A couple of Calgary businesses are warning others after getting caught up in a fake party planning and reservation scam.
Marda Loop Brewing was recently contacted by someone looking to reserve a large space at its southwest Calgary location for an anniversary party. Owner Mike de Jonge said he thought nothing of the email request.
“He was at sea. He was an engineer on a boat,” de Jonge said he was told by the sender.
de Jonge also said he thought nothing of the customer asking him to take care of the cake for the party. But a few red flags did pop up when he was asked to pay for it in Bitcoin.
“$4,500 for some cake and cupcakes,” the customer quoted, de Jonge said.
“He had mentioned that even though he had a credit card to pay for it, the business that was baking it for him wasn’t taking credit cards.”
Marda Loop was provided with an email address, supposedly for the bakery, which de Jonge started corresponding with. He noted there were some spelling mistakes on the emails but said everything else “looked normal.”
“They did provide an address, which was a local address,” he pointed out. “Looked it up on google maps and it ended up being a bakery.”
He noted, however, that the bakery name was slightly different from what he was told so he did some research and cross-checking. He eventually sent an email to the owner on the company’s website.
“My spidey sense kind of kicked in,”…
