After Marnie Saenz Litz’s father, retired Navy Capt. Ron Saenz, was diagnosed with terminal cancer last year, she jumped into action to help her aging parents downsize as quickly as she could.

One of those ways, she now says with regret, was by hiring Attics to Basements Estate Sales, out of Manassas.

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After the estate sale in Herndon, Virginia, concluded in March, the Saenz family expected Attics to Basements owner Tracy Smith would pay them their share of the proceeds – more than $9,000 – within a month.

Instead, they say, Smith failed to pay them and then cut off all communication.

“She spent weeks with us before the sale … We had some heart-to-heart conversations about family, about illness, about sickness, about m

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