07/10/2026
UPDATE: the organizer, out of the kindness of her heart, has offered me a booth for free to make up for the situation. She was at no fault at all for this, I own that I made a mistake here… hands up if you’ve ever said I’d never fall for a scam like that 💁🏼♀️🫣 thank you all for your kindness here, truly my intent is only to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Scammers suck, so much!
Well… this is a post I never thought I’d be writing.
Fellow small business owners, please be careful.
Apparently there are scammers pretending to be local markets. They steal profile photos, copy names, create convincing Google Forms, and use email addresses that are just slightly different from the real ones. They collect your vendor fee… and then disappear.
I had absolutely no idea this was a thing.
I’ve never really done markets. I’ve always found the table fees, travel, setup, and time away from custom orders hard to justify for my business. But I finally decided I was going to do a Christmas market this year. I thought I was signing up for the Merry & Bright Holiday Market.
Instead, I was scammed out of hundreds of dollars.
So if you were wondering why you probably won’t be seeing me at any markets this season… that’s why. My market budget is officially gone.
I reached out to the organizer and suggested another warning post might be helpful since these scams are clearly still happening. They mentioned they’d posted about it before, but unfortunately not everyone sees every post.
Case in point… hi. 👋🏼 I never saw it.
So here’s my contribution in the hopes it saves someone else from learning this lesson the expensive way.
Before you send money for a vendor fee, double-check the email address. Verify you’re dealing with the actual organizer. If something feels even a tiny bit off, ask.
I’d love it if no other small business had to donate their Christmas market budget to a scammer.
Please share with your business friends. 🤍
