I Almost Hired a Scammer on My Scheduled Estate Sales Event

 

Blue Imari Tea Pot, Depression Candy Glass and Lead Crystal Bowl are some Items for Sale

Last Month ( First week of March), I started inquiring and talking to Estate Sales Services in preparation for my downsizing hopefully by June 1. My realtor gave me a list of Estate Sales in my area and I started calling them. There are 6 listed in the list.  The first one came to the house take a tour and was not sure if I had the minimum expected sales ( 15K) and told me he will talk to his partner and in the meantime suggested I talk to others in my list. He said from his preliminary examination, I only have about 12K expected sales.  

The other dealers were busy and can not have a sale for the last week of April. One was no longer in business and recommended a name that I will discuss in this blog. The others will not accept any business unless I am out of the House. The other only accepts on-line sale. 

I called the person recommended by the person who was who moved out of State. She came 3 days later. She was very friendly and appeared to be very thorough and took notes of what items I want to sell. I liked her because she identified with my Filipino roots and admired all my Filipino wood carvings, wood sculpture and marble products from the Philippines. She also accepted that I would not have to leave the house, but stayed in my room with my 2 cats during the Sales Hours. The day before planning to hire her, I googled her and here's one of the reviews I learned. I blanked out her name. I am glad I googled her and learned she has a history of scamming her clients. Here's one of the reviews.      

"After my dad was killed in a motorcycle accident my sister and I were overwhelmed with what followed. We decided it would be best to do an estate sale in order to ease the stress and responsibility of selling all of his belongings. Enter  this Person.

We met with ---------- at my dad’s property. She appeared to be very thorough, taking pictures and making notes of all of the items on the property that would be for sale. In her words, this was going to be a “very large sale.” My dad owned a 2500 sq ft fully furnished house on 5 acres with a 2 car garage, workshop, four sheds and a 40 foot shipping container FULL of his belongings that were all to be included in the estate sale. This is not to mention several recreational toys outside on the property. They decided that two sale weekends would be necessary due to the amount of items that we'd be attempting to sell. My sister signed the contract, gave her a set of keys to use temporarily, and closed the deal.

 -----------made it clear we were not to show up at the sale as she felt our emotional ties to my dad and his belongings would interfere with deals being made. Oddly enough, one of the first things she did when she arrived at his house to prepare for the sale was cover one of the cameras we had up in the dining room for security. First she to claimed to be unaware of any cameras at his house (even though she obviously covered one camera so we couldn't see anything) but after she “accidentally” sold the DVR base station WHICH HELD ALL RECORDINGS, we decided to call her to find out why our system had been disconnected. She acted surprised that this had occurred and blamed her workers for supposedly unplugging the device. She even went as far as pretending to plug it back in and asking what lights should be lit. After several hours of this she admitted that it was gone and once again blamed her workers for “selling” it.

She supposedly held the sale on both weekends. We’ll never know if that actually occurred or not. For all we know, she simply went in and took everything. Nevertheless, she was in communication directly before and after both sale weekends. After the last day of the sale, my sister spoke with--------. She was adamant the sale went “very well”, stating that it was packed with people from open to close. My sister asked her when we could expect to settle the proceeds and what she estimated them to be. She had said the first weekend they did approximately $16,000 in sales and the second weekend was not quite that much, but still did well. She also mentioned that the contract states payment is 30 days out (which in actuality, the contract states payment is to be settled within 30 days after the close of the sale). We waited the 30 days and when we still hadn't heard from her or received a check on -------, my sister once again contacted her to ask about payment. She responded to my sister via text letting her know she was not answering calls because she was home ill.

From this point on, she had only communicated via text and email. She no longer answers any calls, just sends every call to voicemail. My sister remained persistent by continuing to send text messages and leave voicemails. Many times ------ would actually respond but provide nothing of substance. She made excuse after excuse and refused to give us anything concrete. It didn't faze her that we too had bills to pay and were trying to settle my dads estate. She very well knew that she was out of contract, yet she continued to lie and make things up to try and support her  stories. She also claims she supposedly told my sister that she was “paying late” and that my sister didn't have a problem with that!

At this point, we have sent several emails, text messages, as well as voicemails demanding payment be received by end of the business day on Wednesday, -----. Now it has been almost 60 days past the last date of the sale and she is no longer communicating with us at all. In fact, she responded to an email by saying we needed to leave her alone and stop harassing her!

Due to the fact that --------- was referred to my sister by a friend that had a great experience, we did not research her company prior to signing the contract. If we had, we would have read all the negative reviews! There are reports of her and her staff stealing household items. According to Yelp, many people haven't been getting paid even though she is running a cash only business. She seems to give everyone the run around and makes up ridiculous excuses just as she is with my sister and I!

We made a HUGE mistake by allowing her full, unsupervised access to my dad’s house and all his belongings. We now not only have lost our father, but everything inside and outside his property. She took everything and left us with an empty house and not a dime to show for it. She took advantage of our unfortunate circumstance and preyed on our weaknesses during such a difficult time. Someone has got to put a stop to this. Someone has got to stop her! Because before you know it, she's come and gone and leaves you with NOTHING!! Absolutely nothing!

She has done this to a TON of people! She never pays without someone having to track her down. I have been in touch with at least 5 others plus more I read about on Yelp, Angie’s List, and Facebook. Not to mention the -------- Sheriff know all about her fraudulent business". 

Today, I have a tentative agreement with an Estate Sale Person. I hope this Person is honest and we have scheduled the 3-Day Sales for April 28, 29 and 30 from 10AM to 2PM.

Here are 2 blogs related to my downsizing for details:

https://theintellectualmigrants.blogspot.com/2023/03/downsizing-is-not-for-faint-hearted.html

 https://theintellectualmigrants.blogspot.com/2023/03/my-bone-china-is-no-longer-needed-but.html