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By MoonFlower, August 8, 2008 11:09 am

The second installment of “Consumer Beware!” has now been posted on the MoonFlower Florist website. More to Watch Out For is about misleading claims, deceptive practices, and other spin that some “flower sellers” use on their websites. But the flower biz is just a case study – the same sort of thing goes on all over the Internet. Our advice to online shoppers: be suspicious!

Some of the main points are as follows.

• What you see may not be what you get. One deception is that the vase you see is actually not included and only available at extra cost.
• Beware of hidden and extra charges that are only revealed after you start into the order process.
• Beware of superlative claims like “top”, leading”, “premier”, “nationwide”, and so on. These are almost always bogus or detrimental to you as a consumer.
• Don’t trust even the small claims. It’s easy to put up an image that looks good but that has nothing to do with where your flowers are actually coming from.
• Free delivery? There’s no such thing. It really means “delivery included” at best.
• Free vase? Same thing, see above.
• “We buy direct from the grower” is another claim that’s just loaded with spin to the brim.
• Courier box delivery of your order may sound okay, but it can actually cause big problems, like dead flowers. And it doesn’t make for a great presentation – see the video.
• There are some links for further info and reporting problems if you’ve been ripped off.

Read the full story at Consumer Beware! Part 2, More to Watch Out For.