A catering contract to celebrate Black Heritage Month turned into a tough lesson for a Black-owned bakery in the South Bay earlier this month.

Two days after taking a job for Tesla, owner of The Giving Pies got a simple text message canceling the order

A catering contract to celebrate Black Heritage Month turned into a tough lesson for a Black-owned bakery in the South Bay earlier this month.

What started as a $16,000 deal ended up costing the small business owner thousands of dollars instead.

On Valentine’s Day, the owner of The Giving Pies in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood received a pretty sweet call from a representative with Tesla: a catering job for thousands of mini-pies for a Black History Month event.

Owner Voahangy Rasetarinera, who started the business out of her home in 2017, says both sides agreed on a quote and exchanged an invoice for 4,000 pies for delivery this week. Because of the tight turnaround, Rasetarinera asked staff to work extra hours, she bought ingredients and packaging supplies and declined at least three other catering jobs.

  • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
    223·
    9 months ago

    This sucks but it is a hard lesson about dealing with large companies. If any company wants anything that doesn’t comes off the shelf of the store, they have to pay upfront. Pay has to be by a certain amount of days in advance of delivery date or the date is not guaranteed and will be late. Work doesn’t start until payment is done. If they want to pay after delivery, sign a contract, require an advance of at least half of the bill or materials cost (whichever is highest), non-refundable, include a cancellation fee. Put this shit up as terms of service on a website and direct everyone to that page whenever you are contacted by a new client. The larger the client company, the more important it is to be this strict. For you it might be a bankruptcy inducing amount, but to them it will be immaterial pocket change, so you have to hold your ground.

    • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
      1615·
      9 months ago

      I was a small business owner in this same situation. I got a contract, I got partial payment up front, then they reneged upon my finishing the job and asking for the rest of the payment. They said they’d pay me 10% of what they owe, AND demanded additional services for free. I took my contract to a bunch of lawyers, all who said the same thing “They’re too rich to sue. They will delay, stall, and after years, even if you won, they still probably won’t pay.” What they owed me, they bragged about paying every time they flew their private jet. They could easily have paid, but instead they decided to destroy me and my company.

      This isn’t something the small business owner can protect against. To the rich, none of us or our laws matter.

      • The_v@lemmy.world
        824·
        9 months ago

        The partial payment wasn’t large enough if it left you wrecked at the end. Generally the partial payment should pre-pay to cover all of your expenses and labor. The final payment is the profit margin. That way you are never on the hook for a potential loss and will always break even.

        So for the bakery, they should have had a full prepay policy on all special orders. Even if “customers” walked away because of the policy.

      • Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
        13·
        9 months ago

        This is why small claims exists. $7500 and THEY have to prove they DON’T owe it. If they don’t show up, you win summary judgement. That should cover most things and even if it doesn’t, it will all least soothe the wound.

        • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
          2·
          9 months ago

          They wracked up a bill of over $100k, and then forced me to take $11k after demanding more free services. The service they demanded I wasn’t able to do and told them this. They didn’t care, so I did what they told me to do, which ended up damaging the product (because I couldn’t fucking do it and told them this). I gave them their product, they gave me the $11k blood money, then they turned around and sued me for $75k for damaging the product (in the fashion they demanded) of which I was forced to pay $25k. This took all my funds, and I had to sell everything.

          Oh yeah, and the only lawyer that would represent me, ended up being best friends with the billionaire who was suing me. He didn’t tell me this until after I payed him his $10k lawyer fee, and after he got me a “great deal” of only having to pay $25k to this bloodsucking POS trumper billionaire.

          When I say you don’t matter to a rich person, know it’s literally the truth.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
    1701·
    9 months ago

    It is fascinating to watch the rise and fall of Tesla’s reputation. They went from “the cool brand” everyone wanted to something that automatically gets you labelled as a sucker and a douche, almost overnight.

  • dan1101@lemm.ee
    115·
    9 months ago

    There is such a power disparity between large corporations and normal people or small businesses. A corporation can make a small decision that would devestate a person or small business and it doesn’t affect them at all.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
      542·
      9 months ago

      I don’t think this is legal, since it’s a custom order. This is not like a consumer ordering an off the shelf product, it’s more like a verbal contract IMO, but IANAL.

      • Che Banana@lemmy.ml
        41·
        9 months ago

        depends on the cancelation clause, usually there would be a time frame before the event they could cancel. There should also be a deposit-especially for events this large…non refundable would have been ideal especially if you need to get materials & OT for staff.

        • snooggums@midwest.socialEnglish
          231·
          9 months ago

          They exchanged an invoice which is closer to a quote unfortunately, as invoices are not contracts with clauses.

          What sucks is it would cost her more in lawyer fees to sue than she lost. Fuck Tesla.

          • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
            15·
            9 months ago

            I don’t think you can bring a lawyer to small claims court, to prevent this exact scenario. Tesla might send a manager or nobody. They can’t send their legal team.

            • Nollij@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              14·
              9 months ago

              Who Can File or Defend a Claim?

              Corporation or other legal entity — A corporation or other legal entity (that is not a natural person) can be represented by a regular employee, an officer, or a director; a partnership can be represented by a partner or regular employee of the partnership. The representative may not be an attorney or person whose only job is to represent the party in small claims court.

              Source

              • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
                4·
                9 months ago

                You can’t sue for the whole amount if you don’t actually deliver the items. Unless the contract specifically states the entire amount is non-refundable.

                You don’t have a right to the profit, but you could probably get your costs and labor back. It might be easy. They might not even show up.

            • snooggums@midwest.socialEnglish
              1·
              9 months ago

              I wasn’t even thinking of small claims court since I thought the cap was only a few thousand dollars (depending on location), but that is good to know.

          • GladiusB@lemmy.world
            2·
            9 months ago

            It depends. Somewhere in there she said the rep switched and approved it. I would have definitely asked for something up front. But it can be confusing if you are bounces around between reps.

          • helenslunch@feddit.nl
            11·
            9 months ago

            What sucks is it would cost her more in lawyer fees to sue than she lost

            It’s common practice to include legal and court fees in your suit.

        • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
          8·
          9 months ago

          big companies don’t care, they are rich enough that they don’t have to abide by contracts with little people.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
          6·
          9 months ago

          So if Tesla is stupid enough to order again, she can say Okeydokey I’ll be right on it, and when the delivery is due, she can just say Sorree I’m not gonna deliver anything anyway, have a nice day?
          That’s not a viable business environment, and surely there must be regulation to prevent businesses fucking each other off like that.

          • helenslunch@feddit.nl
            121·
            9 months ago

            I’m not blaming the business owner here but not collecting payment upfront was a monumentally poor business decision.

            • Buffalox@lemmy.world
              11·
              9 months ago

              From a company like Tesla it shouldn’t be necessary. I can’t imagine why they prefer to have their reputation tarnished for this?

              • helenslunch@feddit.nl
                5·
                9 months ago

                From a company like Tesla it shouldn’t be necessary.

                I would say the polar opposite of that is true. You should get it from any order, but especially one of this size, and especially from a corporation, and especially one with a reputation of dishonesty like Tesla.

                I can’t imagine why they prefer to have their reputation tarnished for this?

                You think people are not going to buy a Tesla because they shafted a small business? You have entirely too much faith in the general population.

              • dan1101@lemm.ee
                2·
                9 months ago

                It shouldn’t be necessary but the lesson here is always get at least half upfront and if the multi-billion dollar corporation protests ask them why they want free stuff. Custom orders should always need at least half payment up front.

  • derf82@lemmy.worldEnglish
    684·
    9 months ago

    I’m betting managers were planning this, but when Musk found out it was for black history and ordered it canceled.

    And while it is easy to just get paid in advance, sure, but that is a double-edged sword. Many companies and wealthy individuals will just use another company.

      • derf82@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        9 months ago

        Companies usually don’t. It only makes the news when they do.

        Worth noting sometimes companies often restrict expenses with crazy requirements. Sometimes they have no choice because they are prohibited from paying for something like food in advance.

        • TurtleJoe@lemmy.world
          4·
          9 months ago

          Worth noting sometimes companies often restrict expenses with crazy requirements. Sometimes they have no choice because they are prohibited from paying for something like food in advance.

          Having worked private dining gigs for many years, it is often the executive assistant who makes arrangements ahead of time. They work with what they think is the budget, but oftentimes when the actual executive shows up the day of, they want to make changes to what was planned. Since we always have a contract, they can’t go any cheaper than what was agreed (like, can’t cancel the open bar, etc) but they sometimes will decide to order more expensive wine, appetizers, etc.

          I could see this being a case of an assistant of some sort making the deal over the phone, then getting shot down when their boss sees the price.

          Not trying to make any excuses for Tesla here, just sharing my experience in a related field.

    • Ech@lemm.eeEnglish
      12·
      9 months ago

      This is my thought as well. Such a predictable pos.

  • kjake@infosec.pub
    57·
    9 months ago

    Seems like it would be fairly simple to at least sue them in small claims court. California allows up to $6250 for businesses.

    • satanmat@lemmy.world
      33·
      9 months ago

      I’m really surprised that, given the size of the order and the tight time frame, that she didn’t ask for the money up front…

      But yeah. If she has anything in writing she should go to small claims 100%

  • Praxinoscope@lemm.eeEnglish
    501·
    9 months ago

    I used to live down the street from The Giving Pies when they first opened. They make great pies and the staff were really nice. Sucks to see this news!

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      9·
      9 months ago

      The article does not say that she recouped her losses, so I’m not sure if it really is the happy ending you’re claiming.

      Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that the San Jose Sharks made a $500 order, but she’s out $6000 and I think the article would have mentioned if she made that and more back.

      Tesla seriously fucked this woman over. And not just that, but fucked her black-owned small business over by claiming the order was for Black History Month, which makes it far, far worse. The only one who can make it up to her is Tesla.

      • CobblerScholar@lemmy.world
        2·
        9 months ago

        “She’s been selling out of pies every day and even getting requests from across the country.”

        They didn’t put a number on it but there is no way that added business won’t make up for the 6 grand

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
          3·
          9 months ago

          And I maintain that even if she makes the money back, she has been wronged beyond monetarily. She has been humiliated as a black woman over a Black History Month-related business offer.

          And only Tesla can make that up to her.

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
      18·
      9 months ago

      Rasetarinera says after her story went viral, Tesla offered to buy the pies and a tour of their factory. She says she still hasn’t received a payment, so she’s focusing on other customers like the San Jose Sharks, who spent $500 on pies after hearing her story.

      Even more. Literally then teased her again.

  • Vespair@lemm.ee
    525·
    9 months ago

    Oh sure, but when I walk into the strip club and say I’m giving pies, suddenly that’s “sexual harassment”?