When hiring someone you don’t know from the Internet, always be cautious and if you are thinking of hiring Melynda Choothesa, read my complaint first.

A few months ago I, Furkat Kasimov, hired Ms. Choothesa who owns the fashion company Couture Zen. Like many stylists and designers on the Internet, she had an excellent portfolio and online reviews.

When my company first spoke to Ms. Choothesa, it was via a phone conversation. She seemed very interested in our project which required creating two outfits for each of the four seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall. She asked us questions and suggested ideas via phone and email which in addition to her portfolio and online reputation, lead us to believe that she would be a good fit for the project.


March 20th, 2019 was the date we agreed the project would begin. At her request, it was also the date we paid her a deposit. Per our agreement, the project was supposed to be completed within a week of the deposit. Not only did we never see the results of the deposit, we soon felt like Ms. Choothesa was a scammer when she failed to deliver and respond to us well after she received her money.

She had a website and reviews that looked legit but for a while it was like she never existed. Trying not to be a spammer by calling her multiple times, sending her too many emails, and sending an SMS, we ended up waiting a bit for her to get back to us. Then, one day out of the blue, we got a response. As part of her response, we were told that she was in San Diego taking care of her sick grandmother who she was close to. We understood and gave her some additional time to deliver the project, despite her lack of communication.

More time went on without a word from her. At this point, we were debating if we should start looking for someone else and if we would ever see our money again. I had a coworker test the waters to see if she was a scam artist who was just ignoring us, or if it was everyone and she in fact did have an issue with her grandmother.

When my coworker reached out to her, she promptly responded and like she had done with us, expressed interest in “his project.” She even added that she was in LA and available for work (despite telling she was in San Diego). When my coworker stopped communicating with her, she continued to follow up with him.

At the same time, I continued to follow up with Ms. Choothesa to find out what was going on. With no response given, I was forced to request a refund from PayPal. She probably saw the PayPal request because she then immediately responded to my email and said that she was sorry for the delay. She also told us that she would issue a refund of the deposit we paid her.

She still has not issued our refund or delivered any work.