Cherished Possessions

We worked with Cas to sell the contents of my parents' estate. She convinced us that consignment was the way to go, but once she had a signed contract, failed us in every regard. Appointments were cancelled, promises were broken, items were missing, she and other workers were unreachable, rude or just unhelpful. After they took the that we wanted to consign (and even that has a debacle), they didn't provide us with an inventory of what they'd taken as promised. After calling every week for several months, they finally sent it to us, having already sold many of the items. Once the contract with them expired, we went to retrieve our items. We worked with the sales floor manager who told us we had to find our stuff in their huge, cluttered store. It was like a nighmare version of an 'I Spy' book. Also, he was not authorized to print out a current inventory for us. We finally persuaded him to break the rules and give it to us since matching up the inventory numbers was the only way to be sure something was ours and if something had been sold. There was still stuff that was not in the store and might have been at a warehouse. We took everything we could and drove it straight to GoodWill to donate it instead of letting them make another penny off of us. Needless to say, we wouldn't recommend this company to our worst enemy. They are crooks with no morals or empathy.

STAY FAR AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!!! I have never dealt with such a horrible company in my life-- one that not only doesn't do the work they were paid to do, but has taken or lost precious possessions with great sentimental value to me and to my family. I've *never* worked with such a horrible company. After losing my father and step-mother in a short span of time, our family searched very carefully for a company to take care of my their estate. After much research, we chose Cherished Possessions. We scheduled and had a very nice meeting with Cas (though she was late), who made lots of promises about how things would happen, and looked at the entire house and its contents. First they told us an estate sale would be better, and then they decided they wanted to sell all the items from the house by consignment through their store instead. We went with their suggestions. What a mistake. From the beginning it was hard to get in touch with Cas-- she doesn't have voicemail set up on her telephone, doesn't return phone calls or emails. We all live out of state, so it's difficult to be at the house very often. We scheduled a day for Cas and her workers to come by and pick up the items they were going to sell. We also paid them $600 to remove things that we wanted to be donated or disposed of. She canceled and we scheduled a second day for them to come, which she also canceled. Finally, since we couldn't be in Maine for a while, and trusting that they were an ethical and trustworthy company, we decided to let Cas come in to remove the items without us bring present. What a huge mistake. We spent hours and hours carefully labeling every single item in the house-- items for her to take were labeled in one color and items to be left in the house were labeled with another color. It could not have been more clear or simple to understand what she was supposed to take and what was to be left in the house. She apparently did not care. A couple days later, I went to the house to remove a few items and stage the house for sale. I arrived to find the house a complete mess and everything in disarray. Nothing that we had marked to be donated had been taken, but the check we left for this service had been taken. None of the items to be disposed of had been removed, but the money to pay for that service had been taken. The worst part was that Cas (or her workers) took items that were specifically and clearly marked NOT to be taken. They were our possessions that we wanted to keep, either for their monetary value or sentimental value. They took a small table that had been passed down from my grandmother's family. They took a tote bag that had letters my father had written to me before he died. They tool tools that had been passed down multiple generations. They took a box that (from the outside) appeared to be an appliance, but actually contained a box my father had made by hand to make paper when I was a child. All of these things were clearly marked with our names on them, and were not near any items that were specifically marked with bright purple paper with Cas' name. When we tried to contact them (Cas and the owner), they wouldn't answer their phones (Cas has never set up the voicemail on her phone and does not return messages OR emails) and they avoided us, having employees tell us that they weren't at the store when they really were. When we finally tracked them down (by staying at their shop until they came out of the back room where they had been hiding), they claimed that they didn't have any of the items. We had pictures of each and every room, with everything labeled, pictures of the the things they had wrongfully taken, and showed them pictures of each item we were trying to find. They claimed they had never taken any of it (even though no one else had been in the house between the time they came and when I went back to the house) and didn't know where any of it was. They couldn't provide us with an inventory of the items they claimed they had taken until months after they took them, and even after some of them had been sold. They stole things from our dead parents' house, things that had great sentimental value and are irreplaceable, and had absolutely no remorse. They have done absolutely nothing to try to remedy what happened or to explain why they took things that were clearly marked for them NOT to take. They just don't care. They have taken money from my family, taken precious items that remind us of our dead parents, and caused us immense heartache. For anyone thinking of using them for consignment or an estate sale, I couldn't make a stronger recommendation against working with them. For anyone buying from their store, know you're buying from shameless thieves.