AIBU to expect the birthday cake booking date changed without extra charge?

There was nothing ‘aggressive’ about my post. The baker is only charging 50% of the full amount, which covers time wasted and other bookings missed, she isn’t a thief. She should have offered the cake, but there are no terms or conditions agreed on either side and although it’s not OPs fault, she still cancelled very late on. There is no thief

I think she owes you the undecorated sponge for your money. If she wasn't able to cancel or move your booking then she should have delivered the cake! She intimidated she could reuse the sponge and had not yet decorated it so I'm actually in agreement that she should have produced something for the money or given you a refund or "store credit" of something towards a new one.

She's offered a 50% refund, which I think is pretty generous in the circumstances. Why should she cancel or move the booking, especially at such short notice? It's not always as simple as that, and the OP was very fortunate that so many other suppliers were wiling and able to do so.

I get that it's frustrating for the OP to be out of pocket, but that's not the cake makers fault.

I do think though that the lack of Ts&Cs plus the comment about freezing the cake has added to the confusion.

It’s a perishable item that you cancelled last minute through no fault of her own. She’d already spent time and money on ingredients.

Pay the lady for her job and don’t expect it for free.

If the cake maker set aside the time to make the cake she should have presented the customer with a fully made cake then. If her time was allocated then finish the cake that was paid for, thus completing the contract.

The communication was poor. She shouldn’t have said she’d freeze the sponge implying that it was ok for later. By saying that she is telling customer she will hold the cake, she then gave it away yet it was paid for.

if she couldn’t move dates, she should have said, sorry I’ve allocated my time, when do you want to collect the cake. For all we know, the woman could have sold the cake onto someone else.

I think you get your 100 quid back and move on. the baker is a bit odd but you can't argue with stupid

just buy one from the supermarket or Costco, nobody (that matters) will really mind, judge or remember.

you don't need the agg. imagine posting about a birthday cake dilemma on Mumsnet - mad!

Ii think a 50% refund is a good result, especially as you cancelled last minute.

Yanbu. I'd expect a small charge for work to date but not 50%. I'm surprised people use these cake makers. You can get a great cake from a supermarket or M&S. Some of the 'home bakes' are dubious quality IME.

I might campaign to the DoE to get a module added to the life skills section of school education to explain about small businesses and how a customer reserving a future time slot and then cancelling last minute costs that business time and thus money, as there are so many people who don’t get it. @PickNMixweit isn’t about the past work done, it’s about tomorrows paid work opportunity lost.

I think in this situation I'd offer to pay half of the cost for her time. Really she should have frozen the sponge or gave it to you as you'd paid for it. It was your cake she gave away to her neighbour which was her choice & didn't ask you if it was ok. However, you cancelled it with short notice so in effect it's been a waste of her time & if you're wanting another cake at a different time then she's spent double the time on it. If she's adamant on charging you full price for the first cake , then full price again for the second cake explain that because you've already paid for one cake you expect two cakes to be given to you. One decorated & one just sponge.

You are a million percent being unreasonable. She may have turned down other jobs as she had you booked in. Even if she hadn't decorated the cake at that point, she was going to be would have all the ingredients ready to go arranged delivery etc. If you cant understand she's operating a business then go and buy a supermarket cake. Imagine if she had someone doing this to her multiple times a week. How could she sustain a business!!

@Gossipisgood
this is one of those threads where you need to spend quite a while reading all of the ops posts unfortunately, as the implication from her first post was that she was going to be charged full price twice. But she never was. Turns out it was 50% for the first cake. So quite generous of the cake maker. So the op has piles of posts saying the sponge was hers, when actually that 50% would just cover some of her time lost as opposed to the ingredients/sponge. The cake maker communicated badly, but was quite fair in the end.

But if you ordered a personalised cake from M&S, you wouldn't be able to cancel last minute and get your money back. So why should a 'home' baker be any different?

And if you think some of the 'home bakes' are dubious quality, you wouldn't order with them in the first place, surely? You'd check reviews, go by word of mouth etc. A decent hand made cake will always beat a supermarket cake, in my opinion. Plus it gives you so much more choice on design, size etc, you can have it made to your exact specifications.

no, but you would have the cake that you paid in full for. The OP didn’t have that

The OP could have had the cake, if she hadn't cancelled it. Instead she's got a 50% refund. I think that's a decent outcome.

The op didn’t pay in full for the first cake. She was charged 50% for the late cancellation.

im wondering if the ‘don’t worry, I can freeze it’ was a kind, if ill thought through, attempt at quickly reassuring the op who was worried about her dd, not to worry that she’s lost the cake maker money, not realising that the exact opposite was on the ops mind.

The OP paid in full for the first cake, including a delivery fee.
called to cancel the morning before - cake was already made
baker said she’d “freeze it for a later date” OP took that to mean for her, baker should’ve been clearer

OP has now asked for the cake
baker has given it away but will charge 50% for the new cake

what should have happened is the baker should have said “ok, when you want to reschedule, let me know and I’ll only charge 50% for that one”

at the moment the OP is £200 down for a cake that was made but not received and needs to pay £100 for a second cake

what should have happened is the baker should have said “ok, when you want to reschedule, let me know and I’ll only charge 50% for that one”
at the moment the OP is £200 down for a cake that was made but not received and needs to pay £100 for a second cake

That's effectively what has happened, although it took a couple of days to come to that arrangement. The cake maker has also offered a 50% refund if the OP prefers. That seems fair to me

I think you should be paying a partial rate for the one you couldn't have, on top of the full rate for the finished one. We make bespoke jewellery, our T'S & C's are that if you cancel we can charge for time on design and labour, and materials used. She still had to make the sponge and block out time in her diary that could have gone to another customer.

Why so nasty? She’s had a child with D and V, she hasn’t strangled a puppy.

OP YANBU not to expect to pay for a whole new cake, when she hadn’t even decorated the first one! It would be reasonable to expect to pay for any extra effort she has to go to because of the cancellation. She should have offered you the sponge, and only if you refused that and asked her to do another one should she be charging for that.

She shouldn’t be charging twice for decoration she hadn’t even done in the first place. I hope pps aren’t seriously suggesting that!

Sadly in this case I think the cake lady is right to charge you again. Although as you bought the other cake why didn't she give you it as you paid for it. Did laugh loud at that clever person comment. .you want your cake and eat it. I'd go back and have a chat with her as you didn't get the cake you bought. Totally understandable you need to pay something here though. Hope your daughter is feeling better

OP YANBU not to expect to pay for a whole new cake, when she hadn’t even decorated the first one!

She's not being expected to pay for a whole new cake. She's being asked to pay for 50% of a new cake, or being offered a 50% refund on the one she cancelled. This sounds very fair to me.

YABVU

You cancelled the party with no mention of re-arranging it, she said she'd pop the cake in the freezer to use another time, which is why she would be able to give you 50% back, which is what she has offered. You should have spoken options at the time of cancellation, so you could make an informed decision at the time.

It is nothing to do with you what happened to that sponge, at that point you had cancelled for good in her opinion, so knowing she will offer a partial refund, that is now her cake to do with as she wishes, she couldn't sell it, and didn't want to freeze it for whatever reason, so she gave it away to stop it being wasted. You need to stop being annoyed at that, she didn't make any more money on it and what happened to it is nothing to do with you, I'm sure if she knew you were likely to re-arrange she would have kept it for you, but you didn't say anything, you just cancelled, so she disposed as she saw fit.

The alternative she has given is to keep the previous payment and re-do the new cake at half price, I think that is absolutely fair to be honest. Unfortunately it is your lack of communication and your assumption that lost you the sponge from the first one, so she will need to buy the ingredients and make it again anyway. So you are covering her out of pocket expenses on the first one due to cancellation, and paying for the cake which you will receive the second time.

I think a number of people aren’t disputing the hours were booked and it’s lost work - but the baker did not supply the goods and gave the sponge away. If the time was booked and cake paid for then if the baker couldn’t change dates they should have just supplied the goods on the original date given the goods were paid for.
Not suggest that the sponge can be frozen and omit to say that they couldn’t move date.
If I paid £200 for a cake and then needed to change date and this wasn’t possible I would accept it’s not the bakers fault but I was absolutely then expect the product I paid for to be produced under the terms of the agreement. The agreement was £200 for a finished cake!

But she didn’t decorate it so if anything perhaps 1/2 again. But to charge for two whole cakes I feel is unfair. And I own my own business .