Complaint Review: Liberty Consignment Stores LLC

No need to over think this. Craigslist clearly explains this when you click on the "fraud" links.

NEVER WIRE FUNDS VIA WESTERN UNION, MONEYGRAM or any other wire service - anyone who asks you to do so is a scammer.

Notice it says ANYONE. That means ANYONE who requests a wire via western union or money gram, is a scammer. ANYONE, every time 100% of the time..period.

Dear Bass Man - Thank you so much for reporting this.  My husband & I did a Bing search on this company and found your report, among others regarding Co-Operative Consignment & Liberty.  We went through the process exactly as you and others have described.  The seller of the camper we wanted (Michele Litz lmliliama8@gmail.com) sent the following email in response to our initial inquirey about the camper...

It's still for sale but before i start answering your questions, i`ll have to let you know that i left town a few days ago because i have to help my daughter organize her wedding, and i may stay here a while, but this is no problem because i`ll sell it through Co-Op services. I guess you used Co-Op before, if you didn`t let me know because i met people that never used it and i will explain how it works in detail. I want to sell it now because i need the money for my daughters wedding so if you are interested in buying it now let me know. Also let me know if you have other questions. Thank you

I found other on-line comments claiming the wedding issue and being in need too.  Anyway, we were a little sceptical but thought that we may be behind the times wtih on-line purchasing through ebay and craigs list so we began to move through the process.  Upon registering with Co-Operative, as Michele said we would need to do, they told us that Michele required a Western Union form of payment.  When I emailed her about it, telling her that we preferred using a credit card, she said she needed the money quickly and could not accept a credit card.  Of course, this became another red flag but again, thought we were behind the times on this kind of thing and still proceeded.  The instructions on the Co-Operative Invoice received read as follows....

The Payment must be sent to the Co-Operative Consignment Agent, NOT to the seller. Since this is a cash transaction you can deduct the Western Union fees from the amount you have to send so you will not pay more than you and the seller have agreed.
The Pick Up is not available due to the fact that the item was listed on Craigslist, not on eBay. Only the items sold through eBay by our services are available for pick up from our stores. The transaction is free of charge for the buyer, the seller will be billed for all the additional fees after the transaction ends.
The Co-Operative Consignment agent will handle the payment ONLY. He is not responsible for shipping, our service will handle that process. The agent is not allowed to communicate with any of the parties for security reasons. Since this transaction is handled in United States, the agent is assigned randomly and it can be from any State where we have Co-Operative Consignment locations. The Co-Operative Consignment agent address does not belong to any of our stores because Western Union requires the personal address of the receiver. You may be asked to send the payment to an agent located outside your country due to the fact that we have a lot of transactions to process and our agents are not always available. This will not affect the transaction in any way, on the contrary, it will speed up the process because the payment is handled faster.

The "out of the country" agent was another red flag, however we still proceeded.  We tried using Western Union via their website, with a credit card.  The amount of the required 30% deposit ($2,370) was too high.  We then tried to do it over the phone with one of Western Union's agents.  Because we were a new user to Western Union and because the agent of Co-Operative Consignment was from out of the country (Sean Johannsen, 134 Brynland Avenue, Bristol,
Avon, BS7 9DY, United Kingdom) Western Union would not process this high amount without us personally coming into one of their locations.  It just so happened that we were on our way out of town for a funeral and could not go to a physical location.  I again, emailed the seller, Michele Litz, and explained our situation.  She agreed to hold the camper but would not accept another form of payment.

While away on our trip, and out of the emotions of finding the perfect camper, usually sold at roughtly $15,000 but being offered at $7,900, my husband and I really got a sick feeling in our stomach about the way the entire thing was being proposed.  With paying through Western Union, there is no going back.  Once the money is picked up, you have no recourse.  At least with a credit card, the bank will sometimes help you if you have been scammed.  We got back last night and began searching Co-Operative Consignment today and am so thankful we did.  Many things happened along the way to throw up red flags but our emotions were getting the best of us.  I am so thankful that Western Union gave us such a hard time.  There was a good reason.  And, I am so thankful that you posted this for us to find. 

I additionally corresponded with someone by the name of Joseph Worden, Director Franchise Support at Co-Operative (financial-department@co-operative-consignment.com) when we had questions regarding holding the camper while we were gone and payment questions, etc.  Their website (www.co-operative-consignment.com) says their headquarters is located at 2692 Sandy Plains Road, Los Angeles, CA 90069. Further, their website states the following...

This is a big read flag.  Who doesn't offer telephone service?  Again, we thought maybe this was the wave of the future for internet buying but it was a wave of stupidity on our part.

I hope some of this information will be of some help to you in your case and to others who may fall pray to this as we almost did.

I first heard about Liberty from a "military service member" that was sent overseas and had to sell items while in a "war zone".  It sounded believable.

The big thing that "flagged" my spidey sense for this scam was that the emailer (scammer) responded stated that Liberty had the title to the property (another camper trailer).  So if the emailer had no title to the property - why was he involved in the process anymore?  Humm.... when I asked that, I never heard back from them again. 

And to think they tried to give the ploy of being in the military too - shame on them.

Here's the one true thing to remember - if there is no place to see items in person, the deal's are under suspicion to begin with.  When there is someone asking for any amount of money to a "third party" - especially if you can't meet that third party in person to check their ID and take a picture if necessary, start to run.  The legitimate persons aren't afraid to let you know who they are, or where they live/work.

The latest information concerning this fraudulent operation is that it is under a new name of Co-Operative Consignment. http://co-operativeconsignment.web.officelive.com/default.aspx. Look closely at the fine print under their new logo ... Liberty Consignment Stores, Inc.  Please, if anybody else has been conned like I have please let me know.  I have an open investigation with the London police and they will take any other information available.

I know what Craigslist is.  And thanks to this guy , and people on the PayPal rip off blog, and several other Google search results, Liberty Consignment has been revealed as a FAKE.  I am now even more certain since you have vehemently tried to defend yourself!  Why don't you Google Liberty Consignment, or yourself - is this "Lisa Watson" or "Maria Windel"?  I'm sure both made up names... either way no one is going to Western Union you anymore money, no matter how many times you try to convince us - we're ON TO YOU!  Whatever... you didn't and WON'T get my money.  SCAMMER.

I just wanted to thank you for your post.  I almost bought a camper off Cragislist using LibertyConsignmentStores.com, but I was wary, so I checked it out.  The seller seemed too much in a rush... pushing the sale on mee too much.  Wanted a Western Union transaction tight away, but told me it was "OK" because Liberty Consignment guarantees "everything".  I just had a bad feeling, so I googled them and found your post (and more) so I passed.  I want a camper, just not that bad!  I copied the link to this report & replied to one of the sellers MANY emails to me asking if I had sent the money to Liberty Consignment yet, and funny - I haven't heard a peep from them since!  THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!