Seattle wedding companies are increasingly being bullied by unknown scammers. Kathleen Battiste works in a small bakery near the Everett house. In the afternoon, a strange customer called her. She realized that the caller had used some kind of voice-altering device. The speaker identified himself as Stephen Nicole and said he would like to order a wedding cake. Kathleen asked him to send the order by email. The order looked rather strange. “It was supposed to be a five-storey wedding cake with pink roses for 300 people, with the inscription “Happy married life,” says Battiste. Exactly the same order was received two weeks ago by another city bakery – Bellingham. The cake was cooked for 45 hours, but no one took it away.
The first order came from the same email address. The investigation that began revealed that similar cases occurred in different bakeries across the country. “Scammers are sending out large orders for cakes for 300 people everywhere, although there are actually no weddings,” says Kristin Alexander, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Attorney General. Sometimes the crooks even partially paid for the cake using stolen or fake credit cards. But the fraudster himself, named Steven Nicole, definitely does not have cash. Apparently, at the moment he has left the country and is hiding somewhere.
