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Sara’s Antiques, a consignment shop at 1015 Lexington Avenue (73rd Street), is under fire for allegedly withholding payments from customers and evading requests to return consigned items.
According to a recent news report on NBC’s “Better Get Baquero,” the reportedly deadbeat owners Sayeh (Sara) Khorshad and Vihad Peter Khorshad have been duping innocent Upper East Siders into dropping off vintage heirlooms, many of which are very valuable, and then not paying when they are sold and refusing to return the items.
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According to the report, after Upper East Sider Kristie Zinberg’s mother passed away, she inherited valuable crystal, china and flatware. Unable to store them in her apartment, she brought them to Estate Sale on the Upper East Side to be sold on consignment. She signed a contract in 2021 with the shop; they would have 18 months to either sell them or return them. Any proceeds would go to her minus their 10 percent commission. After no response for several months, she opted to take back some pieces, but when she asked about the rest of her wares, the consignment shop only offered her $1,000 for some dishware. She refused and nearly two years later, the shop closed and reopened a few blocks away as “Sara’s Antiques.”
She has since visited Sara’s Antiques in attempts to either get paid or have her items returned.
“I saw not a dime..not a dime,” Zinberg lamented to NBC, explaining how every time she went in she’d get the runaround.
Earlier in the year, NBC ran a similar story featuring another Upper East Sider, Cindy Booth – and News 12 did a piece covering complaints at the couple’s location in Great Neck, Long Island.
Howard Becker, 85, told News 12 he was bilked out of his life savings by the duo. He claims he had befriended Mr. Khorshad because of their shared interest in antiques.
“I’ve been admiring antiques my whole life and the antiques he brought in were really very special and very impressive,” said Becker, of Great Neck. “I would go with him to antique shows and auctions and this was exciting for me.”
Eventually, Khorshad asked Becker to partner with him and lend him nearly $1 million to open two antique stores: Estate & Antiques in Great Neck and Sara’s Antiques in Manhattan. When it was time to be repaid, all checks made out to Becker reportedly bounced.
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At the time of the segment, nearly a dozen people came forward saying they had consigned belongings to Khorshad and never got paid or their possessions returned.
A legal representative for Sarah’s Antiques said both Zinberg and Booth were offered the value of what their items sold for, but that they both refused because they felt their items were worth more.
The NYC Department of Consumer Affairs is reportedly looking into these complaints.
