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I ordered a gift basket for a friend who's son passed away. Their website indicates same day delivery and free delivery over $100. When you choose your basket - it requests the date you would like it delivered. It showed up 5 business days late. Three days after the funeral. The company advised I had to choose another deliver option and pay more for same day. I advised the website was misleading. The package arrived damaged and smashed. Broken glass and open food, plus a bottle of bubble bath or oil had leaked all over everything. There website says you can do online customer service chat - there is never anyone there. I called several times before I reached someone. He said they would send another basket. The next day I received an email requesting pictures so they could send it to the claims dept of Canada Post so they would be reimbursed. I awkwardly asked my grieving friend to send pictures as it was now the next day and most of the basket had gone in the garbage. She sent me some of open food and broken glass frames which I forwarded to the company. They then advised they would only replace what was in the pictures unless I can send more - nothing but the frame and crackers would be replaced. I called again and I advised that if they wanted a picture of everything - they should have told me at the time. Not over several days and asking a grieving mother to dig through the garbage. Eventually he advised he would send another basket. 12 days later nothing was received. I called several times again to reach someone. He told me it was in claims and asked if I wanted him to check on the status. I advised that he said he would send another basket. He asked if I wanted him to check claims or let me know or not. I said yes and he hung up on me. I have not received any calls back or email. This basket cost $153. Gift baskets and flowers are as much about the presentation as the product. He takes no responsibility for improper wrapping. Blames Canada Post for damage and me for late delivery. Given the situation and the basket not being delivered to me, I expected the same product to be properly resent to my friend.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
The man you spoke to at Hazeltons.ca gift basket company was likely a fairly infamous 'gent' named Loren Drotos (born 1964). Loren Drotos seems to have an extensive history of operating various failed companies and dodgy businesses, such as Toronto Garden Sheds, various contracting, development, GST tax, etc. businesses out of a Toronto and Kitchener, where he is well known for an apparently unfinished/failed condo loft development fiasco. Wife is Christine Drotos (aka Barlow). They have 3 sons named Zachary, Christopher and one other son...maybe Michael? Loren Drotos is also known to use various alias' such as Mike, Michael, Mark Lawrence, etc. Family use to live in the a Beach area of Toronto during which time he claimed to be some sort of GST tax accountant/bookkeeper. That huge abandoned monstrosity of a house located overlooking Lake Ontario Scarborough Bluffs at 4 Birchmount Road in Scarborough, Ontario was the house the couple were building when the mortgage and various lien holders apparently seized the house circa 2009. 2014 and the abandoned house is still tied up in the courts! Loren Drotos and his various failed companies are listed on lots of internet [redacted]s etc. From all accounts the guy is a great smooth talking salesman and could likely make an excellent living running a legit business, but for some reason doesn't, and instead continues to operate various questionable businesses which seem to leave long trails of seriously disgruntled or alleged cheated customers in his wake. Google Loren Drotos and or wife's names for lots more info on him and his 'history'.
I was unfortunate enough to work for Loren Drotos back in 2003 when he had a furniture store called Expressions on Front St. He never paid his bills and we had creditors calling all the time asking for him. It got to the point where I would just tell them to get a lawyer because he had no intention of paying and would just lie to them about sending a cheque. He and his wife Christine had fake business licences; when I friend of mine who also worked there passed away from cancer Revenue Canada went after her husband because the information that he submitted (provided by the Drotos') was false. I called Revenue Canada and made a report about all their false financial reports that I knew about and I hope I made their lives a living hell. It wouldn't have happened to a more deserving family.
We own a local courier company and he used our service for 11 months through his Company Hazeltons and left us with an enormous bill that he still has not paid! This man has absolutely no conscience as he knew from day one what he was doing. If you own a Courier Service and are making deliveries for Loren Drotos( aka Mark Roberts), or Hazeltons RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN FROM HIM!
Same here .I worked for the .I bought gas .risked my life in winter. They refused to pay me .they are criminals
Hi Nick and Terry, I realize your post is several years old, but I'm looking into Mark Roberts aka Loren Drotos for a story. If you're interested, can you please send me an email at Shannon.Martin@CBC.ca Thanks so much!
We just got ripped off on a basket sent to us from their Hazelton company. Had no idea he was such a con. They shipped through Canpar. Does he own them too? Because they do not answer phones or email and they package was dropped at a weed store. Basket was $200
The worst purchasing experience ever. The gift baskets i purchased have turned into a complete nightmare. I would advise against any purchases from hazelton's. Mine just didn't arrive.
I purchased 3 Baskets for $150.00 each + tax on December 8th 2014 to be delivered on the 16th.
One was delivered on the 21st, the 2nd was delivered on the 24th while the 3rd one was not delivered uptoday.
They said that the 3rd basket was delivered but my client confirmed the he didn't receive anything.
it seems the know my phone no. so nobody is answering my calls now and they are not refunding me with the 3rd basket.
This was my worth experience ever with this company
The person replying to my emails (Nathalie) is very polite but it seems she can do nothing.
Kim who is supposed to solve this issue, answered me once, she was only listening.
I am still waiting for them to refund the 3rd Basket. or I will call the Consumer Protection
Don't expect the basket no more. They are criminals
Wow, They have just refund me the 3rd Basket Wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
"The company advised I had to choose another deliver option and pay more for same day. I advised the website was misleading. "
Similarly. I was appalled to learn (when I called, after it did not arrive on time) that my package of perishables went out by Canada Post although the description of ground delivery is of a series of couriers and Canada Post last on the list. Silly me, assuming that the company would choose best option, not the one option that will NOT deliver to the door.
But they're covered - no delivery is guaranteed, so - no recourse for the customer and no motivation for them to deliver on time once they have your money.
"Blames Canada Post for damage and me for late delivery." Exactly.
I sent a squiffy email after I was unsatisfied on the phone (top shelf price, bottom shelf service), and received this from Mark Roberts:
"Next time I would suggest that you follow our advice and pay for perishable items to be rushed to the recipient.
I recognize that you are blaming Hazelton's for your decision on the shipping method and we can accept this -- many customers blame us for the decisions that they have made on the shipping method."
Even though I placed the order weeks in advance, and "ground delivery" was certainly not clarified to mean "take your chances with Canada Post", it's my fault I didn't pay extra for "rush".
But I see now that it runs much worse than this little problem. What is my fault? I didn't read enough reviews before I gave them money.
Do not trust them. The site looks very good and misleading. I ordered a gift basket for 120.00, and I paid 50.00 to deliver the basket on the expected day, 3 days later. They charged me for another 70.00. for rush delivery! The package delivered one day later and broken! They sent the package 4:30 afternoon to Canada post!, They missed one day of express shipping! The manager told me "it is the same business day and nothing is wrong with them.Blames Canada Post for damage and for late delivery. Unfortunately, I read the review after placing my order and I regret it.
Just do not trust them.
I ordered a gift basket valued at 180.00 for a friend's birthday. My friend received it and sent me a photo of the products. I then noticed that 3 out of the 9 products were substituted. One was supposed to be organic olive oil but she received a non-organic oil. The other was supposed to be salmon pate but she received lobster pate. She is allergic to lobster.
I called Hazelton's to request that an organic olive oil be shipped and that they send the salmon pate (as shown on their website) because she is allergic to lobster. I waited a week and after numerous follow ups to hear that my friend has to ship them back the pate before they send a replacement. They claimed that the substituted olive oil was organic and I said it does not say organic on the product. They never got back to me about the olive oil.
I think it is ridiculous that they requested for the gift receiver to ship back a product when they were the ones who made a mistake!
I recently learnt that that there are many bad reviews for Hazelton's.
I will never order from them again. They are terrible.
Just had a terrible experience with this company. Ordered an organic fruit basket for my family who just had a new baby and they are out of the Toronto Area and I did not pay additional shipping for a fast delivery so the company sent a basket of junk food - chips, chocolate etc. The customer service manager told me that it is company policy that if you do not upgrade your shipping on perishable items the automatically& arbitrarily ship out a basket of their choosing. She could also not confirm what was in the basket as there are no records apparently.The worst bit is I ordered the basket on 2 Feb and the junk food basket was delivered on 4 Feb? The original fruit would have still been perfect and there is absolutely no reason to pay upgraded shipping or have my basket changed. So disappointed- shoddy business practices- stay far far away!
Hazeltons has now opened under a NEW name Yorkville Gift Baskets. Same owner. Same basket photos (which are not their photos). SAME type of reviews from customers! https://www.n49.com/biz/914930/hazeltons-gift-baskets-on-north-york-197-valley-road/
I ordered over 700.00 worth of products from Hazelton and paid extra for next day delivery. I did call the company two times and right away someone answer by the name Mark but after that no one would answer. They said they would send the tracking number so after a few days when I didn't receive a tracking number i contacted them by email and they responded that they were busy despite paying rush delivery. I even requested a refund and that is a no no despite no product was shipped. I kept calling the phone and every selection I make it says not a valid entry. I really think based on other reviews that they are recognizing their customer's number. After a few email and nothing happening I sent one final email to let them know they are ripping people off. Later that day I received an email it was shipped and it will arrive in total 9 days from the requested delivery date. From some reviews I read that fruits were not good after taking long to deliver. I also hope they do not substitute what suits them. They are also replying by signing off as just Hazelton so no idea who is responding. Was a surprise for some friends but not anymore, I had to let them know what was going on. huge disappointment.
Mark is from Vietnam. He's like a maid in hazeltons. Josh is a criminal. Kadeen is a terrorist..they are fraudsters. I worked for them. They refused to pay me .they claimed I stole a flower from them .I have reported to employment staboards. They will perish in agony
I'm compelled to share this bad service issue as broadly as possible. In Dec my agency purchased gift baskets from Hazelton Gift Baskets in Toronto, Canada. These baskets were guaranteed to be delivered by a certain date with a card wishing happy holidays from my firm Mi6 Agency. Not only did Hazelton Gift Baskets delivered them late but they misspelled my company name. We've expressed our concerns to their customer service group but no apologies and no refund. In fact they don't care. So, I've decided to express my concerns publicly. I'd like an apology and a refund which will go to charity.
Hazeltons should be closed up
Similar experience to others, we order a 30 stem bouquet & a bottle of fizz to be delivered to my Auntie for her 80th birthday, we live in Scotland and she is in Canada so we wanted something special to be delivered with a wow factor, because her birthday was on a Monday they couldn't deliver the bouquet and substituted for 3 plants, we saw the pics there was no wow factory needless to say we were very disappointed and quite angry. Naturally we perused this, but were fobbed off with excuses about the substitution clause in the T & C (rubbish, it was not a suitable substitute, but when they adjudicate their own services they are unlikely to come up with any other conclusion than 'it was a suitable substitution'). However what really annoys us is the fact we were in contact on a few occasion prior to delivery, but they never once mentioned they would not be able to deliver what was order and allow us the opportunity to cancel the order and go else where - very poor customer service. DO NOT USE
Speaking as a former Hazelton's employee, I fully back up every negative comment on this website. Loren Drotos (Mark Roberts) is a fraud and his eldest son Zach is the apple that didn't fall far from the tree. The amount of times I witnessed expired products being put into customers baskets, drivers being allowed to pick and choose what they wanted to deliver, which caused multiple issues during holidays especially for businesses that ordered thousands of dollars for specific delivery dates.
Lets not forget about the customers who ordered alcoholic beverages that never seemed to arrive thanks to Loren's middle son who would steal the bottles. When customers would call to request a refund for missing or late deliveries and quote policies listed on the Hazelton website, Loren would immediately make changes to the policies to try and cover his butt.
As another poster mentioned, there were multiple calls from companies that were never paid for the products they supplied and Loren had no intention of taking any calls. Employees including myself always seemed to have a shortage in our pay, any request for paystubs would be denied and any employee that showed compassion towards the customers or pushed to have the matters rectified would soon be presented with a text message telling them not to come back to work the next day.
This man and his family are nothing but crooks and should be thrown in jail for life to make up for the amount of people they have screwed over. Also mentioned that Yorkdale is run by this crook and so is Baskets and Boards on Sparks Rd (Ave), DO NOT ORDER FROM THESE COMPANIES IF YOU VALUE YOUR HARD EARNED DOLLARS.
HTTPs://basketsboards.com/collections/valentines-gift-baskets
So, after reading all of the same storeis...how can these people not get any charges against all of their false advertising. And bad reviews!
I too received a badly smashed gift, the person paid for expedited shipping, and this company could care less!
Attached are photos of what showed up a t my door.
They need to refund the person who purchased this gift for me the entire amount plus shipping.
I hate scam artists!
I’m MAD!
This is the worst gift service i have ever used. I ordered a customised gift basket for my sister's bday.
1. Their site is very misleading. It asks for expected date of delivery and mentions that it delivers to residency by 8PM if ordered by 2 AM. My basket reached my sisters place in 10 days
2. When it reached it had a potted plant that was completed smashed and had fungus on it
3. The chocolate bar was broken to pieces and fungus filled mud all around it
4. The cake in a horrible shape as well.
5. The box in which it came showed no signs of the destruction inside.
I have been emailing, pinging on their live chat and on FB however there has not been a single response from their end.
Is there a way we can post on FB or more sites about their horrible services so they dont cheat more people ?
Report them to FB. I have. I have reported them to Consumer Protection and the Federal Trade Commission
Really wish ZERO stars was an option
Ordered a gift basket for Christmas to be delivered to relatives n Houston Texas, not only did the basket not arrive for Christmas it actually got there three days into 2019. This is despite the fact that I paid almost 100 dollars for shipping.
They sent a note claiming the original order failed to arrive due to an accident n shipping and they would resend. Well, they resent the gift but offered no compensation nor dd they expedite the shipment. The customer service had a totally could not care less attitude and ignored my emails.
The final insult was that items were either missing from the order or had been substituted will never use this horrible company again - avoid at all costs.
Deluvery was 2 days late.
Cakelet looked like it was murdered.
Peruvian apple cactus wilted with its soul not in the vase anymore.
Ordered a beautiful gift basket for my sister and she received completely different kind of gift basket with different items in it. The customer service just talks to you via email and after wasting my time and a lot of emails they offered $5 credit for my next purchase. Worst experience ever. Stay away from them.
Scam artists! Ordered 2 baskets with them for delivery in GTA and after over 2 weeks nothing is delivered. Nobody responds to calls or emails.
Is it possible actually, if several customers combine their complaints, to file police report on them? 🤔
Yes. We all need to do something. A good start is a complaint with consumer protection. There are laws in Canada. People can get away with this because it is time consuming and stressful to do all the work. I am working on a story to be submitted to CBC. I am setting up a special email and will start collecting information and names. Stay tuned. 😆
They delivered ours to a weed shop by Canpar who you can also not call. They had the correct address so I figure our gift basket was sent to one of their friends.
I would love to share our last expérience with Hazelton's with you for your story.
Same thing happening in his companies in usa. They got shut down for labor board violations, dozens of employees left in limbo, products put out come from dollar store. The Bristol Press put out a news article. Hopefully Consumer Protection can really help all the people that are scammed by this man.
I had a very similar experience with their affiliate company Good4You Baskets part of the larger GIFT GROUP - and have reported them to BBB, flagged the charges with my bank and left reviews on google.
https://www.bbb.org/ca/on/north-york/profile/gift-baskets/the-gift-group-0107-1304325
https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2020/12/people-upset-toronto-gift-basket-company-failing-deliver-products-and-ghosting-customers/
I think they continually change company names to continue to operate - Would be great to track ALL the affiliate companies, and ALL the names changes they have gone through.
You mean like this: http://sendanywhe.re/VXLYQKN4
The more links I click on, the deeper I'm getting with how much fraud this husband and wife have committed since 2006 and probably longer!
We also had a similar experience, December 2020. Disheartening, to say the least. And disheartening that people are still going through this. I added a review on Trustpilot too, https://ca.trustpilot.com/review/www.hazeltons.ca. Can't get a hold of anyone, I have followed up several times; no one responds from the company, unless a generic email with no "real" contact info. I lodged a claim with the BBB (even though Hazelton's has an "F" rating and not accredited); sadly there were unable to resolve as after several attempts / notifications to the company, they failed to reply. Have a claim in with the credit card too; still waiting. ALSO, filed a claim/complaint with Consumer Protection Ontario (CPO). Everyone who is being effected really SHOULD file one. Here's the site link to do so, https://www.ontario.ca/page/consumer-protection-ontario The more people file a claim with CPO, the more information CPO will have to actually investigate this company. I hope that helps. In fact, when I talked to someone from CPO today, they said they had only a few claims on Hazelton's and it wasn't enough to investigate, hence why more people need to file their claims with CPO. But what the CPO wasn't aware of is the number of companies that fall under the company's umbrella, Hazelton's being only one of them. So, EVERYONE PLEASE FILE A CLAIM WITH CONSUMER PROTECTION ONTARIO and also note which ever company it is under "The Gift Group". The BBB is aware, and now CPO is. I also sent an email to CTV News, Consumer Alert regarding our awful experience. The email is alert@ctv.ca. I hope this help. Still, we have heard nothing from the company. I want our full refund. They did not deliver what we ordered and paid for. And it sounds like this is same resolution everyone wants.
I just sent an email to all of these email addresses and copied in the huff post
cs@beerngrub.com
cs@giftgp.com
cs@pairingsclub.com
sales1@basketsco.com
scoops@huffpost.com
tip@giftbasketscam.co.uk
torontotips@cbc.ca
billing@hazeltonsgiftbaskets.com
corporders@hazeltonsgiftbaskets.com
cs@hazeltonsgiftbaskets.com
neworders@hazeltonsgiftbaskets.com
othercs@hazeltonsgiftbaskets.com
cs@beerngrub.com
cs@giftgp.com
cs@pairingsclub.com
sales1@basketsco.com
scoops@huffpost.com
tip@giftbasketscam.co.uk
torontotips@cbc.ca
billing@hazeltonsgiftbaskets.com
corporders@hazeltonsgiftbaskets.com
cs@hazeltonsgiftbaskets.com
neworders@hazeltonsgiftbaskets.com
othercs@hazeltonsgiftbaskets.com
I placed an order on 19th Dec, 2020 and wanted it to be delivered on 31st. I had to follow up so many times. They never pick up the call or reply in chat. Some how I got response via email and they finally delivered on 13th Jan. They replaced the items ordered with cheaper items which were three times lesser in price. I They refused to refund the money for the substitution. Such a cheap and shameful act. This should be reported at least in the future customers should be saved from this website.
The Valentines order never showed up. It says online that nobody was home, but that is not true at all. We watched all the footage from our door camera & nobody ever came with the order. They also had the phone # & nobody ever called either. I have still not been notified that the order was unable to be delivered either. Order HC7266679
I made an order for a Hazelton’s Vegan Chocolate cake on 11/10/2023. I got to select the delivery date, I selected 11/22/23 the Wed. Just prior to Thanksgiving. My cake arrived the day AFTER Thanksgiving on Fri.11/24/23. It was a damaged WHITE layer cake covered in pastel sprinkles? So very disappointed!
Order # HU4982368