My friend, who is scrapbook manufacturer that lives on the other side of the country, made the mistake of sending an order COD to a store out here and accepting a check. The check from this store bounced and she has been getting nothing but lies from the store owner. She is owed over $1000 for the merchandise she sent to this store. I talked to my friend about it over the phone and decided to go check out this store and see if it actually existed and whether or not it had my friend’s products on display. (The store owner claimed they were not in her store.)
The store is located in LA county about a 1/2 hour from me. I told Talia the store and she wanted to come with me. We took the Miata and drove the address and found the store. Much to my surprise, the store did exist. Based on the fact that they are not in the yellowpages and their website was down, I thought they had gone out of business. We went in the store and looked around. Sure enough, there was a huge display on one wall with a ton of my friend’s products. It was a lot of fun playing spy! We took some pictures of the outside of the store and then drove to another scrapbooking store so I could buy some paper for Aidan’s baby book. (I did not want to give the other store any of my business!)
I emailed the picture of the store to my friend and told her what I saw. I later talked to her about it on the phone. She has been in contact with the police in the city where this store is located and will pass on the information I gave her. The store owner is looking at being charged with a felony for writing that bad check. She likely will also face fraud charges since she had no money in her bank account when she wrote the check. Hopefully, my friend will be able to get back her merchandise that this store has not yet sold.