Friday 22 March 2013

Mother's Day Flowers

Mother’s Day in Lebanon is on March 21st; it is by far the busiest day of the year for all flower shops and pastries. So, with all that hustle, some errors are bound to happen, but it becomes unacceptable when such “occasion reliant business” abuse such occasions to make an easy buck by deceiving customers.
Below are two stories about two different flower shops that should seriously consider closing because they can’t deliver a single right bouquet of flowers on an occasion such as Mother’s Day.
Case 1: www.zoohoor.com:

I sent this feedback on behalf of a friend of mine who fell victim of this website’s scam:
“On the 20th of March, one day before Mother’s Day, I ordered four flower bouquets from your website with vases.
According to the website, I was required to order before 10 pm in order to have the flowers delivered at the time, date, and place of my choice. By referring to my order, #aaaaaa, bbbbbb, cccccc, dddddd (I removed the real order numbers for privacy reasons), you can see that I ordered them on Wednesday, March 20, at 8 am, to avoid any delays or conflicts, and to give you the proper amount of time to get my order correct and up to the required standard.
Upon receiving the order, I discovered that the pictures of the flowers are nothing close to what was delivered, the quantity was less than promised, the quality was garbage, and the delivery was not consistent to an extent that one of the four bouquets was not even delivered to its destination.
Your website is a scam, or you don’t know the difference between tulips and wild roses.
If a flower shop (or website in your case) can’t deliver flowers on occasions, what can you do? Why are you open for business if you can’t fulfill the sole purpose of your business?
I sent four bouquets to my mother, mother –in-law, wife, and sister and none of them was up to my expectations or at least close to what I was promised while I was purchasing them from your site. You put me in a very awkward and shameful situation with your very low standards.
I was extremely unsatisfied with your flowers and your delivery services; I did not receive what I ordered or anything close to my money’s worth.
I expect to be refunded the full amount of my purchase and you should consider closing your deceitful, unprofessional, and over priced flower business.”
Case 2: Coqueta Rosa
This is a summary of the experience I had with the flower shop I order from. Bear in mind that I’m a regular customer and order all my flowers from them…NOT ANY MORE:
I called the shop on March 20th, at 9 am to order three flower bouquets for my mother, my mother in law, and my sister in law. I told the guy that I wanted three flower bouquets, described the colors, gave him the detailed delivery addresses, and the times at which they should be delivered. I asked him to write down the order and repeat it to me to ensure that he got it correct, I also emphasized that I’m ordering and having the flowers delivered one day in advanced to avoid the Mother’s Day traffic.
To my disappointment, and despite all my efforts to avoid errors, not one of the above mentioned bouquets was what I ordered; not in terms of color, size, or quality.
I called the shop owner and said:
“the person that took my order is either deaf, blind, or illiterate. How can he get a simple flower order wrong when I repeated it to him twice, had him write it down, and called him 3 times during the day to make sure he got it right?
The shop owner started apologizing and asked if there was anything he could do to make it up.
I told him that the damage was already done, and the best option for him now was to close up shop, because they just couldn’t deliver flowers on an occasion like Mother’s Day.”
I bet 90% of the people who sent flowers to their mothers yesterday or the day before were very disappointed with the results. This is a common problem we have in this country: Bad customer service, deceiving business owners, and over priced wilted crap.

Saturday 9 March 2013

Michael Abou Sleiman should be banned from Television


I usually don’t watch TV, let alone Lebanese TV, but when the show “Dancing with the Stars” became so popular, I was curious to know what all the fuss was about.
I have to admit, the dancers, the celebrities, the dances, the costumes… the entire show was truly very nice.
Apparently, one of the starts on the show, Mirva Kadi, had some type of wardrobe malfunction that showed a little more than was intended, I didn’t see the scene. Naturally, the tabloids went crazy, and as if there isn’t enough “on purpose” flesh on TV for them to watch; they had to emphasis the “by accident” flesh.
Anyway, what drove me to write this blog was not Mirva’s outfit or the general public opinion about it, but Mr. Michael Abou Sleiman’s (the co-host of the Lebanese talk show “Talk of the Town” on MTV Lebanon) disgusting, vulgar, inappropriate, ill-mannered, unacceptable comments about the incident when Mirva was a guest on the show.
The moment Mirva walked on the set of “Talk of the Town”, Mrs. Mona Abou Hamzeh gave a brief summary of Mirva’s modeling career and achievements, and then started at her regarding the costumes she wore on the show, especially the last one.
No matter how much Mirva tried to cut the debate short and stand up for herself by emphasizing how she is always careful in selecting her clothes, and that they don’t rehearse while wearing the costumes, and that it wasn’t such a big deal, Michael kept making those very dirty jokes about the costume and about the last Buzz commercial she did where the electricity generator pops and she asks her nerdy, chubby, unattractive neighbor to help her fix it, then joins him and his friends for karaoke.
I don’t know why is it ok for talk show hosts to pass dirty, sexual jokes and insults to a young woman on national television on a show that is watched by all types of viewers.
Mirva deserves an apology and Michael Abou Sleiman deserves to be kicked off television.
For those of you who understand Arabic, below are links for what I’m talking about.
Buzz Commercial:
Mirva Kadi on Talk of the Town: