Hallmark Fumbles Hallmark Holiday

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Hallmark Cards, one of the world's best-known makers of greetings cards, apologized to its clients on Wednesday for problems they experienced trying to access its Web site on Valentine's Day.

An army of love-struck Internet users seeking to pick up or send Hallmark electronic cards on Feb. 14 was turned away from the company's site, which was off-line for a large part of the day.

'We thought we were ready to handle a huge amount of traffic on Valentine's Day. Obviously, we thought wrong,' Hallmark wrote in an email to clients, saying the Web site was flooded by double the expected traffic.

'We cringe at the disappointment we caused to some of you,' the company said.