Magnolia’s

While spending some time at good olé MOBap last year, pissed that I was missing the world series (hello, kidney failure), my DC-​based boyfriend sent me a beautiful arrangement from Magnolia’s to cheer me up. That’s about the extent of the praise I can give Magnolia’s. While they can craft a decent arrangement, don’t expect it to last long. Furthermore, the drama surrounding my man’s decision to order from them carried well until March ’14.
Now, I get that flowers are only due to last a few days. However, with plant food & decent care, cut flowers (ESPECIALLY if you’re paying $ 80+ for them) should last beyond 5 days, at the very least. My arrangement lasted for all of 2 days before they wilted & died, staining the clear glass vase. Not quite sure what that was about. Besides my disappointment in the short lifespan of the flowers, I will say that it was truly a pretty arrangement. Not very memorable, but nice.
Fast forward a few months. I’ve completely forgotten about the flowers themselves, & all that remains is the warming notion that my wonderful man bought them for me, until he calls me over to look at the computer one day & shows me a charge from Magnolias. He was charged some $ 80 or so when he first ordered flowers for me in October ’13, & then out of nowhere was charged the same amount again in March ’14. He had emailed, called, & left messages to get the additional charges dropped but to no avail. This went on for a week or so. He called daily, left voicemails & never got a response. A few days go by, & we see that he was charged AGAIN. So this time I pick up the phone, wondering if because I have a St. Louis area code they’ll give me a response. I leave a voicemail when no-​one picks up, stating that I would like to place an order. Probably 30 seconds after I finish the voicemail, I get a a call back with the woman on the other line asking me how big of an order I intended to place. I’m not one for making assumptions, but it looks to me like Magnolia’s screens their calls. When I announced my true intentions, stating the situation & providing my boyfriends name, email address & phone number for reference there was a pause on the line before the lady I was talking to informed me that they have «no record of the individual» trying to contact them. That was complete bull. I asked the lady to look up his name in their payment records, & without even issuing an apology she told me that she’d try to refund the «accidental» charges. I’m not saying Magnolia’s is trying to commit fraud, but the lady I talked to was clearly against giving my man his money back. The whole thing seemed really suspect after she exhibited such reluctance to clear the 2 additional charges, & we felt like we were being scammed.
I would absolutely never recommend this florist to someone. The arrangement didn’t last, the customer service was completely atrocious & being charged 2 more times for an order, 5 months after the fact, is completely unacceptable. I strongly advise you to take your business & your money elsewhere.

Watch out for the delivery charge! They charged me $ 25 to deliver 1.8 miles away. WTF? I ordered an arrangement over the phone from Magnolia’s. Mind you, I picked this place because on Google Maps, it looks like it is fairly close to WIldwood, MO, where I was having the flowers delivered. I am in California, how am I suppose to know who will scam me and who will not?
I asked for a $ 40 arrangement, so you can imagine my surprise when I checked my credit card bill and found a $ 70 charge! Holy C’s! That’s nearly DOUBLE the price I asked for, all on delivery charge and tax. The shop is in the same zipcode as where the delivery went.
They get 1 star for being helpful on the phone, 1 star for a beautiful arrangement. and then minus 1 star for failing to be transparent with their delivery charge and other charges. I really feel like I got taken. They got my credit card number and decided to run away with it. definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Why weren’t they more transparent about the total charges?
It makes me want to call the Better Business people. I felt scammed.