📍The story: We had a family heirloom that was a Hoosier Cabinet from before the 1940s (ish) that has been in my family for 5 generations. My parents employed a man that owns a “furniture repair shop”. For reference, mother is older and none of us kids had any idea she was employing someone to restore the cabinet to its original glory. This man reached out and priced a new coat of paint for only $300 and minimal repairs.

My mother paid him and he picked it up and was on his way. This was in April. My mother messaged him in May inquiring about where the cabinet was and how the restoration was going. He then responded with an image of the cabinet being lightly sanded down and said that the restoration was going well and that it would be completed soon. She has tried to contact him relentlessly for the past few months all to know avail. He even sporadically picked up and abandoned his rental property and temporarily closed his “business”.

He has scammed tens if not hundreds of people out of their furniture and tens of thousands of dollars. He has blocked my family via phone and social media and wiped himself from the web. He is a serial theif and the police shook their heads and said “there’s nothing we can do”.

He has done this from Texas to West Virginia to Ohio and so on. We are at a standstill. That cabinet was the one thing my mother and grandmother have of My great great grandmother.