I ordered a meat and cheese gift box from Hickory Farms to be delivered to my sister and husband on the west coast. I added a gift message in the options box on the website. I used every character space available writing Christmas and congratulations messages followed by, "Love, (spouse and I) LGBFJB".
An employee deleted our entire message and entered, "From (name on credit card)", excluding spouse's name and any of our personal holiday greetings and congratulations messages.
When I emailed Hickory Farms about the changed message, their first email response was, "Sorry. We'll try to do better."
Following up, I told Hickory Farms their gift message option does not say, "If Hickory Farms approves your message, we will include your message with the gift box." When I questioned why it is okay for an employee to decide what message I send to the recipient, Hickory Farms replied, "Sorry. We'll give you a 10% credit."
I responded with keep your 10%. Explain to me how censorship of our heartfelt message was deleted and how an employee is allowed the discretion of completely removing my spouse's name as a gift giver is okay? I told them I want a call from the manager. As of now, no call from a manager. A 10% credit has been applied.
As President Trump stated, "Everything woke turns to shit." Hickory Farms just lost a customer. I would bet money had my Christmas message ended with LGBTQ+ instead of LGBFJB, the message would have been sent without censorship.
Not sure how far you want to take it, but why do they get to decide that was worth 10%? They have already admitted you didn't get full value of what you paid for. If you paid by credit card, you may want to dispute the charge. Keep the description of the issue generic (in other words, leave out your message) and let Hickory explain it if they want to. Just say they failed to deliver what was requested and ruined the value of the gift, which you described perfectly in your post.
This is a great plan. Please update us if you go this route!