Feb 28, 2026
Pamela Brooke Schronce has been arrested 12 times since New Year's Day. Not over 12 years, or 12 months — 12 times in under two months.
Schronce, the 30-year-old owner of Thomas and Turner Boutique in Belton, South Carolina, faces fraud charges from law enforcement agencies in nearly a dozen counties across the state, according to FOX Carolina (1). Her most recent arrest came on Feb. 25, when she was booked into the Pickens County Detention Center on one count of obtaining property under false pretense valued at less than $2,000. She was granted a $2,000 bond.
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The charges all stem from the same accusation: customers paid the boutique for children's and women's clothing, never received what they ordered, and got nowhere when they asked for a refund. The Anderson County Sheriff's Office said Schronce scammed at least 54 victims who placed online orders but never received their merchandise, according to FOX Carolina (2).
Cherokee County Sheriff Steve Mueller didn't mince words when his office booked Schronce for the 11th time on Feb. 23. A victim in his county had ordered $360 in products and received nothing, Mueller said, per FOX Carolina (3).
"The victim, just like all the others, tried repeatedly to get an answer from the suspect but eventually was blocked and they would not respond," Mueller said. "So, investigators were able to secure an arrest warrant ... and we waited in line with all the other agencies to get her booked."
Schronce has not publicly responded to the allegations.
How the alleged scam worked
Thomas and Turner Boutique sold smocked children's clothing and women's apparel out of Anderson County, largely through online orders, according to FOX Carolina.
What customers describe is the same story on repeat. They placed an order. They paid. Nothing shipped. When they followed up, they were told refunds or store credit were coming. Then the communication stopped — Schronce allegedly blocked buyers on the boutique's Facebook page, ignored emails, or went silent entirely.
In one early case, a Fairfield County woman said she paid $1,153 for an order placed in 2024 that never arrived, according to The Voice of Blythewood & Fairfield County (4). Her last contact with Schronce was a November 2025 email. After that, she was blocked on Facebook. The Anderson County Sheriff's Office, meanwhile, said a single customer had paid more than $920 and that the agency was investigating at least eight individual cases as of early January, per FOX Carolina (5).
A Richland County case involved a customer who placed four separate orders in October and November 2025, totaling just over $202 — including one listed as "ready to ship" — and received none of them, according to FOX Carolina (6). Schronce reportedly stopped responding around mid-December.
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Why she keeps getting arrested — and what the charges carry
Twelve arrests for what amounts to the same alleged scheme sounds redundant until you look at how South Carolina handles criminal charges. Each case has to be filed in the jurisdiction where the victim lives. Schronce's customers were scattered from Fairfield County in the Midlands to Cherokee County near the North Carolina border, so every agency where a victim came forward had to file and process its own charges.
The result was exactly what Sheriff Mueller described: a queue of law enforcement agencies waiting their turn to book the same woman.
The charges fall under South Carolina Code §16-13-240, which covers obtaining property through false pretense or misrepresentation with intent to defraud, per the South Carolina Legislature (7). Because each individual victim's losses were under $2,000, every charge is classified as a misdemeanor — punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, up to 30 days in jail, or both.
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That's also why Schronce kept walking out. Bond amounts across her arrests have ranged from $1,000 to $6,000. She posted bond multiple times, only to get picked up by the next county in line. On Feb. 5, she was released from the Spartanburg County jail at 6:25 p.m. and re-arrested by the Easley Police Department roughly an hour later.
In Greenwood, the charges looked slightly different. Police Chief Chaudoin said Schronce was charged with three counts of breach of trust with fraudulent intent — a related but distinct offense — and given a $6,000 total bond, per FOX Carolina.
Each individual order was modest — $200, $360, $920. But the Anderson County Sheriff's Office count of at least 54 victims makes clear the aggregate is something else entirely. So far she’s alleged to have taken at least $10,000 plus in scam dollars.
Here's the full timeline of Schronce's arrests:
Jan. 1 — Taken into custody in Anderson County; extradited to Fairfield County for formal charging.
Jan. 7 — Picked up by Easley Police.
Feb. 5 — Booked by the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office. Out on bond by 6:25 p.m.
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Feb. 5 — Back in custody less than an hour later, this time with Easley PD.
Feb. 9 — Charged again in Anderson County.
Feb. 11 — Surrendered to the Abbeville County Sheriff's Office.
Feb. 13 — Booked by the Pickens County Sheriff's Office.
Feb. 13 — Booked by the Greenville County Sheriff's Office the same day.
Feb. 19 — Processed at the Richland County Detention Center; held on a Greenwood PD warrant.
Feb. 20 — Transferred to Greenwood Police custody.
Feb. 23 — Booked at the Cherokee County Detention Center.
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Feb. 25 — Booked at the Pickens County Detention Center.
The Fairfield County Sheriff's Office flagged the scope of this case early. In a Facebook post after the first arrest, the agency said it was aware of claims from numerous individuals, including complaints circulating on social media. The office asked anyone who believed they were a victim to contact local law enforcement. Based on what's happened since, a lot of them did.
What to do if you paid for an online order that never arrived
Several of Schronce's alleged victims spent months trying to get answers from the boutique before going to police. If you've been in a similar spot — you paid an online seller, got nothing, and can't get a response — federal law gives you more options than you might think.
The FTC's Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule requires sellers to ship within the timeframe they promise, or within 30 days if no date is given, according to the Federal Trade Commission (8). If there's a delay, the seller has to notify you and offer a full refund if you want to cancel.
If you paid with a credit card, the Fair Credit Billing Act lets you dispute the charge as a billing error. You have 60 days from the date the first statement containing the charge was sent to you. Send the dispute in writing to the billing disputes address listed by your card issuer — not the payment address.
Debit card protections are weaker under federal law, but contact your bank right away — some issuers voluntarily offer buyer protections beyond what's required.
You can also report the seller at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and file a complaint with your state attorney general's office. And keep everything: order confirmations, receipts, screenshots of messages, and any shipping promises. That paper trail matters whether you're filing a chargeback or a police report.
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Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
FOX Carolina (1, 2, 3, 5, 6); The Voice of Blythewood & Fairfield County (4); South Carolina Legislature (7); Federal Trade Commission (8)
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Rudro is an Editor with Moneywise. His work has appeared on Yahoo Finance, MSN Money and The Financial Post. He previously served as Managing Editor of Oola, and as the Content Lead of Tickld before that. Rudro holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Toronto.
