Complaint Review: The Waking Dead Cafe & Coffee

The Waking Dead Cafe & Coffee is a coffee shop planning to open in Yakima, Washington. The people behind it are Kandi Porter, Erik Pearson and Jocelyn Lee McKenzie, according to the Page Owners tab via their Facebook page. facebook.com/twdcafe/info?tab=page_owners As it is still in the planning process, there is no physical address at this time. 

They are using copyrighted photos, adding their own watermark to each photo, for menu items, not including any credit or notice that the photos are not their own. facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.106899629645819.1073741830.106094766392972&type=3 Using TinEye, a reverse image search, one can look up their menu item photos and see the photos have already been on the internet before The Waking Dead Cafe & Coffee ever existed. (Note that there are currently 7 menu item photos in the Menu Items album; 2 have been removed due to copyright owners reporting their photos for copyright infringement, and one can see that 9 were uploaded from this archived page. archive.is/ZKY5i) 

For example; the photo of what they call Creepy Calzone is all over the internet. tineye.com/search/885c261a723465eda7793a0326466c88b9cac46b Graveyard Cookie DeFright are Tombstone Cookies from sunset.com/food-wine/holidays-occasions/good-halloween-candy-recipes/halloween-cookies-m and Sweet Zombies are zombie marshmallow pops from thedecoratedcookie.com/2010/10/attack-of-the-zombie-marshmallows. Some of the menu item photos are included on twdcafe.com in the slideshow on top.

In addition, The Waking Dead Cafe & Coffee's Facebook page has fake reviews; 5.0 of 5 stars, 9 reviews, including a 5-star review from page owner Erik Pearson, himself! facebook.com/twdcafe/reviews As one can see from their Facebook page and GoFundMe fundraiser, gofundme.com/z3f4c2s, they have yet to purchase the coffee shop (calling it a coffee "stand" on the GoFundMe fundraiser) they are interested in at this time and relocating it to Yakima, so The Waking Dead Cafe & Coffee is not open for business yet, therefore no reviews should be left, especially from one of the page owners.

As one can see on their Facebook page at this time, they are still asking for donations; yet, they have done several giveaways and incentives, such as giving "Free Coffee For Life" and "In an effort to help raise more funds for the coffee shop, we have decided that anyone who donates to our fund will receive double the amount back in a gift card that can be used at the shop." In addition, they previously had a post up with an email address to where people can send their résumés to, which can still be seen in this archived page. archive.is/ZKY5i. They do not have enough money to even buy a building, yet they are giving people free coffee for life (that people can use for the rest of their lives) and providing twice the amount of what someone donates (donating $250 will get you a $500 gift card toward their shop items), not even including a disclaimer to protect themselves if they cannot fulfill what they said.

Between using copyrighted photos and allowing and leaving fake reviews, the people behind The Waking Dead Cafe & Coffee are dishonest, misleading people, and have no right to ask for donations under these circumstances.