Wedding Cake Scam

“Will you accept a relay call?” the operator asked.  And that’s how it started.  A what?  Not being from the South, there are lots of times when I don't understand what is being said, so I asked my usual “I’m sorry, could you repeat that please?”  Apparently, she explained, the person on the other line was deaf.  Since I only have a standard telephone, the operator would be reading what the person typed, wait for my reply, and type my answer back for the deaf person to read.  Rather cumbersome, but who wants to sound insensitive.

The person making the call needed a wedding cake.  Simple enough.  For 300 guests.  Still simple enough.  Fondant.  Ok.  Could he pick it up?  A little unusual (since we deliver most wedding cakes), but still Ok…  After giving me the facts and asking if we were available to bake the cake, the person, who said his name was "Mike Williams," offered to continue the “conversation” via email.  Hindsight being 20/20, "Mike" could have skipped the relay call and gone directly to email, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Mike wanted a fondant cake to feed 300 people for his wedding in Toronto (this is the actual photo he emailed me). Never mind that this is the first time in my history of making wedding cakes that a man (forget the deaf part) has ever ordered the cake.  Ever.  But for about $2000, I decided to overlook that particular anomaly.

He wanted strawberry cake, covered in fondant (white with small pink dots) and gum paste roses.  He said he had tasted our cakes before and really liked them (I don't remember him, but our cakes ARE good...).

He was sending a refrigerated truck, and the cost of our cake, even with the transportation to Canada, was still less that a similar cake purchased "up north".  Said he had done this before.  I was flattered.  He offered to pay in advance.  For the cake, for the flowers, for the shipping (we could pay the shipper when they picked up the cake), plus $100 for our troubles "handling" the shipment. The shipper would pick up the cake on a Thursday about a month hence, at 10:00 am, for a Saturday wedding.  It takes 16 hours to get to Toronto from here, so that seemed legit. I overlooked the fact that he was ordering cake to serve 300, to be shipped over 1000 miles, a mere four weeks before the wedding.  We are often booked a year in advance for local weddings. But hey...

He gave me two credit cards.  Not so unusual, as a lot of people don't have room on one card for such a large expenditure.  The numbers on the two cards were remarkably similar, just a couple of numbers different at the end.  That was a little weird, but the charges went through so I figured it must be OK. He said he would forward the shipping particulars in a week or so.

By now, it should have also bothered me that:

• I didn't know the name of the bride
• I didn't know exactly where this cake was going or who the shipper was
• I didn't have an exact billing address or phone number (only an email address -- He did give me a fax number to fax the receipt, and it had a (206) area code - in Seattle.
• None of his 300 expected guests could help make a phone call to confirm any of the details of the transaction

I ordered supplies (fondant, shipping boxes, etc.) and smiled at my good fortune.  After all, this is Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And someone in Canada likes our cake so much they are willing to send a refrigerated truck to ship it over 1000 miles for their wedding.

About a week later, I got an email from him instructing me to wire money to the shipper.  Just the name of a person, who would accept money via Western Union. DING DING DING DING.

This was the beginning of the end.  When I emailed him that I could not wire cash, that I would need an invoice and write a check, he backed down and said the shipper would pick up a check with the cake.  Then I called my credit card processor.  They said scam.  The names on the credit card numbers I gave them did not match my customer.  I had two choices - I could reverse the transaction, or they would do it for me.  Said I should be happy I did not actually bake the cake or send any money.

I called the police, who were not really able to do anything since a crime had not been committed (yet).  They did send an undercover officer out to the shop at the appointed time just in case someone showed up looking for money.  But that was the end of it and I never heard from Mike Williams again.

Please tell me I am not the first idiot to fall for this.  A quick search yielded some interesting results.

• The moving to the U.S. and planning a wedding scam
• Another "Relay Call" scam

Comments

[Mary's Cakes & Pastries]

Yep, and people must fall for it cause they keep doing it. Glad you were not taken.

[Elizabeth Armijo]

Hi i was contacted by a Sandra Wright wanting a 5 tier cake for 300 people as well. I felt it was a scam so i quoted her higher than normal and she did not hesitate. She wanted to give be an extra $970 for shipping costs. I told ehr i needed a phone number and physical address for my tax purposes and she gave me a Glendale AZ address (I live in AZ) And a Canadian phone number. Once i told her that she is responsible for shipping cost i did not hear from her again. The next day my friend in Ohio who bakes got a similar email for 250 cupcakes his name was Richard bension.

[Sandra Shadden]

Our shop in Davenport, Iowa received a call and email from 'Cynthia Scott' who wanted the 5 tier cake for her wedding in Canada. She was in hospital battling Cancer and was very appreciative of our help. She said if the cakes weren't possible then 50 pies were fine. Same $980.00 for shipping, plus an extra $100 for my troubles. I had suspicions from the first relay call since I have been a sign language interpreter for the deaf for 30 years. I'll file the IC3 report right now.

[Mary's Cakes & Pastries]

So glad you were not taken. :-)

[Mr. Terry]

Just so that everyone knows, the scam is still going on. Our small shop received a call and email from 'Cynthia Scott' who wanted a 5 tier cake for a wedding in Toronto. She was in hospital and was very appreciative of our help. We told her we didn't do wedding cakes so she changed her order to 50 pies and would pay via two credit cards and then we were to pay for shipping. Being a small shop we were flattered by the order and started the process. What spooked me was when she wrote and asked that the shipping costs be paid via Western Union. After that, we searched for wedding cake scams and came across this site. At that the point, we contacted both the police and credit card companies. Fortunately, we were not out much more than a couple of hours work and 4 pies, which we'll give to our staff. Thanks to all of you for posting your experiences or we may have taken the bait.

[J. perry]

I get about 1-2 calls per year from people with broken english who are very hard to hear, who want to email me about some huge order shipped
to some state far away. The first time I was suspicious and did further checking with the venue they wanted me to ship the cake to.
The venue told me it was a scam. I also get several emails per year with No capitalization or punctuation. Once I got so fed up I emailed
them back calling them every name I could think of.
It's sad that people are so bad off they have to resort to this.

[Tanya]

Hey all,

I was contacted by this "Cathy J Labella" starting on Wed. November 10th asking the exact same thing- 300 person cake, 5 tier,Delivery on Nov. 18th at 3pm, same pic as everyone else got...She will pay whatever I want for my cakes because she loves it so much and won't have a wedding without my cakes. blah, blah, blah. She will pay me $980.00 for shipping, plus an extra $100 for my troubles...knew it was a scam from the beginning. I contacted my local police (I'm in B.C. Canada, she wants the cake for her wedding in Chicago!) and they forwarded me onto the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center www.anti-fraudcenter.ca or www.recol.ca if you want to file a complaint online.
I've been giving them(the Canadian Fraud center) the credit card numbers that "she" has given me (which are stolen by the way!) and now the location in which I am supposed to Western Union the $980.00 for shipping to- A lady by the name of Erica Langford in Champaign, IL.....Don't let this person get you, and if you can, file a complaint- the more people that do this, the more they can do about it!

[Eileen Brown]

This just happened to us as well! Thank you for posting this scam so we didn't get "taken". Ours was translated from FRENCH!!!

[Rachael Louw]

So glad everyone has posted - I googled Cathy J Labella as we too received an email for a cake for 300 - they want it for Oct 15th to ship to Cananda - same cake pic as posted above. I've been wary from the the first email but it all seemed so fishy i just had to google "her" name and the Wilton post came up first. Glad no money has been exchanged, just wasted email time... will report it as soon as I have time. Thank you everyone for being so diligent ...

[Gwyn]

I got this same email two days ago, thought it sounded a little fishy, googled the name of the "sender," and the first result was a post on the Wilton forums talking about the scam and pointing to this page. Good for you for spreading the word!

I sent back an email saying that this was a scam, scammers disgust me, and to go find someone else to fall for that garbage. The sad part is, they probably already have.