Baker refuses influencer a cake and has HER post removed by Instagram

A small business owner who refused an influencer a free birthday cake was left outraged when Instagram removed her post which branded them ‘fake and petty’.

Reshmi Bennett, 39, is a children’s author and baker from London who runs the luxury cake business Anges de Sucre.

Last month, the mother received an email from London-based influencer Anna Kurtoglyan – who boasts 243,000 Instagram followers – asking if she could make her a cake for her friend’s birthday in exchange for social media coverage.

In response, Resmi told her ‘Just buy a cake from somewhere and don’t be so cringe’, but had her post taken down from Instagram for violating community guidelines on being ‘respectful’ to other users.

Reshmi Bennett (pictured in 2021) from London, runs the luxury cake business Anges de Sucre

A screenshot of Anna’s email – which Reshi posted on her Instagram – read: ‘I’ve been a huge fan of your brand for quite a while. I adore your product’s quality and amazing designs, and I am always happy to support you guys on my social channels xx

‘I wanted to reach out and see if you like to collaborate? It’s my best friend’s birthday soon and it would be amazing to order a cake from Anges de Sucre as my friend is also a big fan and this would be a perfect surprise!’

She then ends the email by offering to ‘create some content in exchange for the cake’.

Later that day, Reshmi responded to Anna and declined her offer before accusing the influencer of ‘begging for a freebie’.

She wrote: ‘Thanks for writing! It’s always lovely to hear from genuine fans. You say you’ve been a huge fan for quite a while.

Influencer Anna Kurtoglyan asked Reshmi if she would make her a free cake for a friend’s birthday in exchange for social media coverage. Pictured: the influencer in London

Left: Anna’s email asking Reshmi for a free cake in exchange for social media coverage. Right: Reshmi’s response later that day, asking the influencer to stop ‘begging for a freebie’

‘But I noticed you don’t even follow my page. And I don’t know or care about your best friend so it’s a no hun from me.

‘Just buy a cake from somewhere and don’t be so cringe. Or if you were actually such a huge fan as you claimed, you’d know to fake bake is super cool.

‘Your friend will adore you for your fake bake effort versus begging for a freebie. Merry Christmas!’

Alongside her bespoke cakes, Reshmi has built a 56,000 Instagram following thanks to her ‘fake bake’ series – where she challenges herself to create a professional-looking creation using all premade supermarket ingredients.

Anna responded to Reshmi’s post by telling her that they had made a ‘cooler cake’ for Alina

Lefft: Alina – whose birthday it was – detailed her perspective on her Instagram Stories. Right: Anna asked her followers to weigh in on a poll, with 78 per cent taking Reshmi’s side

After Reshmi shared the email exchange on Instagram, Anna’s influencer friend Alina Rafikova – whose 25th birthday it was – jumped to her pal’s defence in the comments of the now-deleted post.

She wrote: ‘I receive many emails from different brands asking me to collaborate with them for free, and as the owner of a small business, I totally understand sometimes there is no chance to afford it but I just politely decline any opportunities I receive.

‘There is no need to be rude. So many people after being featured in major magazines start thinking they are the best in this sphere but your cakes are not even better than cakes from Peggy Porschen.

‘I just want to say that it’s not very professional from your side to answer this way. Luxury company will never allow this behaviour towards their potential customers. Thanks.’

Reshmi (pictured) accused the influencers of leaving her multiple one-star reviews on Google

Left: Alinal labelled Reshmi ‘rude’ in the comments of her original Instagram post. Right: Reshmi was upset to find several new one-star reviews left on her business’ Google page

What’s more, Anna said that the pair made an ‘even cooler cake’ to celebrate Alina’s birthday, which featured in a Reel on her page.

Describing it as a ‘not very nice way to decline’, she then argued in a follow-up comment: ‘By the way, we are Chanel fans but we don’t follow the page, so we are not real fans?!’

In the wake of the dispute, Anna then created a poll asking her followers if they thought Reshmi’s behaviour was ‘rude and offensive’.

While 22 per cent of people took the influencers’ side, the majority believed Reshmi was in the right.

As her post was repeatedly removed from her page, Reshmi wrote on her Stories: ‘Instagram, the irony of you removing my post outing two trolls is not lost on me.’

Left: One of Reshmi’s recent birthday cake orders. Right: Reshmi’s £10 Crunchy Nut ‘Fake Bake’

In a follow-up post, Reshmi then claimed the Anna and Alina had started making fake Google accounts to leave her multiple one-star reviews online and labelled the pair ‘entitled, fake, petty and pathetic’. Anna has since denied leaving a one-star review.

She alleged: ‘These two influencers are leaving us fake 1* reviews on Google after I refused to give them a free cake and told them to go where the sun don’t shine.

‘They then tried to drag my name through the mud on Insta and now TikTok and didn’t like me biting back. Then they got so butt hurt from scoring some epic own goals on their own story polls trashing me that they stayed up till the wee hours making fake profiles for Google and leaving us reviews.

‘Grifters – your 250K+ followers doesn’t impress me, your content sucks, your grammar sucks, and your cooler cake is s**. Get a real job and stop trying to get businesses to fund your fake lifestyles. Absolute bottom feeding cretins of society.’

Since it was uploaded this morning, Instagram has removed the post several times after it was repeatedly reported for ‘violating community guidelines’.

In her Stories, Reshmi likened it to a ‘yo-yo’ and said: ‘Instagram, the irony of you removing my post outing two trolls is not lost on me.’

Anna Kurtoglyan’s response:

It all started when I reached out to Reshmi for a collaboration, sending her a polite proposal to see if she was interested in creating something interesting together as it was my friend’s birthday (not necessarily a gifted cake but perhaps to create a personalised cake and maybe any discount) and of course, I was not ‘begging for a cake’ as it was mentioned many times by Reshmi and her followers. Her response was quite rude but it was acceptable for me and I didn’t reply, although it did say ‘I don’t care about your best friend’ and ‘don’t be cringe’.

After almost one month she started posting about me and my friend in her stories behind our backs after hiding the stories. We both didn’t want to post anything but it felt like we had to repost her stories as they there was a lot of hate and bullying about us and our personal life. She started creating polls about how ‘influencers are cringe’, and discussing my friend’s ‘cake-less guests at blagger birthday’. It was also shocking to me that she posted my private email that I sent to her in stories and later post without closing any personal information.

Both me and my friend received many abusive messages from her followers. Her posts are continuing despite being take down by Instagram Violation rules and I am afraid for our safety as the messages seem disturbing to us. Sadly, the truth has been twisted upside down as the reason of this scandal is not about free cake (I didn’t ask for a free cake, I just wanted to help promote business and perhaps choose a personalised design of cake). But it’s about disrespectful attitude towards us or people who sent a simple polite business enquiry. We didn’t start posting about Reshmi, just reposting and answering her stories, and then she blocked us and some of our followers.

Thankfully, we also received some positive replies from our and her followers and I believe perhaps some of them left negative Google reviews or some customers. I was surprised to hear the accusations that say I left these reviews. Personally, I feel very sad that people personally attack without knowing real truth about this situation or Reshmi’s business in general. It’s heart-breaking that this could have happened to a person with mental health problems or disabilities as I believe any harassment or bullying should not be tolerated and people need to be polite and kind to each other, no matter of the reason for being angry.

Reshmi’s followers were quick to rally around the baker in the comments.

One replied: ‘My New Year’s resolution is to not buy from companies that gift to influencers.’

‘The age of the influencer (freeloader/ponce) will come to an end,’ another added. ‘But fabulous cakes will live on!’

A third wrote: ‘Why do people think they are entitled to free stuff? We as small businesses work hard and nothing is given us for free.’

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