Transcript
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[00:00:00] You know, it’s kind of a mystery that scammers even target personal chefs, because there’s really not that many out there. But, believe it or not, there are cons, scams, and rip offs that actually target people with a personal chef business. So this is important to know about, because you don’t want to lose money and time.
I’ve been doing this for a long, long time and I’ve seen these scams and I’ve heard about ones that other people have gotten. And when you’re just starting out, you might not be aware of these and I do not want you to get caught. You’re going to learn how to spot a scam. I’ll give you real examples and tips for how to identify them.
Hey there, Chef Shelly here. I help passionate cooks just like you start a personal chef business so that you can get paid to do what you love, cook for people who love your food, working when you want, making what you want, doing weekly meal prep [00:01:00] services and small caterings. If that’s something you’re interested in, go down to the description and get my free guide on how to do weekly meal prep services for clients.
So first, let’s talk about the con, and these are fake listing websites. So the last time I heard about an active one, it was called Hello, Chefy. And what companies, companies, I use that term loosely, do is, this one actually was overseas. They target chefs and They take information from Google or your website and they create a profile without your permission on their website.
And don’t get me wrong, they don’t even do a good job. This is not to help you out. And then what they try to do is get you to join their site and you have to pay for it. What they’re basically doing is hijacking your client inquiries and then [00:02:00] charging you a commission to get those leads. But again, this is, they create your profile without your knowledge, without your permission, and then they want you to come pay them to get it.
Now, big picture, I’ve heard the Federal Chamber of Commerce and the Better Business Bureau go after these companies and stuff, but what really happens is they just shut down and start again with a different name. So if you ever get an inquiry or an email saying, Hey, you know, we market for chefs, you know, you’re the only one we’ve seen in your area, or we really love your stuff.
We want you to join our site. Just be very careful. Do your research and find out if you’re joining. What exactly you’re joining because you definitely don’t want to be paying leads to someone who’s actually taking them away for you or creating fake ones that they’re going to have you pay for. [00:03:00] As a side note, Thumbtack is not a scam, okay?
They don’t put your profile up. You have to start an account and do that. It is free to do that part. How it works is they market their website and show up in searches and then people can go and look through a whole bunch of chefs and companies and send them inquiries. And you might get leads from sites like this.
On a side note, that doesn’t mean this is great marketing for you. It depends on what kind of business you want, but they’re not a scam. More like a rip off if you don’t know what you’re doing and what you’re getting into. Um, another one is Yelp advertising. Again, this is a site that they don’t just go creating your profile for you.
You join, you create a free account and you put your profile up. Where it gets a little sketchy is they are becoming extremely aggressive in getting [00:04:00] personal chefs to buy advertising for their listing. I have heard from dozens of personal chefs who’ve been taken advantage of by their pushy sales tactics and their complete lack of customer service when there is a problem.
So I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, do not put money into advertising or buying leads, paying for leads. if you’re not already good at getting clients because you don’t want to pay to practice your marketing. So third, and this is the most common, is the email scam or DM, text, Phone call all sorts of stuff.
This is my Absolute least favorite because it really takes advantage of new personal chef businesses I had a student in the personal chef business Academy forward me an email inquiry that she’d gotten That just seemed a [00:05:00] little weird and she wanted help with the pricing So what happens is you get this inquiry, right?
You And there’s a few different ways that when you’ve been doing this for a while, you can pretty immediately see whether it’s a scam or not because they generally kind of tend to go the same way. The first red flag is horrible spelling, poor grammar, and just weird writing. Okay, don’t get me wrong. I am not being an elitist educationist or something.
Everybody puts a typo in an email. Some people write more casually than others. That is not what this is about. I’m not expecting anyone to have an editor for their emails, but when the email is so janky that you’re having trouble understanding what they’re even asking you, if the grammar’s really bad, it’s not just that maybe English isn’t their first language, they’ve Copied and pasted it from other emails or recycled it.
It’s just [00:06:00] sentences starting in the middle and whatever. If you can’t make sense of the email, that is a big flag. Secondly, if someone contacts you saying they’re from out of the country and they want you to take their payment, and then could you do me a favor and pay the driver? That is a huge red flag, and this is one that you will see a lot.
They’ll ask if you take credit cards, although now they’re starting to do this with checks, too. They’ll overpay you and ask you to pay out the driver or bus fare. the rental company or whatever that they’re also hiring to work this event. This is more for a catering thing and it makes, they make it sound like it’s a really big event with a lot of moving parts and oh they don’t take credit cards, can you take this and pay them?
But what they’re really doing is getting you to pay out money before the money they’ve gotten you has really cleared your account. [00:07:00] Maybe you’ve heard the term check kiting. Maybe like me you learned about it from the miniseries Inventing Anna, the fake German heiress. Anyway, this is when you pay out money, but the money actually hasn’t gone through to you.
So it’s called check kiting because it’s like flying a kite right before the money gets there. You take it out. This is a lot harder now to do these days, but it does happen. So then they’ve gotten the money from you and you’re on the hook for it. And that’s how the scam works. So here is an actual email I’ve seen.
So this says I’m an accountant by profession. I’m half Costa Rican, half American, but I got married to a Spanish woman. Okay, there’s flag number one. Who wants to give you their nationality breakdown and tells you what, where their wife’s from? That’s just odd. We are in need of a very competent [00:08:00] chef to take care of our meals during our vacation period in the United States.
We are coming from our Canada, and our vacation will last the period of three weeks. We are based here in Montreal. We are going to arrive on the 27th of September and rent a vacation home that will be well furnished with adequate kitchen utensils. Okay, that’s a lot of details. That’s not usually how people start asking for a quote, because what most people wanna know is how much is it gonna cost?
We need two meals for seven days a week for three weeks. You can cook them ahead of time to be reheated later. Let me know the most convenient days and hours for you in the week to cater for us and your pricing. Okay, who on earth is that accommodating as a client? No real client, let me tell you that.
Another [00:09:00] flag is people who start off their email saying, I want to hire you, here’s the date of my event and I want to give you a deposit right now to secure your services. This can be disheartening to hear when you are a passionate cook who’s just starting your personal chef business. And I hate to say this, but nobody is going to be that eager.
To give you money. Especially if they don’t even know who you are, what you cook, and how much you charge. Another flag is that a lot of times people want to work out menus with you, and that makes sense, but then they run down exactly what they want to eat, and it’s like they’ve copied and pasted off a restaurant menu.
That can be another flag again, because that’s not usually how people start off an inquiry. Here’s another actual email. Hello, Chef. I am very glad to hear from you. You’re welcome. [00:10:00] Though I am a very busy woman, but even with my busy schedule, I am happy to always create time to work things out with you so that I can secure your service for my family ahead of our arrival day.
We are in need of your service during our vacation period in New York City. We eat low fat, healthy, nutritious meals. I need you to make two meals for 10 people every day for five days. You can check in to prepare the meals for the whole day at a convenient time. Pack and freeze to be reheated later.
Then it goes into details about the family. Then it goes into other stuff. When you’re starting the email out with, I am a very busy woman. You’re probably not going to make the first thing you send a personal chef five paragraphs of detail. Again, that’s just not generally. How people work. And the [00:11:00] last example.
Dear chef, I’m in my early 60s and need a chef who can shop and prepare six meals a day for me, plus snacks, juice, smoothies through the day, blah, blah, blah. He goes into his health, his diet, his concerns about getting diabetes. He wants a plan. I envision five days a week, but then it gets good. I need a chef to travel with me.
I envision five days a week. I travel a lot by my private chef by private jet. I need a chef to travel with me to ensure my diet is maintained. Accommodations will be provided while traveling. I have very large private homes around the world. Flag! Flag! Flag! When you’re getting an inquiry from someone who has a private jet and big homes around the world, [00:12:00] yeah, I’ll tell you this, they’re probably not sending their own emails, right?
This would probably be coming through a staffing service or at least an assistant or someone on their personal staff. Someone at their work, something like that. Nobody who has a private jet to fly around the country from their big house to their big house. A is probably going to tell you about it.
First email and is sending a 10 paragraph long email wanting to hire you. This is just not how people work. Busy rich people have a lot of money because they’re not doing crap like this. Well, that’s not why, but you know what I mean. So if you’re looking at an inquiry like that and you’re not sure because it really seems like the real deal, all you really have to do is ask them to Venmo or Zellu a deposit.
Some personal chefs say, call me so I can get your details to give you a quote. But honestly, I don’t even [00:13:00] recommend that. Engage with this stuff as little as possible. possible. Those are the best examples of things I’ve gotten. And I want to give a shout out and a thanks to Alicia, one of my students who emailed me with one of these and she wanted my help.
And we went through it together and figured out that it was a scam. And this is terrible. And it’s such a big bummer for her. Because at the end, you know, It wasn’t even bad enough that she thought she had the potential to get a great client. She’s just starting out and she got all excited on top of that.
Then she wanted to know who should she should report it to. Should it be local police? And the bummer is because it’s an internet scam, there’s nothing that the local authorities can even do about it. So honestly, the best thing that you can do is once you recognize that it’s a scam, Ignore it. [00:14:00] Delete it.
Don’t even bother replying back to them. You know, other than just get far enough to get your own peace of mind that it’s actually a scam and not a real booking. Accusing them of scamming you, drawing them out in some long back and forth of emails, telling them that they’re a piece of you know what. Not only is that just wasting your time, but it’s possibly even setting you up for even more.
So the best thing you can do is just delete and move on. It is totally not worth your energy to get sucked into that. You have more important things to do with your personal chef business because there are real people out there who are hungry for what you’re cooking.
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