St. Pete consignment shop abruptly closes, thousands of dollars in designer goods missing
The Brief
Retreat Consignment store closed without warning.
Sellers who had their goods on consignment are now missing.
The entire store has been completely cleared out.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Thousands of dollars' worth of designer goods are missing from a St. Petersburg consignment shop. The store, Retreat Consignment, abruptly closed without any warning and now several sellers want to know where their stuff is and how to get it back.
What we know
Detectives spoke with one of the sellers on Monday. He's out thousands of dollars in art pieces. Dozens more on social media are missing designer shoes and bags worth thousands. The shop is empty, and the store owners are nowhere to be found.
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Rich Goren has been collecting original art pieces for years.
"These are just two of the examples of them, but you can see the high quality," Goren said.
He's sold several on consignment at the Retreat consignment shop on Central Avenue in St. Pete.
READ: St. Pete man sailing over 5,500 miles for Ronald McDonald House Charities
"We would be in the store pretty often and we would see that our stuff was still there," Goren said.
Last week he noticed the store was completely empty. His stuff was nowhere to be found. Two art pieces and two pairs of designer shoes worth about $17,000 altogether are now missing.
"I hope for the best, maybe sitting in a warehouse and they want to return everything. That's fine. That would be the best case scenario. But the fact that you have a business, people entrusting you with their valuables and you just take off. Come on. That's not great," Goren said.
What they're saying
The stores yelp page is now filled with reviews from frustrated sellers with similar stories.
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"I am BESIDE myself that they closed their doors and took off with all of my items," one reviewer wrote.
"There has been no communication as to how they are going to get their clients items, and money owed, back to them," another reviewer wrote.
"One of the employees reached out to me, I won't say her name, but she said, oh my gosh, I feel awful, we all do, we haven't paid, and it was unexpected. We thought they might sell the store, but we also thought they would be transparent about everything. There's no reason for them not to be calling," Goren said.
Goren reported it to the St. Pete Police Department on Monday. Detectives are encouraging any other sellers who also had their items taken to reach out. Goren has tried to reach the shop owners multiple times, but his calls and emails have all went unanswered.
"It's a civil case if they have it, and they're not returning it quickly enough and so that's where that lands. So I don't know what it is. I just know that we just always try to do right by people and I expect that they seem like really good people to us but this isn't looking good," Goren said.
READ: More affordable housing coming to South St. Pete with Habitat for Humanity partnership
Timeline
The store closed sometime in March. Goren has tried to contact the owners multiple times via email and phone, but his calls went unanswered.
Sellers who had items not returned are encouraged to file a report with St. Pete Police.
The Source
The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13's Jordan Bowen.
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