1 year ago
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SINGAPORE – It was a rosy picture for Kiki Florist: A huge order of 150 small bouquets and four extra-large bouquets amounting to $3,820, the largest order for this small, home-based business to date.
The big spender, who called the florist on Sept 8 at around 11am, claimed he was from the logistics team of an army camp in Bedok and said the order was a “corporate order from the government”.
The order, which was due for collection on Sept 10 at 1pm, was too large for Kiki’s small team of two to fulfil in time. The florist and buyer eventually agreed on 50 small bouquets, to be paid for with $1,100 in cash and no down payment.
Sept 10 came and went but the mysterious buyer never turned up.
Fortunately for Kiki, which has a collection point in KAP Mall along Bukit Timah Road, it managed to sell off the 50 bouquets, with the reduced order limiting its potential losses to about $900 instead of nearly $4,000.
Despite the incident, its co-founder Joselyn Lie told The Straits Times that she would not be making a police report as she “was not sure if it was a scam or just an irresponsible customer”.
She added: “To protect our business from future scams, we will not be proceeding with
bulk
orders if there is no down payment.”
In her blog post on its website about the incident on Sept 10
, she said that it would also ask for a signed purchase order for corporate jobs.
Kiki Florist is the second small local business to fall victim to a fake bulk order in the last week.
Muhammad Shazain Faiha Muslim Food Paradise, a hawker stall in Tiong Bahru Market, posted on Sept 9 that it “was scammed with a fake order of 150 packets of chicken and mutton briyani
The person who placed the order reportedly told the ha...
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