When Olga Pinkoson’s mother brought her to Las Vegas from Yugoslavia in 1986, she envisioned her daughter seeking a good life for herself. Pinkoson soon started working as a dealer at Sam’s Town, where she met the man who was to be her husband six months later. After eight years there she moved on to New York-New York, where she worked another eight years.
Pinkoson started having dizzy spells two years ago, when gaming control caught a man cheating at her table and, she says, roughed him up in front of her. “I could never be the same after that,” she says. “Every day after that when I went back to work I would have anxiety attacks. I always thought someone at the table was going to cheat.” After several tests, she says, a neurologist told her she was having seizures and suggested she find a less stressful job.
A few months before she quit she and her husband attended a real-estate seminar, where they were told that with the help of some CDs and books they could make a lot of money flipping properties. But the Pinkosons made a few small mistakes, and suddenly they found themselves unable to sell their new property and desperately in need of money.
They decided to sell antiques Pinkoson had been collecting for the last 10 years. On referral from a reputable appraiser they called Premier Estate Auctions; they guaranteed reserve prices. A few days before the new year a man named Jamie—Pinkoson never found out his last name—came over to assess her chattel, which included family heirlooms, late-19th-century art, an 1894 Bavarian Harp, Lalique and DeVilbiss perfume bottles, a Cloisonne clock and Capo Di Monte dishes.
In total, Pinkoson says, Jamie selected more than 30 items and instructed Pinkoson to drop them off at their warehouse at 3655 W. Quail Avenue. Pinkoson signed an agreement to leave her items on consignment for 35 days, during which time she was told there’d be two or three auctions. That weekend her belongings went up for sale.
“It was kind of weird,” she says. “There was no fast-talking person. The guy selling was saying, ‘Anybody who’ll give me a better price, come on.’ People were just looking around.”
Pinkoson says she saw a handful of items sell. When she went in to check up on how well she did, she says proprietor Kelly Jackson (who could not be reached for comment) told her that some of the bids had been phantom offers designed to drive up prices, that in fact not many of her items had sold.
When 35 days passed Pinkoson called for her check and her remaining antiques. She claims Jackson informed her another auction was coming the weekend after Valentine’s Day and it’d be worth her while to leave her items in it. “I told her I can’t wait any longer for the check,” says Pinkoson. “I needed that money.” Finally they reached a compromise: Premier Estate wrote her a check for 700-odd dollars, and Pinkoson agreed to stay in for one more auction.
The following Monday no one answered when Pinkoson called the auction house, so she left a message. She called a few days later and was given a cell phone number to use from then on. Messages left to that number were not returned.
Ten days after the February auction closed Pinkoson’s husband went to the warehouse to pick up their stuff and was handed only the Cloisonne clock. “They said they’d get back to us later,” says Pinkoson.
“I called these people at least a dozen times,” she says, and Jackson asked for more time. “‘When I call you, you can come over,’ she said. Nobody called back.”
Three weeks ago the Pinkosons went to the warehouse to demand a resolution, and say the space was empty. “We could see through the window there was just paper and garbage on the floor,” she says. But the auction house website is still up and running.
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If the Pinkosons would’ve investigated Premier Estate Auctions’ standing with the Better Business Bureau they would’ve discovered the company, which is not a member of the bureau, has an unsatisfactory record. A total of nine complaints have been registered against them in the last three years: three issues with quality, two billing errors, a failure to honor a contract and general service and sales practice concerns.
If the Pinkosons would’ve checked with the secretary of state, they’d have learned that the business license for Premier Estate Auctions had been revoked last September. But there’s no way of telling whether it was simply because the company didn’t register their officers’ names, a relatively common and negligibly offensive occurrence, or if it was for something more serious.
The secretary of state doesn’t regulate corporations, and in fact there’s no state agency in place to keep businesses in check at all. If a license is revoked a person is free to start up the same business under a different name—and that’s exactly what Jackson did. On January 19, before the consignment period with Pinkoson had ended, Jackson registered for another business license, this one called Premier Auction of Nevada. She cited the same address as Premier Estate Auctions. That address is currently empty; the phone number on file is no longer in service.
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Pinkoson says she called the police to file a report and was told an investigator would call her back. Weeks later that call still hasn’t come.
“I hurt in the stomach when I think about it,” she says.
“You’ve gotta fail sometimes to learn. But I still have something—a lesson for the future.”