INDIANAPOLIS – In a RICO class action, a member of the Teleflora network claims that the largest mail-order flower service in the country hijacked its web link to snatch customers. Perfect Flowers says it refused Teleflora's offer to create a website for it, since it already had a website up and running. And it claims Teleflora played the same trick on "other retail florists [who] did not authorize Teleflora to direct Internet users away from their websites to unauthorized websites."
Perfect Flowers claims that it ran its own website, "Flowers By Valerie," and when it signed a contract to receive referrals from Teleflora, it did not authorize the giant chain to operate a website on its behalf.
"Perfect Flowers receives 100 percent of all retail sales obtained through this [its own] website," the complaint states. Its own website "did not require the use of the Teleflora national network."
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