Melynda Choothesa Couture Zen melynda frye received money but did not perform service Los Angeles California

I’m writing this complaint today about the Melynda Choothesa of Couture Zen. I initially discovered Melynda when I was looking for a stylist and designer who could help my company create two outfits for each of the four seasons (winter, spring, summer, and fall). Melynda seemed to have a good online reputation based on her Yelp reviews (as several of her competitors who I also reached out to did).

When I first contacted Melynda she seemed very interested in the project. In addition to being quick to respond, she stayed in touch, asked questions about the project and suggested ideas via phone and email. In the beginning, everything seemed to be going great with her and then it all went downhill when I sent her the deposit. The deposit was for her to start the project, which she promised to complete by the weekend. Not only did she not complete the project in time, she completely disappeared.

I paid the deposit on March 20th, 2019, the date the project was supposed to start. As promised, I expected the project would be completed within a week but I didn’t see a thing. Understandably, things happen. Giving her the benefit of the doubt thinking maybe she got sick or had a family emergency, I waited patiently but could not help but have a gut feeling that I was dealing with a scammer. I mean, she was so responsive prior. Unless something happened to her directly, how could she not send a quick email or SMS letting me know what was going on?

After waiting a bit, I reached out to her by phone and email but it was like she never existed; I did not hear a single word from her. One day she finally did get in touch stating that there was an issue: she had been having a bad time since her grandmother was sick in San Diego and being so close to her, she had to take care of her. I totally understood this and thought okay, maybe this was not a scam after all so I gave more time to complete the project. But then, a couple of weeks passed and she went ghost again. I did not want to be annoying and become a spammer, but I did try to reach out to her via email and phone calls several times. Crickets. 

What I ended up doing to try to get a response was to ask a coworker to call her and pretend that she was a potential client who wants to work with her. Melynda said that she was in LA (before she was saying she was in San Diego because her grandmother was sick), and she was free to start a new project with her (my coworker). Then, Melynda started following up with my coworker to see when she wanted to start the project.

Meanwhile, I again emailed Melynda at the same email she reached out to my coworker from and did not get a response. I had no choice but to request a refund with PayPal. As soon as Melynda saw the PayPal refund request, she immediately responded to my email with some excuse about how she was “sorry for the delay and how she would issue a refund for the deposit we paid her.” But she never issued a refund.