SAN DIEGO — CBS 8 is Working for You to investigate complaints from several people who said they have lost tens of thousands of dollars after purchasing online storefronts from a former El Cajon woman.
The complainants said they have tried to filed police reports, and even contacted the FBI, with no action taken.
The complaints come back to a woman named Heather Hurst-McKee, who moved last year from El Cajon to Indiana, Pennsylvania, according to court records.
“I initially connected with her on a platform called Biz Buy Sell,” said Lindsay Ramcheran, a resident of New Jersey. “It was an online e-commerce fashion business, an online storefront.”
E-commerce web sites are marketed as turnkey stores. You buy the domain and you get a cut of the sales when customers click through links to online merchandise. At least that’s the promise.
Ramcheran said she agreed to purchase the domain shopselectfashion.com for $13,000 from Hurst-McKee, an entrepreneur and fitness advocate on social media. Included in the contract were training sessions on Zoom, where Ramcheran said Hurst-McKee was supposed teach her how to run the e-commerce site.
“She said it was making, I think it was like around $4,000 a month or something like that,” said Ramcheran. “Originally the listing was for $13,000, and I paid her a total of $5,400.”
After making initial payments, Ramcheran said it became difficult to schedule training sessions, and she was not making any money through the website.
“Basically, after a lot of pushing and just arguing with her, she ended up starting to pay me back. She still owes me $3,970,” said Ramcheran.
CBS 8 heard similar stories from other people who said they tried to buy websites from Hurst-McKee.
“She told us we couldn't even know the name of the domain before we paid her,” said Marlie Robinson, a resident of Poway. Robinson said she paid $3,500 on a $9,000 contract to buy a pet supply e-commerce website.
When it came time for the Zoom training sessions, “We only had one. It was 20 minutes. And it was basically copying and pasting URLs from other websites to my website,” said Robinson.
Robinson said she never made any money and decided to bail out of the deal. “I just think it's wrong. You know, she's claiming to provide a service and a business. And that's not what she's doing,” said Robinson.
Another man, who lives in California’s Central Valley, sought to purchase a gaming e-commerce site from Hurst-McKee. He asked that he not be identified.
“It was a gaming site where you can sell monitors to controllers to games themselves,” he said.
He said he paid Hurst-McKee $12,000. After a few training sessions, he said Hurst-McKee ghosted him.
Asked whether he made any money on the site, the man said, “Not at all. We literally only got through about trainings that were 10 minutes each,” he said.
In November 2023, the man sued Hurst-McKee for the max he could get in small claims court: $10,000. The case is still ongoing.
CBS 8 found five lawsuits against Hurst-McKee filed in 2023 – one in Stanislaus County, three in San Diego County, and one in New York state – with claims totaling close to $90,000.
Lindsay Ramcheran filed her small claims case in June 2023 in San Diego County Superior Court. A trial was held on February 1 before Judge Pro Tem Jami Ferrara. (Attorneys are not allowed in California small claims court.)
“There are various pages and sites and reviews trying to warn others about Heather,” Ramcheran told the judge. “She still owes me $3,970.”
"At the end of the day, she does still owe me money on this contract," Hurst-McKee told the judge in her defense.
Hurst-McKee also filed a counterclaim in the same case, alleging Ramcheran defamed her in posts on social media and harassed her on the telephone.
“It was just constantly, ‘Give me my money back, give me my money back. Scammer. Fraud. Criminal,’” Hurst-McKee said in court. “Saying that you have a disagreement with what you purchased, that's fine, but to go online to all of these sites saying that I'm a criminal, I'm going to jail, I'm a scammer, I stole, I victimized, it's too much, it crossed the line.”
In the end, the judge made a split decision, ruling there was a breach of contract. The judge ordered Hurst-McKee to pay back Ramcheran $4,060 (including miscellaneous fees incurred in the case).
The judge also found there was harassment, ordering Ramcheran to pay Hurst-McKee $2,740 in damages. Both parties can appeal the judge's ruling if they choose.
Outside court, Hurst-McKee declined to comment on the lawsuits filed against her.
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