Ohio Female Gets Jail For Fake Mail Order Scam Involving High End Purses
Nobody likes to buy something online and not get the merchandise. It can really piss you off when the seller does not contact you after repeated tries. Federal authorities said that Rashell Ortiz, 23, of Grove City, Ohio and her boyfriend Orvil Cataquet Jr., 25, of Syracuse, New York. did just that.
They would advertise high end purses and other items, authorities said, Throughout the scheme, they posed as a young female who was selling the bags at reduced prices because she was going through a divorce and wanted to get rid of her ex-husband’s gifts. They offered interested buyers a discount to conduct the transaction through a third-party money transfer app such as Zelle, CashApp, Venmo, Google Pay, or PayPal. Once they received the victims’ money, they failed to deliver the goods and eventually ceased contact.
In all, Ortiz and Cataquet Jr. defrauded more than 300 victims, some of whom resided in the greater Philadelphia region out of approximately $130,225, which they used to fund their lifestyle of frequent food deliveries and video games.
Ortiz will do just under two years for her part in the scam, and she will have to repay the $130,225 to the victims she stole from. She was found guilty at trail of six counts of wire fraud. Cataquet Jr. pleaded guilty to wire fraud last year and was sentenced in October to 14 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and $156,074 in restitution