On July 19 my fiancee and I met with Williams Sterling of Jacqueline's catering at the Weinberg Center in Reisterstown, MD. Mr. Sterling portrayed himself as a representatitve of the Weinberg as well as a caterer. We signed a contract with Mr. Sterling to cater our wedding event on 6/14/08 and for the hall rental of the Weinberg on 6/14/08.
We made a deposit of $1000.00 to him on July 19 and signed a contract with him to pay him $500.00 a month until the balance for our catering and the hall rental was paid off. On December 12, I received a call from Mr. Sterling advising me that he was banned from doing any catering services at the Weinberg and that I needed to contact them directly.
I was completely confused at this point, because Mr. Sterling stated that he was the owner of the Weinberg. I called and spoke with a representative of the Weinberg Center who informed me that Mr. Sterling was never an employee or representative of the Weinberg Center and that Mr. Sterling only catered events there. I was advised that Jacqueline's Catering had no business accepting deposits for the rental of a hall that he has no ownership to. The representative also stated that they never received a deposit from Mr. Sterling for my wedding date of 6/14/08 and that Mr. Sterling was indeed banned from doing any caterng at the facility and that they have been having ongoing problems with his company for awhile.
This once again was very confusing especially since I had three meetings with Mr. Sterling at the Weinberg Center along with us conducting our food tasting there. I later found out that Mr. Sterling of Jacqueline's catering kept a key that a bride gave him awhile ago to cater an event at the Weinberg Center and he refused to return the key. This is how Mr. Sterling had complete access to the building and was able to scam several couples into believing that they were signing a contract for his catering services as well as the hall rental of the Weinberg.
I was also advised that in order for me to have my wedding at the Weinberg Center that, I would need to sign a contract directly with the Weinberg Center and make a deposit to secure our date. I spoke with Mr. Sterling of Jacqueline's Catering who advised me that he would refund ALL of my money given to him ($3000.00) by the 19th of December.
I made several attempts to call, email and mailed correspondences to Mr. Sterling of Jacqueline's Catering without any response. A co-worker of my fiancee called Mr. Sterling and left a mesage of his interest in Jacqueline's Catering services to see if he would return his call and just as I thought Mr. Sterling called right back. My fiancee then got on the phone with Mr. Sterling and immediately Mr. Sterling admitted to spending all of our money for his personal use and he requested to work out a payment arrangement with us to pay us back. Since then, we have not heard from Mr. Sterling or his wife (co-owner of Jacqueline's Catering).
This incident has put tremendous stress on me and my fiancee's relationship and also added a large burden for us to come up with additional funds for us to pay for our wedding. I wished I would have done my research of Jacqueline's Catering before signing a contract with them. Please check the Better Business Bureau website and you will see that this guy runs a shady business and he is a scam artist. Stay clear of Jacqueline's Catering. If I can prevent one person from making the same mistake we did, it will be well worth it.
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