Blooms Today Membership Program Class Action Lawsuit

A federal class action lawsuit claims BloomsToday.com and the entire Blooms Today family of brands deceptively enrolls and repeatedly bills customers for its flower “Membership Programs” without their knowledge or consent.

According to the Blooms Today class action lawsuit, BloomsToday.com is a flower delivery company that’s true business enterprise is the “enrollment of unsuspecting consumers” into its Membership Programs. “Defendants use the consumers’ floral purchase to implement their deceptive and fraudulent scheme for enrollment in the Membership Programs to generate recurring revenue,” the class action lawsuit says.

Here’s how the alleged Blooms Today scheme works.

 

Lead Plaintiff Thomas O’Brien claims in the class action lawsuit that in the course of ordering flowers from BloomsToday.com in February 2011, Blooms Today asked if he wished to obtain a 50% discount on his order. Blooms Today, however, did not offer any details of the savings at that time. O’Brien clicked on the offer, affirming that he wanted to get the additional discount, and charged the cost of his February 2011 Blooms Today flower purchase to the debit card linked to his account.

Little did O’Brien know, however, that he was actually “agreeing” to enroll in a Blooms Today Membership Program by clicking on that 50%-off offer.

“Defendants intentionally failed to communicate to Plaintiff that his bank account information would be used not only to debit the cost of the February 2011 flower purchase, but also to impose an additional $9.99 charge for every subsequent month for a membership program,” the Blooms Today class action lawsuit states.

O’Brien says he never authorized the charges and didn’t even detect them until January 2012, nearly a year later, because they were so small.

“Defendants rely on the consumers’ inability or failure to track every charge made against their credit or debit cards, particularly when the amount is small enough to escape scrutiny,” the Booms Today class action lawsuit says.

O’Brien says he cancelled the Blooms Rewards membership program in January 2012, but Blooms Today only refunded membership fees for that month, and refused to provide refunds for March 2011 through December 2011.

The Blooms Today Rewards Program class action lawsuit is brought on behalf of all persons who were enrolled in one or more Membership Programs offered by Blooms Today (or any other name under which it operated) who incurred electronic fund transfers between March 9, 2011 and the present. It is also seeking to represent a nationwide class of all persons who were enrolled in one or more Blooms Today Membership Programs and were billed between February 10, 2007 and the present.

The Blooms Today class action lawsuit is alleging violations of the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (“EFTA”), which requires companies to provide documentation demonstrating consumers’ consent to periodic billing, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”). It is seeking restitution and damages for Class Members, in addition to other relief.

A copy of the Blooms Today Membership Program Class Action Lawsuit can be read here.

The case is Thomas O’Brien v. Blooms Today Family of Brands, et al., U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts.