SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash – A North Idaho small business owner is set back around $8,000 after thieves stole her inventory and equipment in Spokane Valley, WA Sunday night.
Kamiah, ID resident and owner of Backwoods Boutique, Calista Zumhofe, was staying at a Airbnb when the theft happened in the Carnahan – Lincoln Heights neighborhood.
“Somebody can just take it away just like that. It’s just hard. It’s hard,” Zumhofe said.
The owner was at selling her apparel at the Custer Show. The next morning when she was getting ready to travel home, she was told her stuff was stolen.
“I look in the pickup and I had 13 totes of inventory, all of my inventory out of my brick-and-mortar,” Zumhofe recalling what she had in the truck.
One of the items stolen was this point-of-sales device that she uses for credit card transactions.
“That is password protected and I’m working with Shopify to see if that could be tracked,” Zumhofe said.
Thankfully Zumhofe says the device doesn’t show full credit card numbers, although it does have shipping addresses for her orders, and with that missing, she only had a physical book that has those orders but “all that was stolen, unfortunately, and I’ve reached out to people,” Zumhofe said.
She’s still trying to track down some of the remaining orders that were on that book.
“I don’t even know what people ordered and people already paid for it and so like that is where my heart went,” Zumhofe said.
She filed a police report, but regardless of this setback, Zumhofe still sees the good in people.
“I’ve had hundreds of messages from people and people sharing my post and reaching out to me and wanting to purchase from, and I think that shows more about people than anything,” Zumhofe said.
If you may have noticed a piece of her clothing or saw anything, you can message at this link or call crime check – (509) 456-2233.
