WEST ALLIS, Wis. — A West Allis woman is warning others after losing nearly $5,000 to a Facebook business that promised to sell her a freeze dryer, but never delivered the product.
Brittany Penoske contacted TMJ4 News after she was defrauded while trying to purchase equipment to make freeze-dried candy, a hobby that has gained popularity on social media platforms.
"I reached out to you basically because I got scammed out of a lot of money trying to buy a freeze dryer off Facebook," Penoske said.
Penoske said she was interested in making and selling freeze-dried candy.
"I started following like freeze dried pages, and that's when also I got the advice for looking up other pages to purchase freeze dryers," she explained.
A quick Google search shows freeze dryers typically cost anywhere from $1,700 to more than $3,000.
Penoske found what she thought was a legitimate business on Facebook called "Freeze Dryer Store."
Watch: West Allis woman loses nearly $5,000 to phony freeze dryer company
"Came across a Facebook page titled freeze dryer store, they had some decent reviews," she said. "They were able to ship me a freeze dryer from Florida to the Milwaukee area for a decent price."
Penoske initially paid about $1,000 for what she thought was a good deal. The company requested payments through Zelle, a peer-to-peer payment service.
After some initial payments, Penoske said the company started adding extra fees for what they called shipping delays.
"I was paying so much in that that I didn't know what to do besides just agree to it, and before I knew it, I was spending $4,736, which basically wiped my savings account," Penoske added.
Weeks passed with no freeze dryer delivery. When Penoske demanded a refund, she said the company blocked her.
Penoske reported the incident to her bank, but because she used Zelle, which provides warnings about potential fraud before transactions, there was nothing her bank could do to recover her money.
TMJ4 attempted to contact the phone numbers associated with the Zelle payments Penoske made. One line was disconnected, and the second caller hung up when we identified ourselves.
Penoske hopes sharing her story will prevent others from falling victim to similar fraud.
"Well, again, I do not want this to happen to anybody else at all. In a world like today, there's scammers everywhere, and you can literally lose everything," she said.
This story was reported on-air by Jenna Rae and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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