m.o.b. Complaint (I never get these). How to handle this? - Page 2

It's doubtful this will wind up in any court...you can take them to small claims if they charge back the cost of the cake, and chances are you will win, but you would still need to collect the judgment so I don't think that will really help.

There's really no reason for them to sue you, unless they are not aware of the CC chargeback process.

They didn't order an "authentic" Prada purse on eBay and ended up getting a Chinese knockoff. They had face-to-face interaction, tasted the product beforehand, and inspected and signed for the merchandise in person - and there is written proof to back all that up. Sorry, but none of this applies. If they want to claim a chargeback on a local food transaction like this, they have to claim fraud.

You can theoretically try and argue this, but I assure you, if you try and call your bank and have a charge blocked for a local restaurant you ate at but decided that you didn't like the food, they will tell you SOL. I dare you - order a pizza, have it delivered, then call your bank to have the charge blocked because your pepperoni was burnt. See how much money they give back to you.

All the customer has to do is claim that the cake was inedible and was different from what they had at the tasting. It's certainly not a slam dunk, but IMO such a chargeback has about even odds of succeeding, since credit card companies tend to favor the customer, especially when the merchant does not offer any compensation.



If I claimed the pizza was inedible (something a little worse than burnt pepperoni), the credit card company would tell me to take it up with the restaurant. If the restaurant didn't offer any compensation the CC company would probably approve the chargeback.

Where do you get that info? Thin air? No they wouldn't. Again, I dare you to try it. Double dog dare you. TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU! Chargebacks are for FRAUD, a bank does not, will not and never will get in the middle of a customer complaint and be judge, jury and executioner over someone not liking food they said they liked, paid for, then changed their mind wanting a refund. If so, then nobody would ever have to pay for anything they ever bought ever because all they had to do was call Chase and whine that the service was slow/can was dented/checker was dumb/cheese was too oily and a billion other lame excuses that I could think up to get out of paying for every bill, food item or service I ever received. In fact, I can't even block the gym from debiting my account every month for a gym membership my husband signed up for but never uses. In fact, try THAT too - I QUADRUPLE DARE YOU TO go to 24 Hour Fitness, sign a yearly contract, then claim a chargeback with your bank after a month, saying the gym was "smelly" and you don't want to go there anymore. Report back in 12 months how successful you were in getting the bank to block the gym from taking money from your account and how successful you were in getting money back after the gym took it.

Our financial system just does not work this way. It just - doesn't.

Now, if you called your bank and said "OMG! My card was stolen! I have no idea what this charge is!!!" or "OMG! I think my identity was stolen! I have no idea what this charge is!!!" then the bank takes action - they freeze your account, cancel your card, in most cases require you to file a police report of the theft, and request proof from the merchant of the transaction. If a merchant hands over emails and signature proof of meeting the customer in person and of the customer getting the merchandise, then the customer would be facing serious charges filed by THE BANK for attempting to commit FRAUD.

I have personal experience working in the financial industry dealing with debt collection, chargebacks, small claims, large claims, the Federal reserve, local banks, etc. OP, you have NOTHING to worry about when it comes to the customer just deciding on giving themselves a refund.

No amount of "dares" will get me to commit fraud to prove you wrong, so you'll have to settle for third party accounts.

http://forums.foodservice.com/index.cfm?FSF_action=view_thread&FSF_UI_tab=forum&FSF_ID=14385
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1082458/

There is also a difference between the examples in your post and "the cake was inedible so I drove 45 minutes to return what was left of it, and the bakery wouldn't give me any money back". I'm not saying it's fair or that the customer really has a valid complaint, just that from the credit card company's perspective it seems like a compelling case.

Jason, the 1st thread is from 2006. The merchant had the money returned and the customer arrested. This actually proves my point, not yours. Did you even read the thread?

The 2nd was an [b]internet purchase[b] of an out of the country hotel room. I clearly stated that internet purchases - and let me be clear - BLIND internet purchases, as in, you were unable to physically inspect the merchandise or location, and especially if the seller is out of town, state, or country prior to purchasing, are handled differently and are much more open to chargebacks.

Your random threads are useless. I know you hate to loose arguments, so keep trying. I'm sure you'll manage to find a random instance of some merchant having a bank reverse a charge - but it's the [i]exception[i], not the rule.

Yes. The merchant that had the money returned and the customer arrested was the second person to post in that thread, the OP of that thread did not post about a resolution to the chargeback.



The customer in this thread paid over the phone, so it is a card-not-present transaction and subject to similar rules.

Unfortunately as you are probably very aware, that is the whole issue with the business forum - this is the main reason I would very likely never post anything here looking for help, because with the help, you regularly have to take the crap that goes with it.

Anyway, I take it you won't be making a decision regarding the issue until after the bride has left? I would ask the bride to taste the cake at the same time you do - it's brilliant if the middle tier hasn't even been cut, because then at least it will be less subject to drying. If the bride refuses to taste it, I would be questioning why - I would make sure and taste it in front of her and ask her to explain the precise reason for her dissatisfaction - I'm sure you'll do all this anyway.

The thing that JUMPED right out at me was the fact that the MOB asked if you offered a satisfaction guarantee! That is very odd - something I would never ask at a cake tasting unless I already had plans to scam you out of money. The fact that they left it a week before contacting you is also very suspect. I would say that if the cake IS dry at room temperature, I would make comment to the fact that they left it too long to contact you, by which point anything you could have done is no longer relevant.

I have been to many a wedding and had very average cake, I would NEVER complain about it to the MOB or anyone else for that matter, I simply wouldn't eat it.

This has 'scam' written all over it, IMHO.

OP I'm glad that you're sticking to your guns. They had a tasting and liked the cake. No word of shortening then, so why now?

I believe you're on the right track but I'd like to add that for your contract give clients a shorter time frame to bring the uneaten cake back. I give 24 hours from the time the cake changes hands.

So much can happen to a cake over the course of over a week especially after it's traveled 1 hour both ways, been on display at a wedding, cut up, and then kept in heaven knows what conditions before coming back to you.

double post

All the language in the world in credit card agreements doesn't mean #@^% if they dispute it. They'll pull the money back, hold it until they determine what the situation is, then either give it to you or not. They don't have to give it to you even if the cake was delivered and was exactly what they ordered. Ask me how I know.

I had almost the EXACT same thing happen to me this summer, with a heinous pair of wenches. The cake was just what they ordered, I had made the same cake for other people that week and they loved it, they claimed that it was dry and that people were complaining about it at the reception. As I put pieces together by talking to the venue and other bakers they interviewed (who I knew personally) it became apparent that they had spent too much and were trying to get money back. They were complaining to me that nobody could eat the cake, but at the same time were complaining to the venue that they cut the pieces too big and not everyone got the cake, so they wanted $$ back from the venue too.

So which was it...inedible cake, or cake that not everyone got? They were just trying to get refunds from everyone.

Anyway, they immediately "took it to the next level" by posting insulting things on my facebook page and having their friends do the same thing. Then they filed a BBB complaint under a fake name (which actually worked to my advantage because the BBB could see they were a little off). I had to ban them from my facebook page and post about the banning (without mentioning who they were) because I didn't know who had seen what on the page before I deleted their comments. As soon as I did that the bride called me (it had been her mother calling to scream at me up until then) and she agreed to a refund as long as she would pull her complaint, not post anything else online anywhere, and put her mother on a leash. As soon as the refund was accepted, they contested the entire credit card charge.

I had to go through a bunch of paperwork to show that I'd refunded them (the original payment were using Square over the phone with a CC) and Square won't let you do a partial refund. I had to refund using a check, but since I had the printout of the check that wasn't an issue to show that they'd received it. Since Square is the processing party and the card used was an Amex, they couldn't give me any information about why they said it had been pulled back, Amex received that complaint and Square just processed it. In my case I showed that they'd received a refund so they did give me the money back eventually, but it was a pain in the rear.

If you used a service that won't let you do a partial refund, do NOT refund anything unless the person is there in person to charge the new charge, and charge it BEFORE you process the refund. Over-the-phone transactions are the ones that they look at hardest since they're obviously the most fraud-related. And if you process the refund first there's no reason why she would hand you the card to re-charge her for the balance.

I have a friend who just went through this with paypal, and they said that unless there's a shipping label proving that the item was delivered they can't take the vendor's side on disputes. The guy she talked to said that cash only is the best way to go for a business like this where the product is eaten, because they can't take anyone's word that the cake was or wasn't edible. That isn't realistic based on how most people today use some form of credit, so things like this are going to happen every now and then. I actually wrote a blog article about this exact thing tha's going up next week, I think...

I've noticed a huge increase int he number of complaints regarding people who want refunds in the past year. In the 14 years I've been doing cakes I can think of 4 refunds I've given, and two of them were this year. In both situations there was nothing wrong with the cakes, but the client was obviously trying to recoup some of their costs. I've spoken to a lot of diferent wedding pros who are seeing the same thing, too, it isn't just me. I think that people are watching the tv shows with million-dollar weddings, then when they go to get the same thing thye're hit with the bills afterward and realize that they can't afford that, so they start complaining.

The ability of people to go online and slam you without any proof is giving certian less-than-honest individuals the ability to strong-arm their way to refunds that they don't deserve just to shut them up, but with certain people that's the fastest way to get rid of them. To make myself feel better about it, I did figure out that after all of my expenses I still made about $50 an hour on the cake for those two wenches even after the refund

I'd also tell you that with this woman you should take everything to email so that you have it in writing. Find the person who's more reasonable and deal only with them. In my case the bride was the more reasonable one, her mother literally screamed at me, and I refused to talk to her after the first phone call. Get their correspondence in writing in case they do dispute it.

I'd also call and talk to the venue to find out what really happened. I always call and talk to the person who actually cut the cake if there's a question about anything.