First, a word of warning to those in the Ann Arbor, MI area (and presumably all the surrounding towns).
If you see a white van that seems to be from some kind of audio equipment manufacturer/distributor, stay away! Especially if they try to sell you speakers. Either that or call the cops and get them out of there. They’ll attempt to sell you speakers that they claim are super high quality and very expensive for a dirt cheap price. Don’t fall for it.
I was walking back from spending the night in ER with my friend who had passed out from watching another friend get her nose pierced and smacked her head on a table and had a pretty bad concussion… where was I? Oh, yeah. Anyway, I was walking back from her place this morning and a woman in a van shouted, “Do you want some speakers?” I actually did want speakers and for some bizarre reason I thought they meant for free (people are always giving away free stuff on campus), so I said, “Yeah.” They pulled over and gave me a big story about how they had just signed off on an invoice for audio equipment and they found out they had been given more than they had signed for. They even showed me the invoice. Well, flahed it in front of me for a few seconds is probably more accurate. They then said they wanted to sell the equipment before they got back to their store because then they’d have to give it to the store and they wouldn’t make anything off of it. Very friendly, but also very aggresive and pushy people. Having never been the subject of a dupe before, I wouldn’t know if they were good or not, but from the amount of stuff I’ve read on the internet, I’m not the only one who got slapped (Reviews and Complaints of the Speakers). Anyway, they showed me the speakers they wanted to sell, and they showed me a nice laminated insert that showed the speakers at being listed for $1199. I told them I’d give them $100 for it, and they said, “C’mon, we have to split it three ways.” So I said, “What do you want?” They came back with $600 and I laughed and said, “I can swing $300.” So one of the girls walked with me to my ATM and I pulled out $300. I was feeling a little suspicious of this, so I made sure to look in the box and check that there were in fact speakers in there (there were) and so I gave her the $300 and felt like I had gotten a steal. Oh, yeah, other details: they wanted me to give them beer money, they had accents that I couldn’t place, the one who did all the talking claimed to be from Connecticut but also mentioned New York, there were two girls (the one who talked was probably in her 30s, the other looked the early twenties), one boy who looked like he was no more than 18, and… oh, yeah, I’m an idiot. So I came back thinking that I’d sell these on eBay and make a nice little extra bit of cash, very proud of myself, until I found the website above. I called the police to report the fraud and they said they’d keep an eye out for it. I hope they find these people and are able to bust them for some sort of fraud. Apparently it’s not technically a fraud though, and I should be able to get a refund if I can find them. Unfortunately, I never got a receipt since it wasn’t really a deal. That leads me to (at last) my question(s).
Was it a fraud? They lied to me about their story, but they did provide me with a (presumably) working product. I’m hesitant to try them out because I’m hoping to get a refund, and I don’t want to give them anything to use as a reason not to.
Assuming I find them again, how can I get my money back? If they don’t give me my money back, is it then a crime? I’m a bit bitter about losing $300, but I honestly hope that nobody else gets scammed by these people. Losing the money was my own stupid fault. I’d feel a lot better if I knew that at least these people were doing something illegal.
Oh, yeah, the speakers I bought are called “Acoustic Image 6.5.”
-Audiobottle, the dunce