NYC Woman Takes Legal Action Against 1-800-GOT-JUNK for Alleged Theft of Safe Containing $100K in Jewelry

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Susan Nussbaum stated that she is now 1-800-GOT-PROBLEMS after calling 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

This was Nussbaum’s second time using the rubbish removal service. Therefore, she gave us another call when she needed to dispose of a few items of furniture before to relocating to a different apartment on the Upper West Side. A bed, a bookcase, and a massive wall unit with storage drawers were among her unwanted possessions.

It cost her $412 and a whole lot more to haul away those furnishings.

A Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit was filed earlier this month against 1-800-GOT-JUNK, alleging firm employees of stealing a safe containing valuable jewels, which had a sentimental value of roughly $100,000. The safe was located in the wall unit.

Except for the safe, which was “too heavy” for Nussbaum, she emptied the wall unit, according to her claim. She meant to request assistance from the movers, but “in the chaos of moving,” she completely forgot to do so.

According to Nussbaum, who spoke with The Post, she subsequently went to a Mattress Firm store across the street to try out a different bed, but she went back home the second she realized her error.

“I am not very good at running, but I contacted the moment I stepped inside, and the truck had already departed,” she explained.

Her memory was tinged with a sense of panic. They just departed, so I begged them to check the truck immediately and return without delay. Since I was unable to continue speaking, my friend answered the phone. According to them, there was nothing inside. What a bunch of liars.

According to Nussbaum, she also put up a prize for the safe’s safe return.

Legal documents submitted by Nussbaum’s attorney, Scott Wolinetz, indicate that “the customer service team was incapable of discerning the severity of the situation and failed to acknowledge the conflicting statements between [Nussbaum] and their employees.” The safe was taken “by means of deceitful and fraudulent methods… ” The value of the stolen safe must be returned immediately, according to the plaintiff.

Outside the building, surveillance cameras capture the wall unit lying on its side, with its cabinets blown open, exposing the safe. After that, one of the movers will close the cabinets and put the item on a dolly to take it away.

“They never asked, ‘Did you intend to leave it?'” despite seeing the safe. That was what Nussbaum exclaimed. I took my son to a junkyard in the Bronx that night, but it was in vain.

According to her, the jewels were taken and then pawned. She has been searching far and low on eBay for the supposedly stolen items since the occurrence in October 2023, but thus far, no luck.

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In her career, 70-year-old Nussbaum served as both a social worker and a special education teacher. Her physician spouse passed away about nine years ago. She has lived in a number of different rentals around Manhattan during her widowhood.

She had misplaced her son’s baby spoon and her first birthday candle, both of which bore her mother’s handwriting. Two of her grandmothers, Nanny Frieda and Nanny Florie, had left her rings.

Her mother gave her a charm bracelet when she was a teenager, and she also lost her wedding band from her late spouse. “Of course, I’ll never see it again, but if I could, I would wear that every day,” Nussbaum gushed.

There was no insurance on the jewels. Passports and birth certificates were among the other vital documents kept in the safe.

“I should have placed the contents of the safe in a bag or contacted my supervisor for assistance,” she said. I should have double-checked the safe, just like I would at a hotel. As you check out of a hotel room, be sure to empty all of the drawers.

JUNKERSERVICE franchises include 1-800-GOT-JUNK.

“Our hearts go out to Susan,” stated area director Evan Cohen in an email to The Post. “To verify our pricing and the amount of room the items would require in the truck, we captured images of the unit before and after the service was done.”

“I hereby agree the work has been satisfactorily completed and understand that I no longer own the items that have been removed,” he sent documentation claiming, but he failed to give the images that The Post had requested. Nussbaum’s signature was on the document.

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“The team did as Susan directed and removed and disposed of the entire cabinet,” Cohen stated. “The cabinet was promptly delivered to a third-party local disposal/recycling facility after we completed the service…” After the service had ended, Susan contacted our office in a very distressed state. She mentioned that she had completely forgotten about the safe that was in the wall unit cabinet.

The item had been kept a secret from the team, she said, and she had advised them to just throw out the whole wall unit. Sadly, when she informed us, the truck crew had already complied with her orders and were disposing of the wall unit at the nearby landfill… No one on the truck crew said they saw or touched a safe in the wall unit.

“The truck team members and manager had followed our standard service process, and had disposed of the wall unit as requested by Susan, the client,” Cohen wrote, stating that an internal review had reached this conclusion. “Every single member of the team vehemently denied stealing from the team.”

According to a private investigator that Nussbaum retained, her initial, eight-minute, panicked call to 1-800-GOT-JUNK was placed at 4:26 in the afternoon, which is 1.5 hours before the truck was scheduled to leave. An invoice with the time stamp 4:35 indicates that the vehicle was still at A.J. Recycling, a junkyard in The Bronx.

A manager from 1-800-GOT-JUNK in The Bronx “insisted that… his drivers… are trustworthy” and “also indicated that it is not common to have contents inside cabinets that people are throwing away,” according to the investigator’s report. “He was adamant that the truck had already been emptied and that he couldn’t do anything further. [He] did mention throughout our talk that the drivers had taken a lunch break. Since GOT-JUNK is being very coy, we have no idea when or where that stop occurred.

Both Nussbaum’s daughter and son are young adults, and she intended to leave them the jewelry as a bequest.

“It haunts me and I think about it every single day,” she said.