Francesca Ortega has redirected her business phone line to a critic after her company was flooded with one-star reviews.
Ortega, the California woman labeled “Santa Clarita Karen” online, told Fox 11 that her cleaning company of ten years has been devastated by backlash over a confrontation with a street vendor. “Now all of my livelihood is ruined. The business that I worked so hard to build for 10 years,” she said in her own video. The backlash came after footage circulated showing her threatening to call immigration authorities on a taco vendor.
The vendor, whom Ortega called a “stinky old woman” in the viral clip, had photographed her license plate before the argument escalated. Ortega maintained that she never intended to follow through on the ICE threat. “I need as much help as possible to recover from this. Obviously I didn’t mean to hurt them. It was just a confrontation,” she told Fox 11. “People say ugly things when they are upset.”
Ortega’s Google listing was soon overwhelmed with negative reviews. “We had excellent, perfect reviews and it got flooded, flooded by these insane horrible Latino people,” she stated in her video. She also reported receiving threats against herself and her family, saying she had become afraid to appear in public.
Rather than de-escalate, Ortega targeted one specific critic for retaliation. She changed her official business number on Google to the phone number of Ricardo Morales, a man who had spoken out against her online. Morales then found himself fielding hostile calls and messages from strangers nationwide.
Morales shared one text with Fox 11 that read, “You should be ashamed of yourself. Saw you on the internet being a disgrace.” He expressed disbelief at Ortega’s maneuver. “It’s crazy to think that somebody can be that extremely vindictive and now won’t own up to their actions,” he added.
Ortega defended the phone number switch, saying her critics would not leave her alone. She had previously expressed frustration that the sidewalk vendor was operating in her area, telling Fox 11 she did not want the valley to resemble Los Angeles and believed such vendors were harming local businesses.
The original incident occurred when Ortega confronted the vendor on a Santa Clarita sidewalk. The vendor photographed Ortega’s license plate, prompting Ortega to threaten ICE involvement and hurl the “stinky old woman” insult. The exchange was captured on video, spread rapidly across social platforms, and transformed Ortega into a national flashpoint in ongoing debates about immigration enforcement, street vending, and public confrontations captured on camera.
Ortega continues to seek public sympathy while simultaneously lashing out at those who have condemned her. Her business remains damaged, her personal information exposed, and her reputation now tied permanently to a few minutes of sidewalk footage.
Morales, meanwhile, has been left to manage the fallout from a conflict he did not start, his personal phone number now serving as the unintended hotline for Ortega’s remaining detractors.