Flowers and Phones: The Real Story

Say you want to send flowers to someone, and you look in the phone book for a florist in your city. The Concord phone book, for example, has several listings for "Concord Florist." One of them has a Concord exchange. If you call it, you'll be greeted by a recorded message welcoming you to a business called "Our Flowers With Gifted Elegance" It's a florist service that will deliver your order. But the recipient of your flowers might be receiving somewhat less than (what you think) you ordered.

What's happened is that your call has been forwarded to a middleman, who, in turn, will call a florist in your area and have them fill the order. So, it's possible that your 50 dollar Sweetheart bouquet could wind up looking more like a 35 dollar delivery that says "Just Friends."

Valerie Dawes is a Concord area florist who calls the arrangement a ripoff.

"I think the scam is so good, a lot of customers don't even know they've been scammed. If a problem occurs with their floral order, they'll call up, for instance, the shop where I work and say, 'I placed an order with you,' and when we do enough research, we found out they really called Concord Florist, which does not exist. But they think they called a local florist."

Dawes also believes that Verizon is breaking the law by listing such numbers. She's petitioned the Public Utilities Commission, the State Attorney General's office and anyone else who'll listen to get the practice outlawed.

State Senator Sylvia Larsen believes the listings constitute consumer fraud. She's the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 345. Its aim is to protect consumers from hidden costs by making it illegal to misrepresent the geographic location of a business:

"All we're asking is for them, if they want to operate and be a middle man, they ought to reveal that to the consumer, because if you order a 30 dollar bouquet of flowers, you want 30 dollars worth of product, so I would say it's consumer beware. Do not trust, if it looks like a local number, that it is in fact a local call you're making."

Earl Pierce, the public relations director for Verizon, says the company is not violating state law. First of all, he says, Verizon is a listing service, and claims that they don't allow fraudulent advertising. He thinks the case of the floral listings is just sour grapes.

"You really have to ask yourself: is this an issue of fraud, or is this an issue of unwanted competition? I'm not hearing complaints from consumers on this, I'm hearing complaints from florists, so I'm thinking that this is an issue, truly, of unwanted competition and using the consumer as the backbone for that."

Pierce also wonders how, if the bill goes through, his company could ever verify all listings to make sure they're in compliance. He agrees that the consumer should be in control. He says it's always good practice to verify who's on the other end of the line and where their business is located. In this age of globalization and increased telecommunications, people may soon become used to doing business just about anywhere. But if lawmakers pass the Larsen bill, the phone book listing would read "Concord Florist, Randolph, New Jersey."

For NHPR News, I'm Lisa Peakes in Concord. (really)