Does it happen with fruit? Because my boyfriend’s mother was sold huge boxes of oranges and apples out the back of a van. The fruit tasted alright, so I don’t know whether it was a scam or not. We had freshly squeezed orange juice for weeks though.
Don’t know about in OZ, but here in the states it’s not unusual for folks to sell fruit by the box out of a van. My experience has been that the fruit is good (better than what’s in the grocery stores) and the price is quite reasonable. Of course, you have to buy a boxful–they’re not interested in selling a handful. And they weren’t claiming any special circumstances, it came across as a simple “if you want fruit, we have it” deal.
One key to this speaker scam is what Bromley mentioned–if it sounds too good to be true, it’s a virtual certainty that it’s untrue. Another is the line that they got extra goods by mistake. An honorable person would return the goods. So those who go for these deals presumably believe they’re buying stolen merchandise, rationalizing it as OK because it wasn’t taken by force and the victim was a big company rather than an individual. The sellers probably rationalize their deceit by thinking, “Hey, if this guy would buy illegally gotten stuff, he deserves to be ripped off.” There are many scams in life that people are vulnerable to only if they’re willing to forgo being upright about the situation.
A slight hijack. If a person buys a vial of baking soda believing it to be cocaine, he/she is guilty of purchasing an illegal narcotic. If a person buys what he believes to be stolen speakers from the back of a van, isn’t he guilty of receiving stolen property, even if that property wasn’t really stolen?
In all of these cases, the white van brigades are claiming to offer inventory which does not legally belong to them. Although sleazy, AFAIK, this is not against the law. Buying the merchandise believing it to be ill-gotten seems to be illegal to me, so I’m in the “you got what you deserved” camp. Suck it up and consider it a valuable life lesson.
I have to go with the “serves you right” crowd. I mean, you thought you were buying stolen merchandise now you want your money back? What gall.
It reminds me of those Nigeria banking scams that were going around.(http://www.priveye.com/Nigeria.htm) We hear about these poor old people who lost their retirement money. Well boo-hoo, they lost it trying to help someone embezzle money.
But hey, lesson learned: Follow not your impatient greed.
Yeah, yeah… I know I thought it was stolen and all that, and believe me, I really did wrestle with my conscience for a bit before deciding to buy them. I actually still feel bad about giving in and buying them. I don’t believe in karma, but this came pretty close to convincing me.
As for the sound quality, they’re not bad. Not good, but not bad. I’m going to try taking them apart and seeing if I can rewire them. I did want some speakers so it’s not a total loss. Just a very bad one, financially speaking. And yeah, the lesson’s been learned. Don’t break your own ethics ('cause it’ll come back and bite you in the ass), and don’t give in to the “it’s too good to be true” deals.
On a related note… does anybody want to buy some speakers? They’re supposed to retail for $1200 but I got an amazing deal on them and are willing to sell them for a mere $300!
Audiobottle
That depends, Audiobottle, what color is your van?
It’s a white… I mean… *black[\I] van… I mean SUV. Yeah.
Let’s go to the ATM and see how much you have, shall we?
Like Torus, I was approached by the White Van back in the late 80s. Twice in a couple of weeks, and the second time I didn’t let the guy get out more than “Hey, You interested in a great deal, I got some extra . . .” before I cut in and said, “Nah, I don’t need any speakers.” He gave me The Look and said, "Speakers? WTF? I’m talking about sneakers! Yep, boxes of fake Nikes in the back. At least it rhymed.
A big group of my friends and I were visiting Chicago last year. We were walking from the subway to our hotel (about 5 blocks), with our hands full of luggage. The white van guys pulled up and asked us if we wanted to buy some speakers. We looked down at all the shit we were carrying. Then we laughed at them and asked them if they were stupid.
What struck me at the time was when they pulled up to the curb to talk to us, there were two of Chicago’s finest sitting in their cruiser not 10 feet from us. So this “deal” must be legal.
stv
The Washington Post did an article about these speaker guys a few years back, and their assessment was that it’s a completely legal deal. The allure comes from people thinking they’re doing something wrong, which makes them think they’re getting a good deal. Of course, the “van people” almost exclusively target males (preferably alone), who are more likely to be lured by such an offer.
A genius marketing strategy if you ask me.
There’s a quote from John Dillinger that goes something like this:
“I never cheated an honest man. Everybody wanted something for nothing. I just gave them nothing for something”.
This deal also operates in Australia. A white van pulled up next to me in a backstreet of Melbourne CBD (Flinder’s Lane for those who know the area) about three weeks ago. They offered the same deal.
My response was “Do I really look that stupid?”. They got offended and drove away.
As an aside, Australia’s false and misleading advertising and conduct laws may be a bit tougher than the US’s but this scam is definitely a crime in Australia. If the goods are stolen it is also likely that the person who bought them could be charged with receiving stolen goods.
Just did a quick google to verify that quote and found that it is actually slightly different attributable to someone else. Here’s the correct quote and correct originator (at least according to a couple of the sites I went to).
**“I never cheated an honest man, only rascals. They wanted something for nothing. I gave them nothing for something.”
– Joseph “Yellow Kid” Weil**
All these year’s I thought it was John Dillinger. Oh well, we live and learn.
I think they are onto us. Friday I was walking from my car to Sears Hardware when two guys in a brown Astro van pulled up next to me.
“Hey” said the guy in the passenger seat “odd question. I’ve got a couple of extra speakers back there. Do you want to buy them?”
I started to agree that yes, I did actually need new speakers (even though I haven’t used my stereo for weeks) when I remembered this thread. But wait, said my little voice, its not a white van. They must be OK. My other voice reminded me that it was still a van with two guys who want to sell me speakers.
I declined.
But watch out - they’re getting clever.
Well I got duped a few years back in the UK. And I have to admit I was trying to make a quick buck. When I got back someone said to me “What, you didn’t fall for the white van guys did you?” and I felt stupid.
I kept the speakers, they servered as a reminder for the future. Now five years or so later they’ve changed hands several times but I’ve got them back and still use them. I’m not particularly picky and they don’t sound too bad, and they’ve lasted. So looking on the bright side, I didn’t make my (morally dubious) quick buck, but I do still have a nice-enough working pair of speakers.
SD
Yeah, I’m using the speakers now. I’m pretty much taking the view that I got what I deserved. Next time a morally ambiguous chance comes along I figure I’ll take the high road so that I can at least feel justified in my righteous wrath or, even better, not get scammed.
Audiobottle
This thread reminded me of something I’d forgotten long ago. Same premise. A guy in a white van spoke to me from his window as I was waiting for a traffic light. Fortunately, my common sense lightbulb went off and I declined. I figured they were stolen.
I wonder how long this has been around? I haven’t read the provided links yet. I hope they provide some insight.
God, (or G-d if you prefer) was that 20 years ago?
If I were ever approached by anyone wanting to sell me something on a whim, no matter what it was or how good the deal sounded, I would turn it down and walk away, no ifs, ands or buts. To me this is the face-to-face equivalent of telemarketing. Just as I don’t ever buy anything from someone who offers it to me over the phone, the same principle applies to anyone who comes to my door or greets me on the street. If I want to buy something, I will decide when and where to buy it, even if I am in the market for it. I will make sure I have several choices available to me when I am ready to buy. Incidentally, I am somewhat in the market for some new speakers for my car. When I am ready to buy them I will go to a store that sells them and also one that has an audio room for demonstrating them.
These guys going around in white vans (or black SUVs, or whatever) doing business deals with the unsuspecting public just sound too shady to be the least bit legitimate. Don’t these guys have to take out a license to do business in whichever states they operate in? I’m not sure how the law reads for people who work as traveling salesmen, but if the law requires them to hold a vendor’s license I imagine the same goes for these speaker peddlers.
I wonder if they’re stepping up this scam recently, because I haven’t seen them in years, and just last week I got bugged by them.
This pair of guys were actually kind of cool. I cut the guy off in the middle of his little speech, and asked them how much the speakers cost them per unit. They said that they pay about $300 for bags of parts for 10 speakers, which they have to assemble themselves. They were selling “Studio Monitor” speakers, which I thought was funny, as I’m actually looking for some real studio monitor speakers, so I’ve been shopping around (these were not real studio monitor speakers). He told me that the speaker elements they had were crap, but the housings were actually quite good, and he’d sell me a pair for only $40 each. We looked at them, and I think he was actually being honest there, the cases weren’t too bad, and the speakers were crap (the tweeters looked suspiciously like the kind you find in cheap headphones). He said that sometimes they get parts that actually make for a good set of speakers, but this wasn’t one of those times.
He then did something I hadn’t heard them do before, which makes me wonder if this is more of a pyramid scheme than I orginally thought. He tried to recruit me to sell more speakers. It wasn’t a hard sell, it was more like “if you’ve got time on your hands, you can make some pretty good money doing this.” I thanked them for the offer but declined.
i had one of these dudes talk to me when i was a freshman. I thought it was a scam, plus i knew nothing about speakers and had no money, so i couldnt have bought them if i wanted to.
Um, Mirage, I read all the comments, too, and my sense was that the first couple “good” reviews were plants, probably by some of the scammers, designed as part of the scheme to make the “marks” think they were getting/got something good.
Fortunately, I have pretty good “scam” radar. Or maybe I’m just a chronic cynic. But it’s helped me avoid situations like this (at least so far!).