NEWTON, Mass. — When families lose a loved one or decide it’s time to downsize, they turn to estate sale companies to help close one chapter and open another. However, several complaints against Chestnut Hill Estate Sales suggest it did the opposite. They claim the man behind the company, Alan Davidson, didn’t just sell their belongings; he sold them on promises he never kept.
Arlene Rand hired the company several years ago to help her downsize from her Waban home, where she raised her kids. She used Davidson’s services based on a recommendation from a friend of a friend.
“She recommended this man, and she said he was wonderful. So with her recommendation, I thought he would be wonderful. But it turned out that he wasn’t. He did a great job for her so she could recommend him, but he did a lousy job for everybody else,” Rand said.
Rand claims Davidson made big promises, like coming ahead of time to price items and ensuring that off-limit items would not be sold. She recalls him explaining that his team would monitor every room, and that he would provide an itemized list of everything that was sold, only keeping 25% of sales for himself. However, Rand said none of that happened. After the sale ended, she had to repeatedly ask Davidson for her money and was disappointed when she received a check in the mail for $5,000.
“I know that he stole money from us,” Rand said.
Rand moved to file a civil lawsuit against Davidson, but never heard from him until the day of the hearing. She said Davidson called her to ask what it would take for her to settle out of court. She told him $500, but after reflecting, she now calls that decision “a mistake.”
“I think I was somewhat intimidated by the whole procedure. I said $500. It should have been probably $5,000,” Rand said.
When victims tried to get answers, they claim Davidson stopped answering entirely. That’s when Marti Naddaff started tracking other sales and would show up to confront Davidson.
“It seemed that he had a watchdog who saw us coming, and as we were coming in the front door of each sale, Alan was heading out the back door,” Naddaff remembered.
In 2019, Naddaff was moving out of her 22-room home of 40 years. She hired Davidson, who she said brought in outside jewelry the day of the sale.
“This house was probably one of the finest homes in Newton,” Naddaff explained. “It suggests that this jewelry is very valuable. Come to find out a lot of it was knockoffs, and I’ve read in subsequent reviews and heard from people that that’s what he does.”
Naddaff did end up getting an accounting of what Davidson claimed was sold, which came out to a $32,000 take-home.
“We got what was supposed to be a final payment, and that check did not clear at the bank,” Naddaff said.
Naddaff and her husband tried to track Davidson down for months, but in the midst of a major life change, they accepted that the $32,000 was gone.
“You don’t have the bandwidth at that point. You’re focused in a whole other direction. I really think he counts on that, took advantage of that, knows that’s where a lot of people would be,” Naddaff said.
That vulnerable position is certainly where Jim Down found himself last year, after hiring Davidson to help clear out his house, while he was putting his wife into assisted living.
Down described that time in his life as “traumatic,” and in the woes of a big life change, Down had trusted Davidson to handle the estate sale at his Victorian home of 36 years in Winchester.
“It all seemed to make sense and went according to plan,” Down remembered.
Down explained he was supposed to receive his money 30 days after the sale. But when 30 days came and went, he still had nothing. After numerous calls and texts to Davidson, Down finally received his check in the mail, 54 days after the sale.
“I don’t think it was the right amount of money, but I don’t know what the right amount of money was, but it certainly was disappointing,” Down said.
To understand how Davidson came to the number on the check, Down requested an itemized list of what was sold, which is what he said he was promised before even hiring Davidson. However, it wasn’t until Down couldn’t make contact with Davidson for months on end that everything became clear.
“He just totally ghosted me. As you can imagine, it pretty much infuriated me, and I was like, ‘What is going on here?’" Down questioned. “It’s been a year and a half, and I haven’t gotten any response. And the check, by the way, was not from Chestnut Hill Estate Sales. It was from a company called Rainmaker Estate Sales.”
According to the Secretary of State’s database, there are 10 businesses that Davidson has been associated with over the years, including Rainmaker Estate Sales. However, Chestnut Hill Estate Sales was dissolved in 2019, though marketing can be found for the company just this year. According to the Attorney General’s office, they received 5 complaints about the company between 2017 and 2022, and complainants were provided assistance through the office’s Local Consumer Programs.
Rhonda Gannon had an estate sale with Davidson just last summer. Like Down, she received a check in the mail, but claims the dollar amount was nowhere near what she was promised.
“He said $30,000, $35,000,” Gannon said.
What Gannon got was a check for $10,528, which she attributes to the fact that her husband was a criminal defense lawyer who, she says, perhaps added a layer of intimidation.
Aside from what she sees as a loss of money, Gannon explained she was more upset by the intrusion she felt in her home, and the pressure she said Davidson had put on her to let him list her home as a real estate agent.
“People were just crawling all over my house, and dealers just running up and down the stairs. It just felt like I was pillaged," Gannon said. “He kept pushing to sign a contract. ‘If you sign with me, I’ll only take 25% commission instead of 30% commission. And I’ll broom clean your basement. I will have it broom clean. I’m not making any money on the sale. I’m losing money.’ Just trying to make me feel badly.”
Gannon concludes that it was a bad experience in which she felt she had been taken advantage of.
“No one likes to feel that way,” Gannon said.
Boston 25 did attempt to get in contact with Davidson to hear his side of the story. We reached out via email and voicemail, but never heard back. We also went to the addresses listed on the websites for his most recent businesses, but could not locate the estate sale company owner.
For Davidson’s former clients, this chapter is closed, but they worry somebody else’s chapter is just beginning.
“This is the way he lives. He lives from estate sale to estate sale. And he just pulls the wool over your eyes,” Arlene Rand said. “I’m sorry I used him, and I’m sorry that he’s still around doing this to people.”
“It’s unconscionable, and I can’t believe he’s not in jail.” Marti Naddaff said.
“To me, this is about the principle of the thing. It’s not about the money,” Down said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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