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Don't forget to send a sweet treat this
Valentines Day! Click Photo to view our
wide assortment of Sweet Treaats. |
Nothing really exciting has happened in the store the last few weeks other than a few corporate clients that chose to send out their
corporate gifts at the begining of the year and a not for profit that placed a chocolate order.
So today I wanted to blog about a story that started about three and half years ago. Some of you may know we wholesale some of our products to other online sites and then fulfill the orders for them.
About three and half years ago I got a call from one of the companies and my contact, lets call her 'Sue,' asked if we had an employee with long dark hair?
I said yes, why? Well, she got a call from a guy who claimed he got a gift box of
trufflesfrom her site as a wedding present from someone, but could not remember who. The gift supposedly had a long black hair.
Here were the problems
- Up to that date we never fulfilled a box of truffles for her.
- We don't ship boxes with her name on them either.
We both knew we were being scammed, but the guy was threatening everything under the sun, so to make him go away I sent him a new box of
truffles at my expense.
I assumed the story was over and wrote it off as the cost of doing business.
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Chocolate Business Card & Thank
You box; click photo to choose from a
wide assortment of custom
branding and client 'thank you' options. |
Then about two years later I got a call from the Marion Ohio Prosecutors office. I was asked if I had sent Mr. X a box of chocolate. I told her "yes" and she asked me to tell her the story. After I told her the story she told me that I was part of this persons elaborate scheme and that he had been arrested and would I like to press charges. I said "of course."
So here is what this person was doing and how he was caught...
Mr X was using his home and work computer to target various industries and telling them he had either a hair or some other foreign object in their product. This individual happened to like California wines and had targeted a number of wineries in the region. Low and behold at an association dinner one person in the group started telling how he knew he had been scammed, but didn't want the bad press it might cause; so he sent a bottle of wine to Mr. X.
All of sudden a relatively large percent of the room realized they had fallen victim to the same scam and had sent Mr X a bottle of wine; for the same reason that I sent the box of chocolates. Being an association, they hired an attorney or PI, not sure, to investigate and go after this guy. I guess the cost for a bottle of wine is a lot more than a box of
truffles.
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Cutout Wood Wine Box comes with a bottle
of sparking grape juice, Gummi bears,
jeweled almonds, cashews, mini jelly beans,
liquored flavored cordials & assorted
wrapped candy. |
The association investigator then contacted the local authorities with a enough evidence for them to obtain search warrants for the this person's home and office. Guess what the bozo was using his work computer too. Upon searching his house they found my shipping box with my box of candy as well as dozens upon dozens of other specialty items which included wines, caviar and chocolate to name a few.
To sum up a long story Mr X was found guilty. What happened to him?
- His company fired him immediately and cooperated with the authorities.
- He had to serve time in jail (not sure how much)
- He had to make retributions.
I figured I would never see a dime, but was happy he was being punished. Then a few months ago I got a check from Marion, Ohio. It was a check for the wholesale price of a box of chocolate plus shipping.
Have a sweet day!
