Ohio woman’s Facebook scam targeted new moms — and cost 150 people $200,000, cops say

Facebook users flocked to the group “Zee’s Place” in droves to buy everything from cheap baby products to Disney vacations.

More than 150 Facebook users spent $200,000 on products offered by Zienup Sbeih-Maddox, the 24-year-old Cleveland, Ohio, woman who ran the group, according to the state attorney general’s office. The Facebook operation targeted new moms in particular.

It was all a scam: Many of those who paid for goods never got what they bought, state prosecutors said, which led Cleveland police to ask the public for help tracking down Sbeih-Maddox in July 2017. She was wanted on charges of grand theft and telecommunications fraud.

Sbeih-Maddox was arrested in Las Vegas in August, according to WOIO — and after she lost her fight to avoid extradition, she was moved from Nevada to Ohio on Sunday to face charges.

Investigators said that as Sbeih-Maddox raked in hundreds of thousands on the scam, she was paying less than $80 in monthly rent for Cleveland public housing, WOIO reported.

Police started investigating Sbeih-Maddox after multiple scam victims called Cleveland police in the spring of 2017, the attorney general’s office said.

Investigators identified victims as far afield as Hawaii.

Court records said a victim in Arizona lost more than $10,000 to Sbeih-Maddox, Cleveland.com reported. The Arizona woman had ordered — and received — $200 in small items over the Facebook page in November 2016, but when the woman used PayPal, Amazon gift cards and Money Gram to order more goods, they never showed up, even as Sbeih-Maddox assured the woman over and over again that her order was on its way, according to court records.

That woman reported the crime to police, which launched the investigation, according to Cleveland.com.

Sbeih-Maddox is set to appear in court on Tuesday, WOIO reports.

This story was originally published November 26, 2018 at 5:53 PM with the headline "Ohio woman’s Facebook scam targeted new moms — and cost 150 people $200,000, cops say."