would give zero stars if I could. The entire process was unprofessional from start to finish. Chris canceled our initial appointment last minute, so I sent him videos of the household contents to save him a trip. Then the staging was delayed repeatedly, though I will say they did a nice job once it was completed. The contract states that pricing would be done 7-14 days prior to the sale. This never happened, so I had no idea how items would be priced. The sale itself was postponed 3 times.
On the day of the sale, I left a key for Chris to set up. My outdoor security cameras showed that Chris and his team arrived at 6 AM and immediately got a ladder from an off-limits shed and covered my camera with painters tape. When asked about this, Chris and his team were defensive and said it was standard procedure and kept changing the story: "Our customers don't feel comfortable being on camera" "It's against the law" (completely untrue; security cameras are legal in MA in places where there is no expectation of privacy, i.e. a driveway). There was nothing in the contract about this; the site they advertise on, estatesales.org, even *encourages* the use of cameras at estate sales to prevent theft, and other companies I spoke with said there was no reason for this. On top of this, Chris blamed my being upset on my own "trust issues" and one of Chris's workers (maybe his son?) was very rude and argumentative. When I asked about a review on Yelp that claimed Best Rate had stolen from them, Chris said it was a competitor trying to take them down, while his son said it was a disgruntled employee.
After the sale, I saved off all 144 photos from Chris's ad on estatesales.org, which was lucky, since the ad was deleted immediately (which does not appear to be normal practice, as other prior sales remain live on the site). Unlike other reviewers, I did NOT have a cleanout done at the end, so I was well aware of what items were missing after the sale. A month after the sale, I finally received a check (for much less than I expected) and a ledger of the items sold. The ledger was so detailed it included things like "dish soap - $1", but comparing the ledger to the ad photos, numerous items were unaccounted for. I asked Chris about two of the items specifically, a mini bike worth about ~$300, and some air horns, because I knew a friend had purchased them for $60. Chris immediately said they had sold for $150 (which is extremely low) and $60 respectively, and would send me a check for these items. When questioned on why these items were not on the ledger, Chris stated these two specific items just "happened" to have been on the back of a sheet and were missed; he sent me a handwritten notebook page as "proof." Other unaccounted-for items were either not disclosed, or listed under "miscellaneous," so I have no idea if they were sold, what price they actually sold for, and/or if I was paid my contracted share of every item that sold. My guess is that they left other items off the list or fudged the sale prices to pad their profit margins. One item was even stolen by a customer (which Chris did compensate me for).
I would highly recommend bringing your business elsewhere; I was heartbroken and so disappointed that this company was willing to deceive & scam a bereaved person. I have additional screenshots/videos/photos as proof, and there are threads on Reddit about this company as well. read more