As someone who has attended estate sales for more than 15 years, my experience with Blast Estate Sales was one of the worst I have ever had. On Friday, June 13th, I attended a Blast Estate Sale in Riverside. I was the 1st to put my box down at the property 1.5 hours before the sale started. At 9am, I went directly to the room where the item(s) I was interested in were located. There were several other people directly behind me who were also interested in the item I grabbed. One person, who came in seconds behind me, offered to purchase the item from me on site; this person was also witness to the price the item was marked.
Close to 10am, I went outside to check out. The women didn't seem to have a method to how they were checking people out, were having a ton of issues with processing credit cards, and there was no line organization whatsoever. One of the owners was having a meltdown because she couldn't find her phone, and they were totaling items by writing numbers down on what looked like liquor store paper bags??? After waiting in line for a while and watching the utter chaos unfold with the phone, people taking things off the hold table, various arguments, and the employees/owners yelling at each other, one of the ladies finally got around to checking my items. When she pulled the 12.00-dollar item out of my box, she immediately said, "This is not 12.00; this is like 300.00 dollars." I said, "I was the first one in the room with the item, and that is what it was marked at." She then deferred to the owner, who also said this is not 12.00 dollars but didn't refer to a specific price. I was told that they cannot sell the item for 12.00 dollars, and the one woman seemed to be insinuating that I perhaps changed the price tag, all while she was picking at the 12.00-dollar price tag with her nail (that they put on there to begin with). I said that I would like to talk to the owner, as that is what the item was marked, and that it was not fair, as well as insulting, to insinuate that I changed the tag. The owner eventually came over to me and began arguing with me about the price and what may have happened, but not directly accusing me of changing the price.
Accusing a customer of changing the tag and being dishonest in front of friends and estate sale acquaintances is not cool, unprofessional, and defamatory. The owner went ahead and started pricing all my items out and then agreed to honor the price of 12.00 dollars on the item. Right when we were beginning to process the payment, the other owner/employee comes back out of the house and says, "No, I will not let you sell this to him for 12.00 dollars; I will buy it for 250.00." She then begins to yell in my face, saying, "I am a thief, I am stealing money from them, and karma will come back on me." All of this in front of their customers in line and people who I know and see on a weekly basis. This was beyond disrespectful, insulting, and 100% a lie, as I did nothing but try and buy the item at the price that they marked it. I was first in that room and did not change any tag. The two women argued in front of all of the customers, using the F-word and whatnot. Ultimately, the item was sold to me for the 12.00 dollars, which I believe they know very well is what they initially priced the item at. Blast Estate Sales would rather insult, falsely accuse, and disrespect a customer in front of many other customers than own up to a mistake that they made on the pricing of an item.
Blast Estate Sales claims to have a great deal of experience in the estate sale business. However, they are the most unorganized, unprofessional, and disrespectful company I have ever dealt with. In all of the years I have attended sales, I have never been treated so poorly as a customer. I will never attend one of their sales again and many of my estate sale friends and acquaintances feel exactly the same after learning and witnessing the comedy of errors and blatant incompetence at their recent Riverside sale. If Blast Estate Sales is going to continue as a business, they need to seriously re-evaluate how they operate, how they work with one another, and, most importantly, how they treat their customers. read more