Online florists with apparent New Jersey ties get complaints by the hundreds, Better Business Bureau says

Several websites allegedly falsely claiming to be local florists are getting hundreds of complaints from across the country, according to the Better Business Bureau (BBB).

At least three of the websites appear to have ties to New Jersey.

Complaints against Ruth's Roses

When California resident Anthea Davis ordered the "European Garden Bouquet" from RuthsRoses.com for her mother-in-law's birthday, she was shocked to find out the $75 order never arrived.

"The order was marked as delivered, which I thought was really strange," Davis said. "So I Googled 'local florists in Allen, Texas,' and they, Ruth's Roses, was the first."

The website says, "Serving our community for over four decades," but when CBS News New York's Lisa Rozner searched for local florists in New Jersey, Google results showed Ruth's Roses also claiming to be local to Jersey City and Red Bank.

CBS News New York also called Ruth's Roses and was told the business was located on "Main Street" but didn't have a certificate of occupancy. A lawyer for the company did contact us and said they wouldn't have comment until next week.  

On Yelp, there are more than 1,300 reviews for Ruth's Roses, and 99% of them give the company 1 out of 5 stars. One review claims they "did not deliver the roses I paid for my mother's funeral."

The BBB said Ruth's Roses had an F rating until October 2025, but it was upgraded to a C after the company started responding to the nearly 500 complaints.

Do your research, BBB advises customers

Ruth's, and similar websites Flowers By Eva and Flowers By Nora, are registered in Nevada, and the BBB shows they are managed by either Anthony Picco or Terry Thompson, who have New Jersey addresses.

Davis said she referred to CBS News New York's 2021 report about a similar website involving Picco to get her money back.

"I eventually did get refunded, but it took a lot of emails a lot of calls," she said, "and it wasn't until I started naming the names of some of the people and letting them kind of know what I had found through my research."

Heather Womback, of Cherry Hill, said she paid around $135 for birthday flowers from Flowers By Eva for her mom in Hutchinson Island, Florida. When the arrangement arrived, it looked completely different from the one pictured on the website.

"They apologized for the lack of service and told me that I would get $35 back," Womback said.

The BBB advises customers to look at reviews and do your research.

"You can see if they have a brick-and-mortar address, and then go to Google Maps or something to see if they're really, really there," said Claire Rosensweig, president and CEO of the BBB of New York.

CBS News New York also contacted the New Jersey attorney general.  A spokesperson said 12 complaints against another website, Terry's Florist, were referred to the Nevada Attorney General's Office. We reported similar consumer complaints against Terry's Florist in 2021, and the BBB has it listed under the same Nevada address as Ruth's Roses, Flowers By Eva and Flowers By Nora.

The representative for the New Jersey attorney general said one complaint was sent to the Monmouth County Office of Consumer Affairs. As for Ruth's Roses, the state attorney general says one complaint from January 2026 is open and under review.

Mom-and-pop shop mix-up

The issues with these websites extend even beyond just customers.

Luisa Amaral is the owner of Ruth Chase Flowers, an award-winning, real mom-and-pop flower shop in New Milford, Connecticut.

Amaral said for the first time in nearly 20 years of business, she's recently gotten complaints – except they're from Ruth's Roses customers. She said when customers search for a phone number to contact Ruth's Roses, the number for Ruth Chase Flowers appears in large print, causing confusion.

"I'm just concerned about our reputation," Amaral said.

She said she also tried calling Ruth's Rose directly.

"And then I say, 'Can I speak with the manager?' And then she put me on hold and then I got disconnected. She hung up," she said.

Amaral also said most of the prices on Ruth's Roses are way less than market rate, so if it seems too good to be true, it is.

CBS News New York contacted Google to find out what, if anything, they can do to help Ruth Chase Flowers, as well as educate consumers. According to Google, its internal teams did not find the Ruth Chase Flowers phone number to appear in Google search results for Ruth's Roses.

As for why Ruth's Roses shows up as a local florist when users search in various municipalities, Google said it does not manually determine rankings, and that the system ranks results based on hundreds of factors, including whether the words in the search match the keywords on a webpage.

Google said it has policies and controls in place to keep Google users safe and prevent businesses from misleading or taking advantage of users looking for information, from rules for representing the services they offer to policies for service-based businesses. It said its teams use a combination of automation, human review, and user feedback to enforce Google's rules, and when there are violations or issues the company communicates with merchants about the approaches they can take to troubleshoot their issues. 

Google said businesses can report any issues with third parties misrepresenting their business on Google via this page. It also shared for best practices on how businesses can edit their Google Business Profile, to refer to its Help Center.