Mandarin Festival warns people about scammers

In another sign of the times, even the Mountain Mandarin Festival is not immune to scam artists trying to steal people's hard-earned money. Festival officials recently took to social media to send a warning to the community, and particularly potential festival vendors, about scammers who are posing as festival officials, tricking people into giving them "deposits." The scammer is contacting vendors and partners via email, pretending to sell vendor spots for the Mountain Mandarin Festival, which occurs each year before Thanksgiving. The scammer requests deposits in the email to reserve a space. The email address currently reported as being used by the scammer is robertdenise288@gmail.com. Gary Gilligan, longtime executive director of the Mountain Mandarin Festival, said they only accept vendor and food truck applications through their official website and EventHub; they never use a third party to sell vendor booths and never request payment through unsolicited emails or direct messages. "We have been faced with scammers for many years, most posting on Facebook selling T-shirts, discount booths and admission tickets people cannot use. Last year, we had a scammer email food trucks and sell space at the festival. We had five trucks that fell for it and sent them money," said Gilligan. "Sunday, we were alerted to emails to vendors selling discount booths. We know many events are being hit by the scammers. We block maybe three or four a week on social media. But direct emails are much harder to stop." Gilligan said if someone receives suspicious communications claiming to represent the Mandarin Festival, report it to them immediately. Unfortunately, the scammers have managed to swindle money from some unsuspecting vendors, resulting in not just lost money but wasted food and disappointment. "Last year when the three food trucks showed up that booked with a scammer, they had bought food for a three-day event for three trucks, so not only were they out $2,500 for the booth space, they also had food that they had no place to sell at," said Gilligan. This year's Mountain Mandarin Festival is scheduled for Nov. 20-22 @theGrounds in Roseville. The festival, of course, has a plethora of locally grown mandarins but also live entertainment, and 300-plus vendors selling food and other products.