Larry Goldstein, Genoa Motorsports Allstate Movers, Sarah Scholls With Sarah Scholls, rented commercial clothing rounders from me ($220 value) and will not return them. Blocked my phone so I can't leave voice mail. Will not respond to e-mail. Sarah wrote false addre Loves Park, Illinois

I run a little side-business renting garage sale fixtures (tables, clothing rounders, signs, etc.). On Aug. 4, a Sarah responded to my CraigsList post. We spoke by phone Aug. 6, when she identified herself as Sarah Scholls, co-owner Allstate Movers; then on Aug. 7 she and Larry (Goldstein, by all indications; an online search links Genoa Motorsports to the phone number Sarah provided. It was a Larry I met at the rental pickup, and a Larry I spoke with on the phone. I will carefully suggest it's Mr. Goldstein. Most likely.) came by in a convertible and picked up two large, chrome commercial clothing rounders. Sarah signed a Rental Agreement and paid to rent the items through Sunday. She agreed to return the rounders either Sunday or Monday.

Monday morning, I called Allstate and asked to speak with Sarah, as I wanted to firm up my schedule for the day. Larry said she was in a meeting and would call me in a few minutes. Late in the afternoon, not having heard from her, I left voice mail and e-mail requesting a call back.  Didn't happen. Tuesday morning I called and got Sarah's business partner, Nancy.

She said Sarah had taken the day off to deal with a family issue, but she'd relay my message that I needed the rounders back, as I had them rented again.

Tuesday evening I e-mailed Sarah requesting she call me immediately, as I was set to lose business over this if I didn't get the items back Wednesday.  A little later I called and got Nancy again. She said Sarah had had a death in the family and wasn't working. I sent Sarah a conciliatory note that, under the circumstances, she could return the rounders as late as Friday and incur no additional charge. Then my phone notified me of a new voice mail.

Sarah had called me earlier, at 6:45 p.m., in response to a call where I'd dialed and hung up when no one answered. Mistaking me for a prospective client, she dialed the unknown number and asked if I needed help moving. She sounded upbeat and cheerful, not distraught over a loss. So I revoked the offer of no additional charge, since she's obviously not too broken up to make a sales call, but won't afford me the courtesy of a reply to any one of my many calls and e-mails. I wrote that unless I'd heard from her by Wednesday noon I'd consider the rounders stolen property and file a police report. Morning of Aug. 15 I called and got Larry. He said Sarah had gone out of town for a few days, but he would relay my message. I suggested he get in his car and return my property. He promised to go to Sarah's residence, try to get in and recover the rounders, and call me back as
soon as he'd tried. He never called back. He stopped answering the phone and he blocked my phone number through Verizon so I can't leave another message.

Spoke with Nancy one last time. She talked over me and then hung up on me. She can't keep quiet long enough to listen to my single reasonable concern -- just want to hear someone say I'll get my property back, and that all these stories at Yelp about Allstate Movers' ripoffs will not happen to me. Called and spoke with Larry again. He said, "You can talk to Sarah's lawyer. I don't have to explain myself to YOU. I talk to 500 people a day, I can't be expected to remember what I told YOU! You get on here talking bullshit with me and  ... " (500 people a day? In an 8-hour shift, that's 1 per minute.) He finally promised that Sarah
would contact me Friday, and assured me I'd get my property back. It's now five days later, and no word from Sarah, so I'm officially considering my property stolen, and have gone downtown to file a suit. On the Rental Agreement, Sarah Scholls gives her address as 2XX N. SXXXXXX St., CXXX, IL. It does not come up on the USPS site or Mapquest as a valid address. When I Google her name, no search results come up, so I cannot verify it. Her signature is an inscrutable string of loops -- and she talks fast and garbled so one must constantly ask her to repeat herself. She changed the pickup time twice, and I was never sure exactly what she'd said because she does not slow down enough to articulate anything. Allstate Movers has two published phone numbers: 815-784-9500 and 773-916-6693. The first number, that Sarah and Larry answer, also serves Genoa Motorsports, according to an online lookup.

Sarah's e-mail address is XXXXXXX@gmail.com. She is 30-ish, slight build, light brown hair, 5'6? tall. Larry is heavyset, dark hair,
drove a white convertible. (When I asked him to please move his car so it didn't block the neighbors' garages, he moved it several feet but not enough to matter. As Sarah and I loaded the rounders into the car, he stayed put and said
"Those look heavy." On the phone, when I asked his last name, he said he doesn't reveal that, even to his customers. I tracked it down via Googling the phone number, then "Genoa Motorsports Larry." If I've got it wrong say the word and I'll append a sincere mea culpa. I'm just trying to recover my property that someone at this phone number, one of them named Larry, took and decline to return.)