Woman uses LRT train photo to order S$125 cake from Carousell baker, appalled by what she receives

Hope the birthday boy is okay.

Zi Shan Kow | May 29, 2022, 05:22 PM

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An abysmal children birthday cake ordered from a Carousell seller has left a Singapore family beyond disappointed.

"Plain cruel"

Siti Nursufiani took to the Facebook group "Complaint Singapore" to share her experience.

Her sister had ordered the cake from a business listed on Carousell and requested for it to be modelled after an LRT train.

Image by Siti Nursufiani/FB.

In the post caption, Nursufiani said the cake that arrived was "totally unexpected, plain CRUEL AND NOT TO MENTION A JOKE".

Case in point:

Image by Siti Nursufiani/FB.

Even though the family was not expecting "a super realistic grand high end cake", she felt that it was ridiculous to pay S$125 for the "tiny" cake.

She claimed that the seller had not provided any explanations for state of the cake.

Carousell account started 2 months ago

According to the Carousell page, the cake shop offers halal cakes made with quality ingredients delivered with no extra charge.

Photos of the shop's own bakes actually appear pretty decent.

Screenshot on Carousell @thcakesstudio.

Screenshot on Carousell @thcakesstudio.

Screenshot on Carousell @thcakesstudio.

For nearly the same price, an interested customer could have gotten this beautiful two-tier unicorn cake:

Image by @thcakesstudio/Carousell.

The Carousell account, only about two months old, has a sole five-star review by another seller.

Carouseller's side of story

Mothership reached out to the seller behind the Carousell page.

The seller explained that aside from sending a reference photo, the buyer did not share any specifications she wanted for the cake.

There was no discussion about the dimensions and weight of the cake, the seller said.

"I would like to let it be known that the customer did not specify what she wanted. She did not specify details, neither did she mention wanting a big size. She merely sent a picture of an actual train and asked for it to be delivered on Saturday. When told the price, she just said OK. She wasn't forced to pay and I did not promise her anything."

The seller told Mothership they took part of the blame for their shortsightedness for not following up on this issue.

"When I told her that she did not specify the size and apologised for not asking because I had gotten used to customers always asking first, she said she had no problems with the size. The problem suddenly became the design."

Carouseller said they offered a refund but money not sent to buyer

The seller clarified that they have been in contact with the buyer since yesterday.

The seller said that they had apologised to the buyer for not clarifying beforehand and offered a full refund eventually.

The seller added that they offered a S$50 refund after the buyer complained about the size of the cake before seeing the Facebook post.

They later offered the buyer a full refund as the latter expressed dissatisfaction over the design as well.

Even though the refund was offered, the seller said that the buyer refused to take down the Facebook post as the latter said she wanted to "raise awareness" about this incident.

The Facebook post has gone viral with more than 500 shares, and the seller said they have been harassed on Carousell due to the post.

They told Mothership:

"I can understand her unhappiness and disappointment. I am trying to compensate fairly. I don't just snap my fingers and the cake just appear. I spent hours and hours putting in effort to bake and make. I don't earn much. For me to go through this, it doesn't make sense."

However, the buyer told Mothership that she did not receive any refund from the seller yet.

The buyer also called out the seller for giving "an untrue statement" and clarified that the refund was not her priority.

Other disappointed customers

It seems like this was not the only time that the Carouseller had disappointed their customers.

Here are two more examples shared with Mothership:

And just in case you are wondering about the five-year-old boy who received this sad-looking train design birthday cake, the buyer shared that "he got over it pretty fast".

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Top image by Siti Nursufiani's Facebook post.