Melissa Gorga caused a stir when she quietly removed her fashion brand ENVY from the New Jersey tax system while the company was under investigation for tax evasion and misappropriation of commercial assets - a series of customers spoke up to report being scammed when they did not receive their goods, did not receive refunds, and were even blocked from contacting her after complaining.
An internal report from the New Jersey Department of Revenue leaked to the press showed that the ENVY LLC company under Melissa Gorga's name had its business registration number temporarily suspended since late last month after signs of fraud in reporting income. Specifically, the tax system recorded revenue that did not match the financial statements for the last three years, with a significant difference of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The matter became especially serious when ENVY was simultaneously suspended from operating in the state while it had not completed its tax reporting obligations. Meanwhile, the company has not made any official announcement on its website or official Instagram page – instead, posts promoting products and Melissa’s personal life continue as if nothing had happened.
At the same time, many customers began to speak out on forums and social networks, accusing the company of taking money but not delivering the goods, or delivering the wrong model and not refunding. One Twitter account shared that she had ordered a $490 dress in February but never received the product, after complaining, her comment was deleted and she could no longer contact the customer service email. Another person posted a photo of 6 emails sent in 2 consecutive months with no response, saying that they called ENVY’s hotline but the automated switchboard said “this number is currently no longer active”.
The situation became even more alarming when an anonymous source on Reddit, claiming to be a former ENVY employee, posted a screenshot of a text message allegedly between Melissa and the internal management team, asking for all business data to be removed from public platforms as soon as possible. In the message, Melissa is said to have said outright that the company "cannot meet the volume of orders anymore" and that "the Bravo environment cannot cause any more legal trouble right now." This raised suspicions that Melissa was intentionally avoiding legal responsibility by cleaning up the business and pushing all the damage onto customers.
On social media platforms, the reaction of RHONJ fans was extremely fierce. The hashtags #EnvyScam and #MelissaFraud began to strongly rise with thousands of shares per hour. Many Bravo fan pages even posted posts calling for a boycott of ENVY, and asked BravoTV to take disciplinary action against Melissa if the violation was confirmed. A viral TikTok video with more than 1 million views in 24 hours showed a compilation of dozens of angry comments from customers who had purchased through ENVY, with a large caption above the video: "Stop buying from people who see you as a mobile ATM". Notably, this is not the first time Melissa Gorga and ENVY have been embroiled in controversy. In 2021, she was sued by her former co-founder for splitting the company without notice and retaining full ownership of the brand without a transparent agreement. At that time, the scandal caused ENVY to temporarily suspend operations for a few months before returning, and Melissa once spoke out calling it a "personal misunderstanding". But given the scale and legal nature of this investigation, viewers believe that this is no longer a misunderstanding, but a sign of a series of systematic and intentional violations aimed at tax evasion, commercial fraud and consumer manipulation.
Currently, Melissa Gorga has not made any official comments, while ENVY's website is temporarily inaccessible, while the official Instagram continues to post fashion and family life photos. In the eyes of fans, this is a blatant disregard, further fueling outrage and promoting a wave of calls for Bravo to intervene, otherwise the RHONJ program will be seen as a tool to clean up the image of characters with signs of serious violations of the law and business ethics.
