to the likes of Ready Flowers, which I and my daughter unfortunately did.