UPDATE: 1-800-Flowers Denies A Year Of Dog Food To Animal Rescue Winner

Ashley Owen Hill of Lucky Dog Rescue.

UPDATE 7:00Ppm EST. July, 23, 2012 — This story has been seen by over 15,000 pet parents and concerned members of the pet community, and after 1-800-Flowers came under public attack for their actions towards Ashley Owen Hill and Lucky Dog Rescue.

On Sunday afternoon, 1-800-Flowers refused to respond to the public outcry that came through via their Facebook page and were deleting all comments related to the story. They had since come forward with a statement (after their story had gone viral via Dog Files, Blog Four Paws, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter, and the petition on Change.org had 400+ signatures in under 24 hours) saying:

At 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, we pride ourselves on offering creative and engaging contests for our customers. We apologize that there has been a misunderstanding about the prize fulfillment regarding our recent There’s a New Bunny In Town. We are looking into the matter immediately and we promise to follow up with the winner to ensure the prize is fulfilled appropriately.

As of 5:30pm EST, Mississippi news station WTOK 11, released a statement saying they had gotten in touch with a 1-800-Flowers PR Representative Yanique Woodall and she has confirmed that the company has donated a 2-year supply of dog food to Lucky Dog Rescue.

This story will continue to be updated as information is received.

Thanks for your help in rectifying the situation for Lucky Dog Rescue. The web can be an incredible force for good!

______________________________________________________

In April, 1-800-Flowers.com hosted a contest called “There’s a New Bunny in Town” Photo contest, where participants shared a picture of their pet with a pair of bunny ears and enter the photo for a chance to win a grand prize of: 1 Year of pet food from Wag.com, a year’s supply of assorted products for dogs and dog lovers from Planet Dog and a $150 Savings Pass from 1800Flowers.com.

Maria Mandel, who has an amazing service dog named Stacey Mae (Stacey has 18,000+ fans on Facebook) entered the contest on behalf of our friends at Lucky Dog Rescue. Then, she promoted the contest on Facebook begging others to vote for Stacey’s photo… so that she could donate the winnings to Lucky Dog Rescue.

Thousands of votes later Maria won the contest, on behalf of Lucky Dog Rescue. When 1-800-flowers contacted her for an address to send the winnings, she gave them Lucky Dog’s address.

Days, weeks and months passed, but Lucky Dog rescue still had no dog food. Maria then reached out to the company for more info, but she never heard back from them. So one day, Ashley Owen Hill, the Founder of Lucky Dog Rescue contacted 1-800-Flowers to find out what happened to the food for her rescue dogs.

Ashley’s attempt to contact someone who could giver her some answers proved to be quite a battle; she contacted representatives who had no idea the contest ever took place, laughed and told her that they were a flower company and that ‘they didn’t do dog food’ and that she was ‘clearly misinformed.’ Ashley continued to be transferred and redirected to no one who was willing or able to help her.

One of the last representatives she spoke with offered to take her number with the promise of a call back; when he did call back- the representative acknowledged the contest and that Maria Mandel was the winner. However, the representative informed her that the prize was “non-transferrable” and by Maria requesting that the food be shipped to Lucky Dog rescue it made the winnings null and void.

When 1-800-Flowers posted the contest it stated: ‘No clear Official Rules, Entry Frequency, Country Restriction, or Age Requirement’ and when Ashley told that to the representative He responded: “I’m sorry if the rules weren’t clearly stated, ma’am”; Ashley proceeded to ask him how can there be rules if non are stated, and if the company was clearly intent on not honoring the promised winnings for someone who entered the contest from the start advertising that she was going to give her winnings to an animal charity- she got a ‘yes ma’am’ in response.

At that time Ms.Owen Hill asked if she could please speak with someone else, since she felt that speaking with this representative was not going to assist her in getting any answers. The representative did not give her any phone numbers- but gave her email addresses, which she has since written to several times and has gotten zero responses.

Thousands of people, many of which who voted in the contest, have tried to contact 1-800-Flowers in response to this outcome. Any/all Facebook comments are deleted and no e-mails or phone calls are returned.

Members of the pet community are not taking it lightly: Ashley Owen Hill has posted a note to Facebook that has been shared close to 900 times, PetsAdviser has also written a story about it- encouraging anyone who is upset to log their complaints on the 1-800-Flowers Website.

I personally have reached out to Lucky Dog Rescue, offering a package I intended to give away here on Blog Four Paws, consisting of several bags of treats as well as some wet and dry dog food. I am also reaching out to media stations in the Mississippi area and sharing this story with them, in hopes that 1-800Flowers (a company that made $700 million in revenue in 2009) will come forward and give all of us the answers we are looking for.

Find facebook.com/luckydogrescueblog”>Lucky Dog Rescue on Facebook

Story by Lauren McGregor Downs

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
24 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Brittany Goving
11 years ago

Thanks for sharing! I have sent in my complaint! A total disgrace to the corporate world….urgh!!

Lisa
Lisa
11 years ago

Contact the CBS affiliate – They ran a recent episode of ‘Undercover Boss’ about 1-800-Flowers. Way to set an example, company.

Anonymous
Anonymous
11 years ago
Reply to  Lisa

They already did a UC boss but the CEO (McCann) was above that…like all the McCann spawn = scumbags.

Chris Ar
Chris Ar
11 years ago

These are the same people who bailed on Limbaugh during the Sandra Fluke nonsense.

Guest
Guest
11 years ago
Reply to  Chris Ar

Nice to know they’ve done one thing right this year. 

Anonymous
Anonymous
11 years ago
Reply to  Guest

It cost them a bunch of business. So a knee jerk reaction, to a non-story, is hurting the company. Fluke went to a CATHOLIC school to complain about the lack of school issued birth control? Please, if that doesn’t scream “set up” to a thinking, rational person nothing will.

David Gillies
David Gillies
11 years ago

I hope this goes viral. If it hits Drudge or HuffPo then someone at 1-800-FLOWERS is getting canned.

Dennis Vest
11 years ago

She didn’t violate any rules so what gives? Come on 1-800 Flowers, man up & send the prize!

Diane McCornack
11 years ago

The decision not to make good on there contest is bad enough but not to have the courtesy to even face up to there decision and let the contest entrant and Lucky Dog Rescue who she entered for is beyond stupid.  I hope this costs them a fortune in bad press.

Sheldon
Sheldon
11 years ago

SPAM the Marketing VP
 Lewis Goldman Senior Vice President of Marketing [email protected] 

Teri, Brighton, Coco and Disco

Shared on both my FB pages and Tweeted, too.

Patricia Coxwell
Patricia Coxwell
11 years ago

I just sent this information to the editors at The Huffington Post.

Max Entropy
Max Entropy
11 years ago

On their facebook page, they say that they’re resolved the “misunderstanding” in the shelters’ favor.

Anonymous
Anonymous
11 years ago

she needs to put an update in the story if that’s true that they’ve decided to honor the contest.
I just sent them an email explaining that the amount of dog food wasn’t worth what they were about to lose by bad publicity.

Kenn Bell
11 years ago
Reply to  Anonymous

No one knows if that is true yet. When we confirm it we will update the story. But for now the pressure should continue.

Jeremy Brown
11 years ago

Unacceptable, share this post and send in your complaints. Time to take a stand against shady companies practicing smoke an mirrors.

Pam
Pam
11 years ago

This is so not right.  I would think if it was not in the rules etc. that they would have to honor the contest.  I would report this to the BBB.  I am going to reshare this story on my fb page.  I have a lot of animal lovers and people who fight for animal rights so I know they will share also.

Denise Patchen
11 years ago

Unacceptable!  Wow, deny a dog only 800 would do such a thing!

Matina
Matina
11 years ago

Did you know that at the top of this page is a 1-800-flowers advertisement?  That needs to be taken down.

Missy
Missy
11 years ago

I could have told you that 1-800-Flowers sucks.  I trained briefly with them, and they are horrible, horrible people.  No surprise that they’d pull this, not at all.

Jordanna Barron
Jordanna Barron
11 years ago

 I sent them an email after reading the article and got this back, I really hope its true: 1-800-FLOWERS.COM Customer Service [email protected]:28 PM (11 hours ago)to me Dear Customer,Thank you for contacting us.We apologize for the miscommunication regarding the prize fulfillment for our recent contest “There’s A New Bunny In Town”. We pride ourselves on offering fun and engaging contests; especially, contests that promote the well-being of pets. We are happy that we were able to correct the matter and we look forward to fulfilling the prizes to the winner in support Lucky Dog Rescue.If you have any other questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at the address listed below.Sincerely,Anthony OrellanaSales and Service [email protected]

Jackie Bouchard
Jackie Bouchard
11 years ago

It’s crazy that we have to publicly shame these folks to get them to do the right thing – but at least it works. 

Mike Meibuhr
Mike Meibuhr
11 years ago

Wow, it’s shocking. A company who’s only real purpose is to send “good will” in the form of flowers can’t even honor the promised good will of helping feed rescued pets. Very sad. 

laura russell
laura russell
11 years ago

1-800 flowers will never get another order from me. It took them to long to correct the problem.

SUBSCRIBE TO
DOG FILES

Top Posts

More Articles...

24
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x

Why haven't You Signed up For our Newsletter?

Find out why over 8000 Dog lovers have already Joined!

Receive our newsletter, get special deals & stay updated.