Senate Approves Floral Consumer Protection Bill 

HARRISBURG –The Senate gave unanimous approval to a bill sponsored by Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf to outlaw the practice of out-of-area floral businesses misrepresenting their businesses as local entities in telephone directories and advertising.

The senator said that the aim of Senate Bill 198 is to prevent needless confusion and added cost for floral consumers and problems for local florists.

He noted that out-of-state firms sometimes use telephone listings and advertisements for retail floral sales in a manner that misleads consumers.  This is accomplished by the setting up of a local phone number and the utilization of a name that indicates that they are a local florist—usually by including the name of a local community in their business title.  When a consumer calls the local number to place an order, the call is forwarded to a call center, often located out of state. The call center then arranges for the order to be filled.

The senator pointed out that the bill, Senate Bill 198, does not prevent floral businesses from setting up such call-center arrangements-- as long as their telephone listing and advertising does not mislead consumers into believing that they are dealing with a local firm.  "Ordering flowers through long distance floral services is a common practice.  Such companies would not be affected by this legislation," the senator said.

Under the bill, it would be an unlawful and deceptive business practice for a floral business to misrepresent its geographical location by listing a fictitious or assumed name in a local telephone directory if the listing fails to identify the location and state of the floral business, and if the calls to the local telephone number are forwarded or transferred to a business location that is outside the calling area, and the floral business location is in a county that is not contiguous to a county in the local calling area.  The measure gives consumers or local florists a "private cause of action" against a business that misrepresents its geographic location by using a fictitious or assumed name.

Greenleaf said his legislation seeks to end a deceptive practice that can affect customers, local florists, and state sales tax revenues.  In addition to paying for flowers in a transaction with an out of region business pretending to be local, the floral customer pays a fee for the cost of handling the telephone transaction.  Local florists may lose business to firms masquerading as local businesses.  And, the out of state firms, by taking orders in call centers in other states, are shortchanging Pennsylvania's sales tax receipts.

The courts may impose a fine of up to $500 per day on a business found in violation—until the business comes into compliance.  The court may also award reasonable attorney fees and costs to the person bringing the action if the court finds the violation was willful.

Pennsylvania has 1,117 florists employing approximately 6,000 people. The Pennsylvania Floral Industry Association has registered support for the legislation, and several other states have enacted laws banning this type of deceptive business practice.