Ok....weird, weird, weird is all I can say about this situation. Day before yesterday I get a call on my phone. A guy leaves a message on my phone saying " Hi my name is Steven Nicole and Id like to order a cake from you, please email me at XXXXXXX . End message." Yeah, he actually said "end message." when he was done talking. He didnt leave a number, and unfortunatly he called me during the exact time my phone died for 10 minutes. So, here are the emails that followed. Please tell me if it sounds weird to you. I havent replied back yet.


The most recent email is first, its only 3 i think...
_____________________________________________________________
Hello , thanks for the swift reply to my order request, and for your concern as well, i want you to know that am very grateful, and am really inspired ever since the first time I tasted your cake, that is why I will prefer you bake for me..or i rather not bake a cake for my wedding.

I will like you to bake for me separate 5 tier cake, i want some tier to be chocolate and some to be Vanilla flavor cake , and they should be decorated with pink roses as seen in the picture i attached, what you see in the picture is a four tier separated stand cake, but i want five tier cake, let the flower be made of sugar flower or non real flowers. ( in the picture what you see on the side on the cake is a polka dot, dot, i will like the color of the polka dot to be blue, brown and purple). And you should also have the cake covered in fondant or butter cream, and the inscription should be writing on one side of the tier as Happy Married Life. After which you will packaged in your regular cake boxes for pick, Once they are ready for pick up .

They should be ready for pick up by 3 O'clock PM on the 17th of Dec 2009...and a private shipper will be coming to pick them up...to delivery to my wedding reception in Canada and i dont want you to be worried about the safety delivery of the cake. Regarding the shipping ,I have a private shipping agent that will take good care of pick up and the delivery consignments. The Shipper will come for the pickup arrangement of the Cake at your place, at the pick up date and time.

And as I have told you previously, you dont have anything to be worry about on the shipping of the cake it will be well secure and in a good condition on arriving the location of my wedding reception in Toronto Canada, the shipper will be coming with there refrigerator Van for the pick up and it will be ship under the fragile shipping insurance scheme, a friend of mine has use them before for a shipping consignment of this such and they are well reliable, dependable and secure..

So I want you to calculate for me what will be the total cost of the cake order including the decoration plus tax if included, and also I want you to add $780 for the cost of the pick up and the shipping, so once I have your reply for the total I will remit my credit card for you to charge for the total costso that you can have the order book right away. And once you have the order secured, I will have the shipper contact you for the pick up schedule arrangement, also i will instruct you further on how you will pay the shipping fee to the shipper as to confirm the pickup arrangement of the cake. Willingly Am also offering you an extra $100 for taking care of my order properly and for any less stress you will go through for completing the transaction for me due to my absence.

So please do calculate altogether the total cost of the cake + decoration and tax + $780 for shipping charges, including the $100 am offering you, then get back to me with the total for all, so once i have your reply for the total cost i will remit my credit card for you to run for the charges, also let me know is you accept Visa or Master card.
I will be waiting to have your reply for the total cost then we can proceed from there, hope to hear from you soonest.
Thanks and God bless.
Steven Nicole.


--- On Sat, 12/5/09, G wrote:



Subject: Re: Wedding cake order for 17th of Dec 2009.
To: "Steven Nicole" <.com>
Date: Saturday, December 5, 2009, 12:58 AM


Hi Steven,
I can most certainly help you with your needs. However I do not allow pickups as I do not currently have a public bakery. I do delivery only. Actually for stacked wedding cakes more than 2 tiers, they need to be assembled by a decorator. It is not possible to assemble these cakes without knowledge of how to do it. It also minimizes your risk, because you know it will be assembled properly and wont be damaged in the process.

I normally require 30 days notice for wedding cake orders, only because I need time to receive payment and order supplies. However if we can be prompt in working out the details, it should be no problem to accept this order. As of now I have the date open.

If you reply back with the photo of the cake, and delivery address, I can give you a price quote. Fondant and buttercream are priced differently, so I need to know which one you prefer. Also some cake designs can only be done with fondant to get the correct look, so after seeing the photo I can let you know what will be possible.

Thanks for your interest in my cakes, I look forward to hearing from you.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steven Nicole <.com>
To:
Sent: Fri, December 4, 2009 7:36:40 PM
Subject: Wedding cake order for 17th of Dec 2009.


Thanks for the reply. I will like you to bake me chocolate and Vanilla cake of 5 tier that can serve approximately 300 guest or more , and I want the cake to be decorated with pink roses and the cake should be covered in fondant or in butter cream, and there will be an inscription writing on the side of one of the tier as HAPPY MARRIED LIFE and i want you to pack them in different boxes to be ready for pick up at the said time and date.. 17th of Dec 2009., 3 O'clock PM. Reply me back and let me know if you can fill in the date for me....??? then i can forward all the details and the picture sample of what i will like you to bake for me.
Thanks and God bless.
Steven Nicole.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:
To: com
Sent: Fri, December 4, 2009 5:42:06 PM
Subject: Wedding Cake


Hi Steven,
I'm sorry I missed your call. I received your message. Feel free to give me a call or an email to discuss your cake needs. Thank you!

It's a SCAM.....run as fast as you can!

i'd say scam...i think the giveaway is the "happy married life".

I agree, there have been several other threads on CC about this very scam. Like Beckalita said, RUN as fast as you can!!

The thing is, in the phone message he left, he had perfect grammer, american accent. In these emails his grammer is pretty bad. It just doesnt seem right. Especially since he CALLED me, but didnt leave a phone number, only an email. I appreciate your feedback.

Definitely sounds like a scam to me. They will send you a check or a stolen credit card number, then get the money and run. That's why the $780. Someone tried to do that to my husband once. I reported them to my email provider because they can track the IP address. I'd ask where they had my cake and see if they keep talking to you. They probably won't if you ask too many questions.

I emailed them back saying, Im sorry I couldnt help them, they need to find someone closer to their area. Good grief. Im in FL. Like Id make something for someone to bring to Canada anyway? Is that even legal? Even if it wasnt a scam I wouldnt do it. Nut job.

Oh and you know what else? Not to sound sexist or anything....but Ive never had a guy calling me to buy his own wedding cake.

You're right he is a scammer.

The first time we dealt with these people, they called on the phone using the TTY service for the hearing impaired. If you've never had a call from them before, the deaf person types a message that an operator can read through the phone. After each time they speak to you, they say "end message". When you reply back over the phone, you also say "end message". Since they are a third party, part of their job is that they can only explain how the service works and whatever is said by typed message (the deaf person). They cannot have any side discussions with you at all. I've heard that the TTY operators are disgusted with it (rightfully so) because they realize they are scammers but are prohibited from discussing it with you. What an abuse to a wonderful service.

The next time was by email, very similar to the one you received (even the Happy Married Life). We conversed by email until it became obvious that it was a scam. Several days later another but we just wrote that we know you are a scammer and I will not do business with scammers. Since then, no more contact!

I wondered if they were contacting anyone else. I should've known that they would as long as someone falls for it. I guess we need to make sure that no one else falls for it.

RRRRUUUUNNNN

Actually, I delivered a wedding cake today and I never spoke to/met the bride - only the groom. Pretty unusual but not unheard of

Oh Ive done that a lot. Actually about 70% of my customers I havent met. I do most of the consultations over the phone. And I dont mind doing it that way, but this just didnt seem right. Actually, one of my next customers is coming all the way from Canada to FL for her hubby's birthday. Really nice woman. Im excited to be able to do this for her. In October I had a customer come from out of state as well. FL is such a tourist destination...that's why.

Im so glad you explained about the TTY. That explains it all. Even explains why such good grammer on the phone, but horrible grammer in his emails. Thank you thank you.

It's a pretty old scam ... been around for quite awhile, but it's always good to bring these to everyone's attention since while a scam may be old, there's always SOMEONE who's never heard of it ... yet.

Happened to me when I was a secretary. It was an old scam involving rolls of fax machine paper. When I told hubby about it, he laughed and said it was "one of the oldest scams on the books!" I said, "Well, if I've never heard of it, it's new to ME!!"

As previously mentioned, the "Happy Married Life" is the big flag.

I've also had a few groom's call to initiate the ordering of the wedding cake.

Yeah....sorry guys. Im the naive newbie on the block. lol. That's why I asked about it. Ive only been in business for myself for 8 months. Before that I was a decorator at a grocery store for 2 years. So, yeah. There is always gonna be a newbie who has no clue about this. Not only that, but considering how new I am, Im surprised I would be targeted. Like, what are these guys doing? Just contacting every cake place in the area to see who bites? Weird.

Deb, that is really weird about the fax machine paper....so does anyone know how these scams work? Just out of curiosity, how do they get your money? If they say they are gonna send you money, then....how do they steal MY money? Or are they trying to steal cake? lol. I would think that would be unlikely.

I don't it sounds to me as far as the card is concerned like they steal the card & you steal the money for them by charging the card

yes i would agree too SCAM! how sad that its come to this.
my daughter has been looking for a job and gets these emails that are auto response, asking for her to submit her credit report. luckily she showed my the emails first and we avoided idenity theft.
people are so pathetic!

I used to work for a company that made safes and other security equipment - the same scam was tried there, and very nearly succeeded as the management were too busy counting the dollars to notice it was a dodgy! It was picked up by one of the girls in the accounts department who refused to bend the rules to rush through an account for this big spender new client. Even people who run security businesses get caught out, so well done on trusting your instincts and checking it out!

What a loser. Is there any way to report this to the police? I dont know if anything can be done.

Yeah that is usually how I do things. Unless its really a last minute order and I get a really good vibe from someone. Ive been known to do it....ok, well, twice. But normally I require things to be paid in full. This would have been a last minute order...for the 17th....so it may or may not have had time for the check to clear...depending on when it was sent, etc. I dont know. Its good to know that people are aware its a scam, though. And now I'M aware too. yay. So now I probably wont get scamed. Hooray for me.

Happy Marriage Life. Nuf said. I've gotten that email about 10 times.

I get that email at least once a week. I usually reply "suck it, scammer" then hit delete.

Blessings Everyone

I am grateful for this post. As a few of the more experienced decorators have mentioned ... a "scam" may be old to some, but to those of us who have never heard about it, IT'S NEW! Thank you all for the wealth of valuable information.

If an e-mail ever starts with "Hi, I would like you to bake me.....". Scam. Period. No one talks like that.

I think the biggest flag is that his shipper is picking it up. That's a big time scam....

Although this email is a definite scam....last month I did deliver a wedding cake for an order I thought originally was a scam as it was a cake being ordered by a woman in Ethiopia!!!!! But she was a government worker who was trying to help her friend (who was getting married in my area) get some stuff done for a wedding that got moved up, so they were really trying hard to get everything done. After an initial distrust by me, we talked it out on the phone (from the American embassy in Ethiopia, no less!) and everything worked great after that.

So suspicious emails *can* be real...but the ones that want it shipped or delivered via a third party are always scams.

Hey Kitagrl, I remember you posting about that Ethiopian email you thought was suspicious. Glad to hear it all turned out well.

I was wondering has anyone ever cashed the check, and NOT sent them the overage?

Mike

Firstly, I read that sometimes the check looks like it clears, and then a week or two later, they pull the funds from your bank. So you think you have the money, but you don't.

Yesterday, I got an email from PayPal that my account was about to expire, log on today through this link to renew it. I've never heard of paypal accounts expiring, so I opened another tab and went to paypal's website, there's no sign of my account expiring. I also had a few years ago that I did not use it in a long time and it didn't expire, now I used it just a few months ago, and they're telling me its expiring due to inactivity. Paypal has an email address to forward all suspicious emails to. Most people know to be careful, but they just have to catch one person to win, we all have to be careful every time.