Ullja Kuntze purchased artisan goods to gather personal information about Etsy and ArtFire sellers and in turn posted their names, businesses, and locations in defamatory reports of tax evasion and licensing violations on two Online Fraud Investigation blogs, one of which is still online.

Why does she publish libelous statements about her competition? On the Online Fraud Investigation sites, she accuses multiple small-business artisans of tax evasion and tax fraud, Paypal account fraud, zoning fraud, and licensing fraud without any factual evidence that ANY fraud occurred. The fact is, she started publishing the blog after she was caught in multiple acts of consumer fraud (which are documented on this site) and most of the people she is defaming were either victims of the consumer fraud or spoke out against her acts.

Ullja's History

Year: 1992 - 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2007 - 2008 - 2009 - 2010

2010:

As the defamation case progressed during the early part of 2010, Ullja Kuntze buried Plaintiffs under a pile of unreasonable demands, including invasive demands for personal information like driver's licenses and medical records. Additionally, her attorney refused to produce Ullja Kuntze for oral deposition unless four of the Plaintiffs from across the country were produced for oral deposition in Texas, which created an unfair hardship. Although Ullja had admitted to writing the defamatory blog, the Plaintiffs announced the withdrawal of their suit on June 17, 2010 due to Defenant Ullja Kuntze's lack of cooperation and the anticipation of great cost to bring the suit to a conclusion.

The next week, on June 25, 2010, Ullja Kuntze filed a tortious intereference suit against 30 defendants, some of whom had been Plaintiffs in the recently withdrawn suit against Ullja.

2009:

In July Ullja announced on a new blog and on etsylove.ning that she had returned to the U.S. after taking master glass sculptor classes in Italy for three years, although she had been absent from the U.S. for less than two years. After her "I am baking again" announcement in ArtFire's forums caused a flurry of questions and comments, as well as negative reactions to the content of her post, Ullja began purchasing items from the artisans on Etsy and ArtFire. She used numerous sock puppet accounts attached to the same Woodway, TX address, for the sole purpose of obtaining information about the artisans to add them to the Online Fraud Investigation website, which went online on July 20.

Ullja's ArtFire account was terminated after she posted personal information about several people she'd featured on the Online Fraud Investigation website in the ArtFire forums. Ullja also opened a Twitter account under the name @TaxEvaderWatch to promote the site. The TaxEvaderWatch account was also terminated for TOS (terms of service) violations after numerous complaints were filed by artisans who were targeted on the Online Fraud Investigation blog.

It is suspected that Ullja then opened a new Twitter account, under the name @Kendrasshop, to promote her fake fraud blogs. The writing style is glaringly similar to other samples on hand, including capitalized words, punctuation, and certain phrases.

[pdf of blog post announcement]
[pdf of post on etsylove.ning]
[jpg screenshot of ArtFire post]
[jpg screenshot of TaxEvaderWatch tweets]
[pdf of Kendrasshop tweets]

Artisans familiar with Ullja cancelled her transactions and refunded her money immediately. Some of the artisans who unknowingly shipped their products to Ullja received the packages back unopened. Approximately 200 of them found themselves libeled on Ullja Kuntze's Online Fraud Investigation (handmadeartisanfraud.blogspot.com) site during the latter half of 2009.

On October 14, 2009, 54 plaintiffs filed a civil suit in Harrison County, TX, claiming various torts from defamation per se to fraud. During the course of discovery, Ullja Kuntze admitted to owning the defamatory blog Online Fraud Investigation and supplied copies of letters she'd written to the IRS and other authorities, which will not be posted here because they contain private information obtained by Ullja Kuntze when she purchased items from the Plaintiffs to obtain the information.

[pdf of Defendant Ullja Kuntze's interrogatories, submitted 12/22/2009]

2008:

While still claiming to own a bakery in central Texas, Ullja simultaneously sold lampwork beads from Milan, Italy. Since it's physically impossible to make beads in Italy while operating a bakery in Texas, it was suspected that Ullja was not actually operating a bakery as her Etsy cookie site claimed.

Texas authorities confirmed that Ullja did not have a licensed or inspected bakery in Texas. Authorities were denied access to the address (a residence) from which the baked goods were being shipped. Etsy subsequently terminated her cookie shop account.

During this time, evidence was collected by a group of lampwork glass beadmakers that proves Ullja Kuntze committed consumer fraud. Ullja was found to be purchasing beads from these beadmakers (see Proof of Fraud), then listing them on Etsy as her own work. Not only was this a case of consumer fraud, it is also a clear violation of Etsy's terms of service. Multiple Etsy sellers submitted complaints, and Ullja's Etsy bead shop was terminated on June 15, 2008.

[link to table of pdf records of transactions from both Etsy shops]
[link to table of jpg and pdf records of misrepresentation of other beadmakers' work]

In July, Ullja blogged that she had been cleared of wrongdoing and threatened legal action against the beadmakers. Far down the blog post page, she states that her mother purchased the beads from said beadmakers and they are now her property, which is an explicit admission the beads in question were purchased from other artisans.

[link to jpg of 2008-07-26 blog post. Scroll way down to the red-bordered paragraph.]

2007:

Ullja's European Cafe sales tax permit (filed under "Ullja's") was put on inactive status with the state of Texas on 8/31/2007 when she sold the business, allegedly to move to Italy.

Her Etsy cookie shop, however, continued to show her location as central Texas, also stating that she'd been a professional pastry chef for 15 years and that she has owned a European bakery and pastry shop for six years.

She created a new Etsy bead shop for beads and supplies, which stated she was making all her beads in a studio in Milan.

See transactions page for pdf files of Etsy sales from both locations for the same time period.

[pdf of sales tax permits issued to Ullja by the state of Texas]
[pdf of 2007 Etsy cookie shop]
[pdf of 2007 Etsy cookie shop profile]
[pdf of 2007 Etsy lampwork bead shop]
[pdf of 2008 Etsy lampwork bead shop profile]

2003:

Ullja opened Ullja's European Cafe at 611 Bowden St., Waco Texas 76710 in March and added floral arrangement services to her website.

At this time she also states she's been a cake artist for over ten years (which would have coincided approximately with her arrival at Baylor) and has been making sugar flowers as a hobby.

[pdf of 2003 website]

2002:

Ullja began promoting cakes on her website.

[pdf of 2002 website]

2001:

Ullja opened a concession trailer which included catering services. She states that previous to this she had been a pre-med tutor at Baylor for seven years.

There is no mention of any experience as a professional caterer, pastry chef or cake artist. She states her interest was in coffee.

[pdf of 2001 website]
[pdf of Baylor University article]

1992:

According to several of Ullja's biographical sites, this is the year she arrived in Texas to attend Baylor University as an International student from Germany. She graduated in 1996 with a B.S. in biology and chemistry.
[pdf of Baylor University article]