Independent bakery left shocked at attempts to claim refund with AI pics
Makes by Megs say they've had two similar incidents within a month
Last updated 5th Jun 2026
A stunned North of Scotland bakery say they're spending hours fighting against refund requests which use fake artificial intelligence images.
Nairn based "Makes by Megs", who have two shops and a TikTok online shop, have now had two incidents in around a month where digitally altered photos are being used to claim money back.
The bakers said in the latest incident, their own product photos were edited with AI as if to appear mouldy to try and get a refund.
This comes after a similar recent incident, where an AI watermark was left on the bottom of the picture.
They've outlined how dealing with this type of complaint, is taking away from valuable work time.
A social media post by Makes By Megs said: "Another fake refund request of someone using AI to make our “product images” (the ones we take to represent the product, that’s what each of these are minus the fake mould obviously) to try to claim they arrived covered in mould even though they’re still in date.
"You have to ask yourself at this point, do people actually think that we are stupid?!
"However the real question we all want to know the answer to is, do they think TikTok are stupid enough to believe them and approve the request."
The images posted by the bakers show three of their products covered in green circular mould spots.
Hundreds of social media users defended the bakery in the comments.
One said: "For a start, If it was real would you be holding it with your hands?
"Why are people so silly."
Another added: "I’ve accidentally kept bakes in my cupboard or fridge for way too long and the only thing that has ever grew mold was a jelly slice, chocolate pieces get tiny white dots on the chocolate it would take a lot for them to get this mouldy."
A third said: "As if they’d hold the mouldy food."
Speaking to our news team, Makes by Megs co-owner Megan Mclean tells us why they decided to go public what what has been happening.
She said: "We're not scared to call it out because we know it's not correct, it's a lie.
"We had people all over the UK coming back to us commenting saying they couldn't believe this is what people were doing to get £20 of their money back.
"It's starting to hit people who are small businesses like us and it's unfortunate that we are having to spend the time trying to prove that.
Fellow co-owner Nicola Mackinlay added: "They just use our photos, put it into an AI generator and say 'put some mould on this,' maybe change the background slightly.
"In one of them they changed the colour of the wall, but you can see it's our wall.
"The irony of it is, what they're doing using false images to claim a refund is illegal, it's fraud."
Since Makes By Megs first posted about the latest 'AI incident', they've updated followers to say TikTok sided with them and didn't issue a refund.