When my husband and I decided to move overseas, we realized we had amassed a large quantity of antique furniture and we turned to Consignment Depot to sell them. I agreed with the manager/owner Cathy Felton that she would send a truck to my home, in Doral, FL half an hour from their location and that I would pay the transportation charge of $300.00. The driver brought along a document titled Terms and Conditions and told me that I had to sign it, which I did. It was a very one-sided document, where basically Consignment Depot was free to do whatever they saw fit and where all unsold furniture became their property after 90 days unless removed from the premises. The driver told us he was an independent contractor and did not represent the company, therefore any receipt signed by him would be worthless.
At some point, I was expecting to receive a signed copy of the agreement, and also an estimate of the sales prices. They could have emailed it or faxed it, but the fact is that never acknowledged a single piece of email. As for phone conversations, its very simple: only one person, Cathy Felton, can answer questions. Problem is she is apparently never there
Once, I managed to talk to her. I told her I was 30 minutes away and she promised to wait for me. My husband and I immediately jumped into our car, but 30 minutes later we met only with her son who informed us that she had to leave (no explanation offered) and claimed he did not know anything about the family business We kept calling, we kept sending emails, but to no avail We had insisted that at the time the agreement was set to expire, we would retrieve all unsold items immediately. At that time, we had already moved out of the country and when we managed to talk to her, a few days in advance, she made it clear that if the furniture was not retrieved on the exact date, she would be free to sell it and not pay us anything. Thats what the agreement said and she was clearly ready to use it against us, even if she had not signed it.
When our son picked up the unsold furniture, he requested a list of the sold items and the price they had been sold at. He was told we had to wait at least two weeks. Again I was able to reach Cathy Felton by phone. She was not helpful and requested a self-stamped envelope to mail the payment. Several weeks and a strong certified letter later, we finally received a check of $378.75 together with a short report claiming that five items had been sold for $1125.00. According to the agreement we were supposed to get half of the proceeds not one third! Of course, it could have been worse we could have been left with nothing After all, they never signed anything!
I have tried to call several times to get some kind of explanation, but, not surprisingly, Cathy Felton is never there or too busy to return callsI originally thought the issue was poor communication and lack or administrative skills, but know now that it goes far beyond that. I wonder how many other people have been fleeced just like us and kept quiet, because they dont have the time to pursue the matter It should be noted that prior to doing business with them, I checked usacomplaints.com as I always do, but there was no report on them.
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