'The Office' Alum Leslie David Baker Is Returning Over $110,000 After Fans Accuse Him of Scamming Them

The Office actor Leslie David Baker, who played Dunder Mifflin employee Stanley Hudson, announced on Tuesday, Aug. 1 that he is returning all of fans' donations sent through a 2020 Kickstarter for his unofficial Stanley spin-off after being accused by fans of scamming them.

In a statement shared on social media, the former NBC star wrote, "We apologize about the delay in updated, we have been working behind the scenes to get everything on track and rewards fulfilled. We are just as excited as all of you to get this project out and truly appreciate all of your patience and support."

He noted that the project "took longer than anticipated due to circumstances beyond our control" with initial delays "caused because of the COVID lockdowns," and now the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have caused to "put things on hold again."

Baker continued, "After careful consideration, we have decided to refund our backers. As a token of our appreciation, for your support and patience, the Backer rewards will still be fulfilled along with a full refund. Those of you who's [sic] rewards have already been fulfilled will also receive a full refund. In light of the current economic situation, we felt that this was the best course of action."

He also claimed that "a large portion of backers' pledges were lowered, or completely dropped and never collected once the campaign completed," with the final sum of donations received being $110,629. 81.

"The funds were never used for any purposes other than reward fulfillment and backer refunds, and have otherwise remained accounted for and untouched in the account," wrote Baker.

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This decision was prompted after a Twitter user wrote, on July 30, "I learned today the actor that played Stanley on the office scammed people $300,00 with a promise of a spin-off featuring his character. I'll never leave this site whatever it’s called."

The tweet got plenty of traction, receiving over 23,000 likes and over 1,000 retweets.

A day prior, another Twitter user had tweeted, "remember this" with screenshots of a Variety news report on Baker's plans for the spin-off titled Uncle Stan and its Kickstarter page, showing that it'd been backed by 1,640 people, who pledged a total of $336,450.

That person uncovered that the domain unclestantheshow.com, which had been shared by Baker and his collaborator Sardar Khan, had expired. They also found that the LLC Baker filed with Khan was dissolved in February 2021.

The Kickstarter campaign was launched in 2020, which promised that the original cast of The Office would be invited to reprise their roles on the series.

There were also various tiers of perks offered to donors according to how much money they gave, which included a special thank you, an exclusive mp3 of the theme song, a digital copy of the script, a "Pretzel Day" collector's pin, and a shoutout on Baker's Instagram.

The tagline for the proposed series, which was not affiliated with NBC, read: "After enjoying his retirement in Florida, carving wood, enjoying the white sand beaches, and dancing to old disco, Uncle Stan (Leslie David Baker) gets a call from his nephew Lucky in Los Angeles asking for help with his two kids and running his motorcycle/flower shop."

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