Updated August 21, 2026. Matching resource — not legal advice.
What this scams page is — and is not
This URL is a leftover listing and lead page on Estate Seller Match for estate sale scams. It is for an owner, adult child, personal representative, or executor who is about to let a company into a house and wants questions — not a scare story — before anyone prices a room.
Estate Seller Match is a matching directory. We source household estate-sale leads. You submit one free request at Get Matched that describes the city or ZIP, the mix of rooms, and that you want a written contract, an itemized report, and no unexplained money before you sign. That request is the product. Company profiles on this site are self-submitted listings. A listing is not an independent background check, not a star rating, and not proof that a company is honest. Ask the questions. We will not invent a company name, a complaint file, or a claim that a specific firm already stole from a family on your street.
This page is not a lawyer’s desk, a state attorney general, the Federal Trade Commission, or the Better Business Bureau. It is not a substitute for counsel. Nothing here is legal advice. We will not tell you that a company is a criminal. We will not tell you that a court will refund a deposit. We will tell you what to ask, what official pages we actually opened, and where this slug stops so it does not steal a city directory or a sibling resource.
If you landed here after searching estate sale companies plus a city name, that query does not belong on this resource slug. The shipped city directories live at /estate-sale-companies/{city}. The search bar above opens that city slug. Submit the household request there if you already want the local company page. This scams leftover will not steal those URLs.
This page does not own insurance certificates at estate sale company insurance & liability. It does not own fees at how much estate sale companies charge. It does not own the relocation method compare at estate sale vs. moving sale. It does not own the general hiring list at how to choose an estate sale company. It does not own Raleigh estate and business liquidation at estate liquidation companies in Raleigh. It does not own Boca Raton estate liquidation services at estate liquidation services in Boca Raton. Put the real city on the form, and use the page that matches the other job.
Why this leftover URL still exists
Search Console still sends a leftover query to this dedicated path: estate sale scams. That search is about being taken when a company prices, staffs, or reports a household sale. This page will serve it without pretending we found a 2026 federal estate-sale fraud census, a named courtroom case, or a “most common scam” ranking we can stand behind.
Estate sale scams — this page will take the leftover. Ask for a written contract, every fee in that contract, an itemized report, a payment deadline, and time to get a second walkthrough. If the search is really a city company list, hand off to /estate-sale-companies/{city}. If the search is a coverage question, that is estate sale company insurance & liability, not a reason to turn this slug into a second insurance hub. If the search is a fee table, that is how much estate sale companies charge.
An earlier version of this page published that “the most common estate sale scam isn’t a stranger at the door,” that six listed patterns were “the specific patterns behind most estate sale complaints,” and that legitimate companies never ask for money upfront. The old FAQ answered “Do legitimate estate sale companies ever ask for money upfront?” with a flat no. Those sentences were previously published copy on this URL. They are not a statistic we opened, not an FTC bulletin that names estate sales, and not something we can stand behind as current. We removed them as if they were today’s rates. We also dropped invented company names and invented people.
What we opened — and what we will not invent
YMYL copy on this URL stays tied to pages we actually loaded. If we could not open a source, we stay qualitative: ask for writing, shop around, and treat unexplained money plus rush as a reason to walk.
We opened the Minnesota Attorney General’s consumer publication Avoid Estate Sale Scams at ag.state.mn.us. That page says estate sale companies appraise, price, and sell personal property after a death or a downsizing; that they “routinely handle estates valued at thousands or tens of thousands of dollars”; that they “are required to be bonded in Minnesota”; and that “it can be difficult to sort out reputable estate sale companies from untrustworthy ones.” The publication’s hypothetical “Jane” finds a company online, hears that experts will run a transparent sale and pay within weeks, agrees without reviewing the contract or shopping around, and three months later still has no proceeds, only “minimal paperwork,” and a company that “has now stopped returning her calls altogether.”
The same Minnesota AG page tells consumers to interview more than one company; research how long a company has been in business and ask for multiple client references; review the contract so every oral promise is in plain language; compare commission and every extra fee, including moving, appraisals, security, trash, cleaning, and advertising; discuss how prices will be set and insist on authority to change prices or pull items; demand a subtotal of sale proceeds at the end of each sale day; require express consent before the company or staff purchase sale items or bring their own goods to your sale; reserve the right to be present or have a neutral third party monitor; insist on being paid your share of cash proceeds immediately after the sale, with deadlines, penalties, and a bar on using your share before payment; and require an itemized list of what sold and the price collected, plus receipts and credit-card and check documentation. For complaints in Minnesota, that page lists the Office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. We are quoting their publication. We are not turning this leftover into a Minnesota-only legal desk.
We opened Minnesota Statutes section 325E.70 on the Office of the Revisor of Statutes site (2025 Minnesota Statutes). That section defines an estate sale as a public sale of household or personal physical assets owned by individuals, families, or a decedent’s estate, and says the term does not include an auction. It requires an estate sale conductor, before entering an agreement, to give or previously have filed a corporate surety bond to the county “in a penal sum of at least $20,000,” endorsed and filed by the county treasurer. Licensed certified public accountants and licensed attorneys are exempt. That is Minnesota law. It is not a nationwide bonding rule, and we will not cite it as one.
We opened the FTC consumer page How To Avoid a Scam at consumer.ftc.gov. That page lists four signs: scammers pretend to be from an organization you know; they say there is a problem or a prize; they pressure you to act immediately; and they tell you to pay in a specific way — often cryptocurrency, a wire through a company like MoneyGram or Western Union, a payment app, or a gift card. On how to avoid a scam, that page says: “Honest businesses will give you time to make a decision. Anyone who pressures you to pay or give them your personal information is a scammer.” It also says to stop and talk to someone you trust, and to report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Those sentences are FTC consumer advice about scams in general. We did not find an FTC bulletin that names estate-sale companies as a class. We will apply the pressure and payment-method signs as questions, not as a finding that a company you invited for a walkthrough is automatically a federal case.
We opened the FTC page What To Do if You Were Scammed. It says if you paid a scammer, “your money might be gone already,” and that it is “always worth asking the company you used to send the money if there’s a way to get it back.” It walks through bank and Zelle transfers, payment apps, wires, credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, cryptocurrency, and cash in the mail (U.S. Postal Inspection Service at 1-877-876-2455). It says to report a scammer at ReportFraud.ftc.gov so the FTC can build cases, spot trends, educate the public, and share community data. We opened the FTC scams hub at ftc.gov/scams, which points to the same report URL. The ReportFraud.ftc.gov form itself timed out when we tried to load it for this rewrite. We are not treating a failed fetch as proof that page does not exist. We are not quoting a form we could not open.
We opened the BBB Help Center article on filing a complaint, leaving a review, reporting a scam, or reporting a bad ad. It says file a complaint at BBB.org/complain, leave a review at BBB.org/Leave-a-Review, report a scam — whether or not you lost money — at BBB.org/ScamTracker, and report a questionable ad at BBB.org/Ad-Truth. We opened BBB’s “How BBB Complaints Are Handled” page: everything you submit is forwarded to the business within two business days; the business is asked to respond within 14 days; complaints are generally closed within 30 days; and closed complaints may be posted and remain on a BBB Business Profile for three years. We opened BBB Complaint Acceptance Guidelines: the issue typically must have arisen within the previous 12 months; consumers are limited to one complaint against the same business within 24 months; and BBB does not handle collection of payment owed, cases already in litigation, or complaints solely seeking criminal penalties. BBB also says it is not a collection agency. Use it as a file and a research stop, not as a court.
The National Association of Attorneys General “Find My AG” page at naag.org/find-my-ag/ returned a Cloudflare verification wall when we tried to load it. We are not quoting it. Search your own state attorney general or consumer-affairs office for the complaint form that applies to your address. An earlier version of this page named New Jersey’s Division of Consumer Affairs as if that were the default desk. That was previously published copy. File where you live.