Please be aware of people asking for 'Samples'

Shop Talk
1

it’s that time of year again when the ‘chancers’ are about looking for freebies.

I had one to my business email to day taken straight off my shop profile.

Bascially saying they were a new shop in Reading looking to sell quality handmade items.
They were interested in stocking blankets and asked me to send them a ‘sample’. The ‘sample’ they asked for was my most expensive blanket. If they liked it they would than make an order for 24 more in different colour combinations.

They gave their address which is a residential address in Reading.

Clearly they wanted my blanket for free, which I knew even before I check out the address on google maps.

So watch out everyone be vigilant. Don’t give away ‘free samples’ in the hope you’ll get a bigger order. This is a con.

Anyone worth their salt who wants a large order will pay for the ‘sample’ first.

8 Likes
2

Thanks for the heads up.
People can really be terrible trying their luck.
I had one in the summer holidays asking the same sort of thing.
I just ignored it and reported it to folksy.

3

Thanks for that Eileen. The cheek of some people. I would send them a 1" by 1" sample just to be cheeky myself and say that it could be expanded if they have the correct type of scanner. (ha ha).

3 Likes
4

People can be so cheeky. I don’t understand how people can have the nerve to target small businesses like us, multi million pound companies won’t feel the brunt of one product going away for free, but we do.

5

Good advice, and I like the idea of a very small sample of blanket! Well they did say sample.