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

[JavSurge]

We had to cancel DD's birthday party the day before due to her having S&D. We'd have gone through with it if it was a runny nose but not S&D, as much for our guests as well as her.

Anyway, most of the vendors (hall, entertainment etc) have honoured bookings in changing the date without charge given the circumstances.

As for the cake, she wants to charge us again. Now, for context, she had not finished the cake, had not started icing or decorating it. What's more, once I informed her the party couldn't go ahead, she said she'd pop the sponge in the freezer to be used for another time.

Now we have a new date arranged I have contacted her (2 days later) and asked if the sponge will last (Google says it will) until the party in a couple of weeks and if she's available to decorate it and deliver it on that date.

She's come back saying she didn't freeze it in the end and instead gave it to her neighbour, and now expects us to pay again for a new cake?!
If she'd iced it and it was ready to go then I would completely understand. However, given that it's just a change of date, am I being unreasonable to have expected her to just to use the sponge for us, or even used the sponge for another customer and then made it fresh. Either way to me seems reasonable as she'd not be using extra resources or time.
I can of course understand she might have got an extra customer (money) on the later date but it wouldn't have caused her extra costs.

Am I being being completely unreasonable?
If the cake was decorated I'd have never asked her to redo the whole thing for free but given that she said she was freezing the sponge surely it would be reasonable for her to do it free of charge (or a nominal fee if anything extra is needed)?

no that's not the point at all.

Even if she wasn't working because she didn't need to decorate, it was far too late to accept another booking. She lost earnings. She couldn't accept another booking because she had booked you.

You want a professional cake maker, at least respect their time.

If you cancel your hairdresser at the last minute, you still pay for the full appointment, and you dont' get the products he would have used even if you basically pay for them.

It's fair to ask you to pay, but I agree with above, you should get the cake because you paid for it.

Telling you to pay is normal, telling you "oh I gave it to my neighbour" is not 😂

You say she's saved time by not decorating the cake but she actually wasted time. She could have taken another booking in that time and may have turned other orders down. That is the time you have paid for.

And for all you know she didn't have another booking.

That's not the same. You've outlined a scenario with just a service. OP's situation has goods to be delivered.

My take is that OP would have no problem paying for a new cake service if she'd got the original one. At the moment she's paid and the neighbour has the cake and the baker wants her to pay full price for a new one. So she has paid for 2 cakes/ slots but is only able to get one!

Thats very rude when you’ve asked for opinions on AIBU. £200 and a free cake implies she has £200 now, and a free cake, which she obviously doesn’t. She may have ended up with £100 and a free cake after ingredients and labour, but the cake didn’t manage to generate itself for free.

Yeah, I paid the full wack already. I'm still in shock about the neighbour comment. I thought she was freezing it to save for me for a later date.

That’s so much money to lose. I think she has communicated poorly to you. When you cancelled she should have said that you would be charged again. You could have then just accepted the cake and picked it up a day or two later as it would keep for a few days (cake with no party is still better than no cake).

I get why she does it that way. I bake cakes for family birthdays and I do a lot of prep the day before (baking the sponges, planning the decoration and making any fondant shapes) so cancelling that late is after a lot of the work is already done. It’s not right that she didn’t tell you though.

Maybe she has turned down other jobs to be able to do yours? So she would have been out of pocket if she’d either agreed to do your new cake for no additional cost.

Then there’s the costs to her incurred so far you seem dismissive of - ingredients, electricity and time. Even if she only spent an hour prepping, cooking and cleaning up for the sponge, would you be happy to work an hour for free? Or would you expect to be paid?

You are coming across as extremely entitled. I think you’re incredibly lucky that no one else charged you again… either that or you’re incredibly bolshy and a CF who forced the issue with the suppliers. You could always use a different supplier if you don’t want to pay her again… I’m sure she’ll be happy to pass you over as a customer.

People like you are the reason small businesses that incur up front costs charge up front.

I'm on your side in the other aspects - especially as she suggested freezing the sponge and didn't offer to get the cake anyway, but this time argument doesn't work.

She pencilmarked the time as working time for your order. If she didn't have your order and didn't have another one, she could have operate completely freely with her time - booked a gym class, not book in her babysitter, plan a meeting with friend who wouldn't be available at the short notice, have the previous evening off and do her material orders in that slot, ....

But she reserved the time for you and didn't get it back until the very last moment, so it isn't unreasonable to expect some kind of compensation for her time.

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I'd express that when she mentioned freezing you hoped at least part of the costs could be saved and that had she been clear about full price you might got the cake on the original date as well, and ask her, whether there is some space for agreement - for example half the costs. And see what happens.

She does have £200 and a free cake. I don't understand why you are struggling with this. She's kept the cake, and the £200.

Part of those 200£ was consumed when creating "the free cake".

I think this should all have been discussed at the point of cancelling so you could agree next steps. At the very least you should have been given the cake! Ideally you would have agreed that she freeze it until you needed it. I appreciate you may need to pay extra but it shouldn’t be the whole price again.

I think I would buy a cake from someone else rather than pay an additional £200 for another cake.
I assume your £200 already paid is gone but given that she's cheerily given your cake away to a neighbour and expected you to pay £400 quid total, I wouldn't want to use her company.

Yes this is what I'm thinking, perhaps she'll ask for just 50%.
At this stage I've not asked for anything, I've asked if there is anything else to pay for the new date and she's just said not yet. I don't want to commit her to the new date if I have to pay for the whole thing again when she's given it to Sally next door😂 I'm actually howling at the fact she said she'd freeze it but has given it to someone else for free lol

I don’ t think you are being unreasonable if you left it with the expectation you would be using the frozen one in the future, however, if you left it up in the air then yes YABU how was she to know you’d be back wanting another one?

Well I can’t understand it for you. That one’s on you. Bizarre that you can’t understand ingredients and labour cost money and somehow think the cake made itself for free and she’s just sitting on the £200 though.

I think she should have made it clear at the point you cancelled that it was fully chargeable and not said she was freezing it, and offered to drop it off anyway for you, then you would have been able to make your decision with all of the information before the neighbour had eaten your cake.

Hmm difficult one I would think it’s more about her time than the cost of the cake.
I think if she couldn’t do the new date she should have either given a full refund if she was going to reuse the cake, or offered you the undecorated cake and a partial refund.
If she could manage the new date she should have frozen the cake and decorated it on the new date as long as you were happy with that.
If you wanted a brand new cake then yes she should have charged again but it sounds like you were happy with the sponge being frozen.

So she’s not actually said she expects you to pay 100% of the price again then?

I think a lot of this hinges on the way you communicated the cancellation to her.

Realising you were dealing with a poorly child and things were up in the air:
-you didn’t mention rebooking
-you didn’t ask for the cake or say could she keep it for you at a later date
-she confirmed she would freeze it but presumably she thought she’d use it for another cake and then decided not to.
-she didn’t say she was freezing it for your rebooked party as you didn’t mention rebooking
-she then didn’t hear from you for 2 days so gave the cake away

I do think it’s unreasonable of her to charge you the full amount again and I’d perhaps ask given that you paid £200 for a cake you’d never received, if she could offer you a discounted rate for a replacement and express your disappointment that she’s given the cake you paid for away

Problem is most things if you cancel within 48 hours or sometimes longer you get no refund it’s the expected.

I think this was quite a bit of miscommunication. You needed to make her aware you wanted to still use her/the cake just at a later date.

She took you as just cancelling full stop.

So to her she still paid for all the ingredients, had cooked the cake, her time, her utilities.

All that was left was the icing and her time for that but you just told her you didn’t want it anymore. I think the comment about freezing the cake left it a bit ambiguous you assumed for you and she seems like she was just chatting away.

Once you cancel within a 48hour time frame with no refund it’s up to the business what they do and in this case she gave the sponge away. I’ve seen a few cakes go up on Facebook before last minute cancelling does anybody want this for £10 so it doesn’t go to waste, for a fully decorated princess or sponge bob cake.

Right so she’s not actually charging you the full amount again then? I think that’s what you’ve said and that’s the outrage most are responding to?

I'd be happy to pay twice but I would also want both cakes.

You forfeited the first cake on the understanding that the sponge could be saved for a later date.

The cake maker changed that understanding without communication so that part is on her.

I would express dismay that she gave the cake away (despite you having already paid for delivery) and didn’t freeze it as she said she would.

I wouldn’t expect to pay another £200 for a replacement cake, but paying part of the cost would be reasonable. Although if I couldn’t see eye-to-eye with the cake baker on this, I’d make my own cake this time.

Thank you. There's something so funny and tragic about the neighbour digging into it. I have so many questions. Is she using it for another party? Is Barbara just for a fork and eating her way through it? It was so beautifully ambiguous.