unlawfulcharges.comThe price you are shown, and the price you pay
On a florist-delivered arrangement, 1-800-Flowers shows you a price on the product page and nothing else. There is no service charge on that page, no shipping line, no footnote — just the price of the bouquet, often with a discount struck through above it.
The delivery calendar comes next, and it does disclose something: a small surcharge on weekend and expedited dates. Weekday dates show no charge at all. A customer choosing an ordinary Tuesday delivery is told, in effect, that there is nothing extra to pay.
Then comes the cart. It lists the item, the subtotal, a line for taxes, and a line labeled "Estimated service fee." Both of those last two read "TBD." And underneath them the page prints an "Order Total" that is identical to the subtotal — a total that the company already knows is not the total, because it has just told you a service fee is coming.
The fee is disclosed at the final step, once the arrangement is chosen, the date is set and the recipient's address is entered. By then the customer has done all the work of the purchase and is looking at a number they had no way to compare when they were still deciding.
The membership that shows the fee is mandatory
On the same cart screen that will not name the service fee, 1-800-Flowers offers a way out of it. The company's paid membership program is sold on the promise of free standard shipping and, in the company's own words, no service charge on florist-fulfilled items.
That offer answers the question the checkout screen leaves open. A charge a company builds a subscription around removing is not an optional add-on and not a rounding error. It is a required cost of buying flowers, large enough that customers will pay an annual fee to escape it.
It also shows the company can calculate the fee well before the last checkout screen, because it prices the membership against it. The New York Attorney General, examining that membership program on a separate issue, found the company had promoted it at one point as a full year of free shipping for a few dollars more — an amount that was simply the difference between the membership price and a service charge the company had already worked out for that purchase.
Why "to be determined" is the heart of the problem
There is a difference between a fee in fine print and a total that is wrong.
If a company discloses a mandatory fee somewhere the customer has to hunt for it, the argument is about whether the disclosure was clear enough. That is a real argument, and companies win some of them.
This is a different situation. 1-800-Flowers puts a line item on the cart screen acknowledging that a service fee exists, declines to say what it is, and then prints an order total calculated as though the fee were zero. The customer is not being asked to read carefully. The customer is being given a number and told it is the total.
A genuinely optional charge — a vase upgrade, a greeting card, a donation — can be offered as the customer adds it, and 1-800-Flowers does price those as they are selected. A charge you cannot complete the order without paying is different in kind. It belongs in the first price you are shown.
What Virginia law requires of an advertised price
Virginia's drip-pricing law prohibits mandatory add-on fees that were not disclosed when an item's price was first advertised. The rule measures the seller against what the seller displayed, not against what the seller intended or what a careful customer might have worked out.
The law treats taxes and reasonable shipping differently, and a company charging this kind of fee will usually reach for that exception first. It does not fit here. On a florist-delivered arrangement the flowers are made and carried by a local shop; the service charge is money the company keeps, and it is not postage.
Maginnis Howard is able to take these cases on a mass arbitration basis, so that claims amounting to a few dollars per transaction still make economic sense to handle at no cost to you. The protection is most direct in Virginia and the other states with express pricing-transparency laws, and we believe the practice is improper in all 50.
Who qualifies, and what a Virginia customer can recover
This claim is open to consumers 18 and over for orders placed on or after July 1, 2025. It is most direct in Virginia and the other states with express pricing-transparency laws, but we believe the practice is improper in all 50.
Recovery is straightforward to describe. Actual damages are the total of the undisclosed service fees you paid across your orders. Virginia law allows recovery of your actual damages or $500, whichever is greater, along with your attorney fees. If the violation is found to be willful, the court may award up to three times your actual damages, or $1,000, whichever is greater.
1-800-Flowers requires its customers to bring disputes individually rather than as a group, so a claim like this is brought as a private individual arbitration. We handle that entirely on your behalf.
The same terms cover the company's other brands, so if you ordered from one of its sister sites and were charged the same kind of fee, tell us that when you sign up.
You do not need a receipt to sign up today, though we may ask for order confirmations or screenshots later. Signing up takes about a minute and costs nothing. We work on contingency: no fee unless we recover for you.
The legal basis
Why this may be illegal
1-800-Flowers advertises a price for a bouquet, then charges a mandatory service fee that is never included in that price. On a florist-delivered order the fee is not shown on the product page, not shown on the delivery calendar, and not shown in the cart — the cart lists it as "to be determined" while still printing an order total that leaves it out. The amount appears only at the last step of checkout, after the customer has chosen the arrangement, picked a delivery date and entered the recipient's address. Virginia and a number of other states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon and Massachusetts — have enacted statutes that expressly require an advertised price to include every mandatory fee, and a claim is most direct in those states. But we believe the tactic is improper in all 50: every state has an unfair and deceptive trade practices law that prohibits a company from advertising a price the consumer cannot actually get.
The law
State drip pricing laws require that when a seller advertises or displays a price, that price include every fee the customer has to pay in order to buy the thing. A charge the customer cannot avoid is part of the price, and it has to appear in the first price shown — not on the payment screen, and not on the receipt. Taxes and reasonable shipping are treated differently, but a service charge collected by the seller on an order that a local florist fulfills is neither of those, and that is the charge at issue here.
Virginia's law is the most direct route here, and California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon and Massachusetts have enacted the same requirement in their own words. Outside those states the conduct is still actionable: every state has an unfair and deceptive trade practices law that prohibits advertising a price the consumer cannot actually get.
A company that shows a total on the cart screen while leaving out a fee it knows is coming has a particular problem. This is not a fee buried in fine print. The company has told the customer what the total is, and the total is wrong.
Because 1-800-Flowers requires customers to bring disputes individually and waives the right to join a group case, each customer has to file their own claim. That is what this investigation is organized to do, and it is why a claim worth a small amount on its own can still be brought at no cost to the customer.
What you could recover
Virginia law allows recovery of your actual damages or $500, whichever is greater, along with your attorney fees. If the violation is found to be willful, the court may award up to three times your actual damages, or $1,000, whichever is greater.
How your claim would be handled
Claims like this are handled as individual arbitration cases — private proceedings, no courtroom. For 1-800-Flowers.com, cases are typically administered through AAA.
What They Showed You* vs. What You Actually Paid*
| What They Showed You* (Florist-delivered bouquet) | $67.99 |
| Service fee | +$17.99 |
| What You Actually Paid* (After Hidden Fees) | $85.98 |
Figures shown are illustrative examples, not records of an actual transaction; your amounts may differ.
Think you're affected? Check if you qualify and sign up in about two minutes — no upfront cost.
Check if you qualifyFrequently asked questions
The fee was only $15 or $20. Is that worth pursuing?
On a single order, disputing it costs more than it returns, and that is exactly why the practice works. If you send flowers several times a year — birthdays, anniversaries, sympathy arrangements — the fees add up, and that total is what your claim is based on.
I bought a Celebrations Passport membership. Does that disqualify me?
Not necessarily, and the membership may actually matter to your claim. The membership is sold on the promise that it removes the service charge, so what you paid for it is part of the picture. Tell us about it when you sign up.
This was a funeral or sympathy order. Does that change anything?
No. The claim is about the price you were shown compared to the price you were charged, and it applies the same way whatever the occasion was.
Does it matter what state I live in?
It affects how your claim is built, not whether you can sign up. The most direct route is in Virginia and the other states that have passed express pricing-transparency laws — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon and Massachusetts. We believe this pricing tactic is improper in all 50 states, because every state has an unfair and deceptive trade practices law that reaches advertising a price that is not the price charged.
Do I have to provide proof of purchase?
You do not need proof of purchase to sign up today. Later we may ask for an order confirmation email, a receipt, or a screenshot of your order history. 1-800-Flowers also keeps a full record of every order and every fee, and that record can be obtained as part of your claim.
Do I have to pay for this?
You do not pay anything unless we recover compensation on your behalf. Our legal team works on contingency, which means we only get paid if you do.
Will I have to go to court?
No, we will file everything on your behalf.
What clients say
The entire process with Maginnis Howard was effortless. All our communication was by email and only a few phone calls. Any calls or emails were answered very promptly. I would like to thank Ian and Maginnis Howard. I will highly recommend any dispute that includes an Arbitration Agreement, there could no be a better Firm to represent you!
Ian is an excellent communicator who knows how to work with these companies to obtain a resolution and get you the best settlement offer possible. I highly recommend Ian and the Maginnis Howard law firm for anyone navigating the arbitration process.
I'm very grateful for his representation and the result we achieved. If you're facing arbitration and feel overwhelmed or unsure of your rights, I highly recommend Ian Vance and Maginnis Howard. They know how to handle these cases and fight for their clients.
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