Lauren's Friends & Alex Consignment Sale LFA, Ellen Cleveland, Melissa Michalski Consignment Sale RIP OFF- Steals Items & Doesn't Pay Up Roanoke VA

Lauren's Friends & Alex consignment sale in Roanoke Va is a major rip off.  I signed up to sell in their fall 2013 sale.  I took 2 truck loads of overstock name brand kids clothes & toys from my online store & some things from my own kids to their consignment sale.  I have sucessfully done similiar sales in the area numerous times.

On pick up day after the sale, I received a check for $740 and I went back to pick my belongings up and it was 8 boxes of stuff left from the sale.   I got home and compared the items remaining to my spread sheet of what I had taken to the sale and there was a difference of $3850.   I was missing hundreds of pieces of clothing, shoes and toys. 

I called the owner of the sale, Ellen Cleveland and spoke with her regarding this.  She acted like a complete idiot- just downright denying that the stuff was ever dropped off although the items had to be checked in when they were dropped off.  She blatantly called me a liar and said they were doing nothing about it.  

Fast forward 4 months and I got a letter that was addressed from the Goodwill store that thanked me for my donations and it listed some of the things that I had in this sale- larger easy to remember items and generic descriptions of other items such as shirts, pants etc. The letter didn't look legit, it looked generic like something I could throw together in 5 minutes on the computer. I took it to a goodwill donation center and it was verified by their management that the letter did not come from them.  So Ellen Cleveland Stole my stuff and then tried to cover herself by faking a letter that it had been donated.

Fast Forward  another month and it's time for their spring sale- I go to check their sale out on the opening day and low & behold saw numerous items in the sale that belonged to me.  I know because my daughter has a very uncommon name and I found 13 pieces of her outgrown Mini Boden dresses with her name & last name initial written on the inside and some of my sons outgrown shoes, that had his name (also uncommon) and last name initial written in them. Their school requires that first name & last name initial be in their clothing, so I can tell what belonged to them. 

I also found some of the toys that also belonged to me.  I checked these items and every piece had the same consignor number on them.   What are the chances that someone else would've bought that many pieces of my daughters outgrown clothes, that many pieces of my sons outgrown shoes as well as a bunch of toys  & books that were mine and brought it all back to sell in this sale.  Yeah Right!.  

She steals what she wants- items that she knows will sell fast in the next sale and saves them to the following sale and puts them out as her own.  This is a very crooked sale and this woman needs to be put out of business.

I lost several thousand dollars and a lot of merchandise to this scammer!  Don't make the same mistake I did.  If you only take a tub or so of clothing, you're probably fine. It's the sellers with large quantities of merchandise that she is scamming.