I am one of many others who has been duped by this seemingly pleasant, professional and deceptively knowledgable person. The story I have seen repeated numerous times on this site and others regarding Janet Greene is the same one that happened to us. Do not let it happen to you. During a sale of our home last year, we decided to sell some of our many collectibles which included depression glass, lady head vases, vintage clothing, pottery, glassware and other related items. Our realtor, whom we have known and trusted for over 20 years, recommended Janet Greene to us as someone local who could manage the sale of these items.
Janet came over to our house in Rossmoor and chatted us up for over an hour, we signed a contract with her whereby she would take our items and include them in 2 upcoming larger sales she was doing in Manhattan Beach and Long Beach. She would sell these items, retain a 40% commission and give us the proceeds. I assisted her by loading my items into her vehicle and then watched her drive away. That was the last time I ever saw her or the items or any money again!
Normally, I would have googled her name first before engaging her services but because of the realtor reference, I did not practice my usual due diligence. That was my first mistake! If you google her, a virtual treasure chest of similar ripoff stories about her will show up! The story is always the same.
My wife and I attempted to contact her repeatedly and at one point my wife did get a hold of her and Janet said she would be sending us $ from the sales that she had held. Our proceeds were to be $800. Although this amount seemed low, we did not get into any additional dispute about this amount with her- we just wanted some proceeds from these sales. We never received any furher communication from her or any money.
I continued to call her and send her letters to no avail. I subsequently filed an action in small claims court as I was determined to not let her get away with this ripoff. For those of you who have filed court actions, you know the level of effort required to follow-up and take someone like this to court. The paperwork, filing and serving processes are tedious and time consuming and deter many people from going after someone like Janet Greene. In spite of these deterants, I forged on and did take her to court.
On 7/28/15, I was awarded my $800 along with some minimal reimbusement for my filing and serving fees. Of course, as is her modus operandi, she didn't even show up to the trial! She was most likely conducting an estate sale for some unsuspecting person who didn't take the time to reference her or check her out by googling her name.
DO NOT BE A VICTIM OF JANET GREENE! IF YOU HAVE , DO NOT LET HER GET AWAY WITH IT!