Illegal home baker help - Page 2

Well, I sound a lot nicer when I type things out. I'd probably be sitting at home whining to my husband while writing the anonymous email!! Haha. My friends always call me the diplomatic one. I usually will give someone one chance and the benefit of a doubt. Once you smash through that though, you gotta work your way back into my respect. I just try to never be rude or insulting.

Though if this lady knows what she's doing is wrong, a nice call from the health department may be what she needs.

Wow! How has this person hurt you? You want to cause her harm, and you want us to support and justify your behavior. It sounds like you are jealous. I suggest you step back and reevaluate the situation. Nothing good ever comes from hurting other people.

On the contrary...if this person really is operating illegally, not insured, and cheating on her taxes, attempting to stop this behavior sooner rather than later will be beneficial to her in the long run.

Although the point about customers getting sick is stretching it.

I agree that you should think twice before reporting her. You don't know what her situation is. I've been very tempted to begin a home business even though it would be illegal for me as well. My husband's been out of work for 3 years now and is just doing temporary jobs and I'm a stay-at-home mom with 2 little ones. So we could really use the money just to make ends meet but I'm too afraid of getting into trouble so I've just been making free cakes for family and close friends and practicing my craft until I can either afford to rent a commercial kitchen or wait for a Cottage Law in California to pass. It's been very tempting to do the "wrong thing" when people ask me how much I'd charge them for cakes and want my contact info to order a cake from me and I have to keep turning them down. I think that if you focus on your cakes and their quality then you won't have to worry about competition. I'm sure there are plenty of other people doing what this woman is doing and you can't spend your time researching and reporting each one of them. My advice to you is to focus on your business and see it thrive. Sooner or later she will probably get into trouble anyway for all of the reasons that have already been mentioned.

I suggest contacting her nicely and give her a chance as she may not know the laws...tell her you mean her no harm but you wanted to inform her of the laws of your State and even encourage her to call and check herself! Tell her your afraid she will be fined if a customer or a rival baker calls to check her credentials! And she could also be put completely out of of business! Do this with concern and kindness as not everyone is trying to stick it to the system! I know this from experience...we owned a business and my husband has a general contractors lic...well a jealous competitor...turned us in to the contractors board because part of our business we needed to add an additional lic if we did jobs over a certain amt and we were innocently unaware of this and if our competitor had called and told us this law we would have thanked them! Because we wanted to be legal! Instead the subjected us to tens of thousands of dollars in fines they totally even had us set up! It was so dirty,,, and what ended up happening we Never had gone over the monetary amt that causes the need for the additional lic... let me tell you we went and got the additional lic just in case...and this business became huge on our Radar! In a ugly way...they did not succeed but the stress of the investigation and the possibility of losing our business was a horrific experience! Niceness should always be your first response because believe me you will reap what you sew!

Wow! I believe many bakers start from home in the beginning, did she take customers from you or did something really bad for you to be so angry? Send her an email or confront her nicely instead of just reporting her, you don't know her situation. Don't forget what goes around comes around and every action comes with a reaction.

What the home baker is doing is wrong and illegal. However, you sound like you are stalking her. You know everything about her so you must be spending a lot of energy researching her. My suggestion is to spend more energy into your business and less in what others are doing. GL!

This thread is going to get locked, as sure as the sun will rise in the morning. The OP was a baiting, trolling post from someone who hasn't posted here in more than 2 years.

Why not just leave it alone and let it die? No good can come from this.

I have to say that I am really surprised by all the responses to this thread!! Laws are in place for a reason, we do/should not get to pick and choose which ones we follow. In my opinion it shows a lack of integrity for someone to KNOWINGLY be operating a business illegally. I too would be upset if someone blatantly ignored the laws that I worked so hard to follow. Ignorance of the law does not give us a free pass!!

I personally would contact the individual directly and inform her of the laws and the violations. If she continues I would put a call into the health department.

I am fortunate that I live in a Cottage Food state, and do not have to jump through as many hoops to be able to start my business. HOWEVER, I did not know that when I decided to start my business. Before I would agree to sell any cakes I made the necessary phone calls to confirm that I was on the up and up.

Oh well.

If only you hadn't replied to the thread telling people not to reply to the thread.

LOL, I had started typing my response long before you had put yours there. I had to take care of something else and came back to finish. I did not see that you had said anything till just now. Sorry

I know exactly what you are going through. I constantly research the surrounding areas to make sure that I am being competitive. It took me almost a year and lots of meetings, inspections, etc to get my home bakery approved. Money for permits, insurance, etc just like someone that owns a shop. I wanted to do things the right way. I recently saw an ad on craigslist for a woman selling bake goods out of her home for cheap! I mean like $4 a dozen for cupcakes! So I emailed her to ask several questions. Supposedly she does everything from scratch out of her home. When I asked if she was inspected by the Dept of Health she told me no but she was looking into it. So being nice, I politely said to her to be careful, especially since she is advertising because I would hate to see the Health Dept find out (which in my area they have been known to look at advertising to make sure people are legit). You know what she says to me? "Do you know what I would need to become legal?" well if you were looking into it wouldn't you know? I spent a lot of time and money becoming legit and I do not regret it at all. I understand that you need to start somewhere but do it with family and friends. So I understand why it's frustrating. I will not call the Dept of Health on her because I just can't do that. I believe in karma and either she will go the right way or go the wrong way. But I did my part to warn her because there are people out there that aren't as nice.

Why can't people on this site realize that there are always going to be illegal bakers on this site and in the world. The mom who bakes cupcakes, to help make ends meet... the single person with talent and no money to start her own business...just for examples.

there is always someone on here (and sometimes always the sameone) on here that will look for that person to cause problems with threats and say they are going to turn them in. It is like there is some kind of reward to do this?

These bakers know what there doing, and doing it for there own reasons leave them alone. They are adults that make there own choices.

It almost seems that it is a game to get rid of the illegal bakers so there is more baking for the legal ones.

Its just so sad to see on here .... please lets just talk cakes and stop the lets see who we can get in trouble
it is just so like in school the tattle tale....not a favorite person. This is CAKE CENTRAL not CSI...

everyone smile and play nice!! Enjoy this great site.

It's certainly not a game...if you've invested time and money to launch a legal business and you are being undercut by illegal businesses with lower operating costs, it's just good business to level the playing field and make sure everyone is playing by the same rules.

And sorry, but if you don't have the money to start your own business legally that doesn't give you permission to break the law, regardless of the talent level.