*****ed De Mont Furnishing and Decor

In February 2018, I made an agreement with Sharon Benians, who owns the business, to sell some furniture of mine. I had been employed by them until the end of February when I was informed that my services were no longer required. I had two items for sale, and she advised me what the asking prices should be. She advised that I should easily get R4500.00 for the solid Imbuia kist, and R2800 for the solid oak TV cabinet. These items were to be sold from her shop and the deal was, that the shop would take 50% of the sale price. I could never get hold of Brian, her husband, to find out if my pieces had been sold. I eventually got hold of Brian and he told me he wasn't sure if the furniture had been sold and he would get back to me. This never happened. After continual non-response to my many messages, I contacted one of the staff members to find out if the pieces had been sold. This was around the beginning of September. The staff member informed me that they had gone about a month after I left. I personally went to the shop on the 7th of September, to see for myself, and both pieces were not in the shop. I then engaged a friend, Richard, to help me deal with the situation as I am not good with unpleasantness and confrontation. It seemed the situation would go in this direction as I had clearly been **** to. We both went to the shop to try and find out exactly what had happened and why I was not notified and paid. Christa, the manageress was extremely defensive when questioned about what had transpired. She did admit to the sale of the kist, but at a totally different price to what was agreed and expected. When we asked her why the price had changed, and why Viviane had not been consulted, she became even more defensive and said she was not prepared to say anymore and we should contact Brian as he knew all the details. I asked her for the invoice, but she refused to give us that too. When we questioned her about the TV cabinet she let slip that Brian had swapped it for another piece of furniture. When we queried how he could do this without Viviane's consent she said she wasn't sure about exactly what had transpired and told us the only person who could give us the details was Brian. Christa also asked Richard if he was a lawyer, as if expecting some sort of fallout. She was upset at being “interrogated” as if she were a ********. We responded that we just wanted to find out what had happened to my possessions and why I had not been paid. So, this ended in a stale mate as the elusive Brian, was yet again unavailable. Richard managed to get to speak to Brian a few days later, and was told that Brian knew nothing of the details of the sale of the items and his manager was the only one who could give us the information required. He also informed Richard that the prices on those items was ridiculous and he would never have agreed to them. Interestingly, he was never involved in the agreed prices as he was not even there, and the prices were agreed with Sharon. He informed Richard that he would instruct his manager to hand over any sales related information. Including invoices. Christa, the manager, was not available at the time, so Richard was told to come back when she would be there. Richard did return to follow up but got the same runaround as before. Apparently, Brian hadn’t given her any instruction. So, we were effectively back to square one. Both items were gone. No communication of any sort had been received about the sales. I still have not been compensated and all my calls and messages went unanswered. Nine months have gone by and still nothing. I sold these items because I really needed the money. I still think taking 50% of the value was ******ionate, but under the circumstances I didn’t have much option. Currently I am sitting with nothing. My furniture is gone, and I have nothing to show for it. I find the arrogant and dismissive attitude of Brian and Christa to be disgusting. Clearly these people do not care about who they hurt, in order to make themselves another buck. Basically, this boils down to theft. The next step is I am going to open a case of theft against them with the police. I have tried all reasonable measures to resolve this with them and they are not interested. I don’t know if this will even illicit a response from them, but at least it will hopefully alert other trusting people so that they won’t be caught out.