A Courtenay distillery was ripped off for a couple thousand dollars on the Victoria Day weekend by a group claiming to be a gay event planning agency.
A man calling himself Chris Swift, presenting himself as a ‘gay event planner,’ phoned Wayward Distillation House, claiming he had moved to the Island and was interested in their products.
He gave information from what turned out be a stolen credit card and purchased more than $900 in spirits.
His ‘partner’ collected the order about an hour later.
The next day, Mr. Swift again called to place another order. He asked for a discount but became abusive, accusing staff of discrimination because he was gay. He then sent his ‘nephew’ by cab to pick up the order.
Unable to deal with Mr. Swift, staff called in Wayward co-owner Dave Brimacombe, who said the customer was “inconsolable and indignant” as he tried to speak with him. Brimacombe offered to give a small discount and to pay the cab fare.
Mr. Swift then purchased another $1,400-plus in spirits. Wary of a public relations disaster, Brimacombe delivered the order to an address provided.
In total, he figures the scam involved three or four men who took the company for more than $2,300 in spirits over two days.
“A $900 order is a small order,” said Brimacombe, who runs the distillery with his wife Andrea. “The second order was a bit bigger but still nothing to flag us as being unusual.”
But the penny dropped when a young couple came into the premises, asking if it had been robbed, because someone was trading and selling Wayward alcohol at the Puntledge RV Campground.
“Over 15 bottles of it,” Brimacombe said. “It was unfortunate. This guy was spouting off about discrimination. It was so bad it made our longest employee cry.”
He said another distiller in Vancouver was subject to the same scam from the same people.
“They chose not to serve them, which is something that on the long weekend we didn’t do,” Brimacombe said.
Though Mr. Swift’s claim was “ridiculous,” he figured he might have to defend the company if word of the incident started to spread around town.
Brimacombe spoke with the issuing credit card company, who spoke with the owner of the card, who was unaware of the transactions.
He has spoken with Comox Valley RCMP about the scam. An investigation has been initiated.