Over the past dozen years I have been approached by different men in vans cruising different parking lots trying to sell speakers.
They usually have a story about how they work for a company that installs sound systems in movie theaters, and have a few left over still in the box, and would like to cut me a deal.
The first time I heard this pitch, I was young and naïve, and checked out the merchandise, and they did look new and in the original packing.
This has now happened at least five times to me, and many times to my friends as well, always with the same theater-installation-company story. One friend bought a pair ($200!!). They sound pretty good, but this is an odd way to get your audio equipment.
I was wondering if this was a Philadelphia thing, or if this scam is everywhere. Why speakers? Are these guys all independent, or is there a speaker kingpin somewhere selling franchises?
But why speakers, of all things? And my biggest question is, who’s behind this? Does a guy get approached one day by a speaker salesman, then think to himself, “I have a white van and can access to cheap speakers, I can do this!” and then set up an independent “buisiness”? Or is there someone bigger and organized recruiting young men all over the country to sell this crap? How does a person get into the white-van-speaker-scam business??
I was offered speakers in NYC. Just as I’m walking down the sidewalk the van just pulls up and the guy yells out the window.
I think they are just super cheap speakers.
I was approached once. I think the reason as to why speakers is that it is fairly easy, and very cheap to make them look better then they are. IIRC the cabinetts have added weights to make them feel beefier then they are and other tricks. Also if they use fairly decent parts, not high end, but not total crap, then the ‘consumer’ (aka sucker) might think they got a real deal. As for those who are not satified there is no where to go to take them back.
Once, a few years ago in the parking lot of the Fry’s Electronics here in San Diego as I was on my way back to my car.
A guy standing at the back of a van called out to me as I walked past with this type of story about speakers. I had heard about this sort of thing previous to that, so I just said “No thanks” and kept walking.
Not in a parking lot, but while I was driving. Guy leaned out the passenger window and shouted over to me, asked if I wanted some speakers. We were in heavy traffic, so I don’t know what they were going to do if I took the bait - throw the speakers from the van onto the roof of the car?
Yes, about five years ago. The idiot was standing outside the church carpark trying to sell them to people coming out of mass. Not usually the target market for stolen goods.
Done it. But it was legit, the guys sold from a Kansas City beef outlet or something. (Or at least that was their story.)
The meat was just OK. Nothing special, all cut and vacuum sealed in the company’s retail packaging. Pretty good deal.
Not speakers; leather jackets, though, and several times too. Always by an Italian who’s just been “exhibiting at a trade fair” and doesn’t want the hassle of taking his samples back to Milan or wherever.
I was one of those meat sellers for a couple of years.
The basic premise is that anyone can sell meat, but if you ask for help out of a bad situation you can get a higher price for the meat.
I sold my stuff low, loew enough to be competitive with the grocery store- with the result that I had repeat customers who liked the meat and the deal. Other salesmen just were in it to get what they could, and you wouldn’t believe the stories they told to keep the price high.
One guy would look for Christian houses (by looking for clues like religious displays) in order to do his “i need some help to help out my church” pitch. His story was that some heathen left him stuck with an order, and he would add pressure by mentioning everything the money was supposedly covering at his church. He always ended his pitch with a “praise the Lord.”
Another pitch used by several was “the restaurant over ordered and stuck me with all this meat…”, with the pressure points being really needing the money that was supposedly lost on the steaks.
Most of these guys spent everything from the day at the bar, or on crack. Be careful when approached by them; not all but many are desperate and desperate people do bad things out of that desperation.
Yep, I got approached in a parking lot by the speaker guys. They’re pitch was, as far as I recall, that they were sent extra speakers by their distributor and they didn’t want to go through the trouble of sending them back, or something bogus like that. It’s actually a great scam. The idea is that the buying of the speakers feels slightly illicit so the buyer thinks he’s getting a great deal on very good but hot (or at least slightly warm) speakers. And the deal won’t last, so the buyer has to shell out cashnow. Pretty slick, really.
Sounds like the scam I’ve heard about where some guy comes up to you in a parking lot with a laptop box and tries to sell you the obviously stolen laptop for one hundred dollars. You open the box and there’s a phonebook in the box.
Years ago (about 9 years) my husband bought speakers from a similar souding deal, $200 for a pair of studio monitor club speakers. He viewed the deal as a decent pair of speakers. They sound great with our stereo system, no distortion or static. If we turn up the stereo, the bass vibrates the AC vents and you can hear the music outside, with the doors closed.