Newport Brushstrokes Fine Art Review - 1

This company is scamming senior citizens

This company is scamming senior citizens and it needs to stop! My parents are senior citizens and I help them from time to time with their affairs. They have been a victim of what appears to be a very sophisticated scam by a company called Newport Brushstrokes Fine Art. This company is luring people into buying overpriced art by little known artists on the premises that it is an investment and they will sell the painting in short order for a handsome profit. My parents were told all they had to was buy one more painting to add to their collection then the paintings could be sold as a set. The company advertises "free refunds anytime" on their website and there was even an agreement were if the deal fell through they would get their money back. The salesman, ***, even said he would personally reimburse my parents if the deal didn't go through. It was estimated the re-sale of the painting and my dad's collection of other paintings would be around $90,000. All started out ok. My parents agreed to buy the painting for $20,000. The company said they could even just pay $6,000 first and then when the deal come to fruition they would then pay the remaining $14,000. So, they wire the first $6,000 and the company sends the painting. A couple of months go by and then my dad gets a call from the company saying the sale of his art has been completed for $137,875. A schedule for payment and shipping was made. However, these schedules were always broken. There was always an excuse that was never Newport's fault.....having trouble lining up shipping, the bank converted the currency into pounds instead of dollars, the crash of the crypto markets, the war in Ukraine, etc. They even made my parents pay $5,500 in tariff's for the shipping of the art to the new owners. At least 3 schedules for payment and shipping were made and all were been broken. Newport even tried to scam my parents out of an additional $5,000 in extra tariff's, but fortunately they didn't fall for that one. In early 2023 I spoke with "Drew" the customer service representative and he told me there never was a deal and that Charles Barr and the other "broker" *** just got a little "giddy" and "ahead of themselves." Drew promised me in February 2023 ago he would make things right with my parents. However, to date nothing has happened other than empty promises. Many months ago my dad asked the company to honor the money back guarantee at the conception of this fiasco and the company's stated policy on their website. However, again promises made and promises broken time after time. These people are very smooth in their sales pitch and charming on the phone, most of the time. There was the one time I was talking to *** on the phone and when I wasn't buying his bs he lost his temper and went into a rage, cussing and swearing at me and ***. Drew was embarrassed by the whole situation and called me back immediately to apologize as he and the secretary in the other room could hear Mr. ***. We aren't the only people who have been had by Newport Brushstrokes. We have been in touch with several others who all have very similar stories as ours with this company.