Well, that was interesting...

[jducoeur]

So I'm coming out of Druken Wombats on my way to the office, when I am accosted by two young guys in a truck. They ask me if I'd be interested in buying a couple of really great speakers, very cheaply. ("They've already been marked as paid for this job, so we can't bring them back!") They insist that these are $4000 speakers, and I can have them for a song. They get impressively offended when I decline, and drive off in a huff.

In retrospect, I really ought to have taken down their license plate. My guess is that these speakers fell off a truck, and no one's actively looking for them, but it wouldn't astonish me to discover that they were actually stolen. The whole thing violated my "if something seems too good to be true, it probably isn't" rule in the worst way...

Comments

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Nope!

That's a legitimate business, trying its hardest to look like a scam.

The speakers are probably reasonable $100-200 or so speakers, but certainly aren't worth four thousand bucks.

The company that makes them markets them to people wanting to earn a quick buck, who then market them (by driving up and offering them to people) to people looking to get a wicked good deal and have something to be smug about.

Do a web search for "white van speakers" and see what you get.

So, yes, it's shady, but not as shady as it looks.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

http://www.scamshield.com/Feature.asp?id=1

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

wow, that's awesome. Great to see people actually admitting they got ripped...Very interesting from a sociopsychological perspective.

Probably not the same exact guys, but...

[bleemoo.livejournal.com]

That exact same thing happened to me a few months ago. I was in the Waltham CVS parking lot buying a Coke and the called me over. I told them I wasn't interested and I was rushing to drive to NY (I was). Then I went to get gas, and they followed me and asked me AGAIN. I again told them I wasn't interested, and they said "Oh, we didn't realize you were the same guy." My car is covered in bumper stickers. It's not that hard to spot. It was very surreal.

[antoniseb.livejournal.com]

I imagine that I too would have been too bemused to take down identifying info about the vehicle. But, if we were still on Orange Alert, I'd have photographed the vehicle and entrepreneurs and emailed it to the local police [or not].

[qedrakmar.livejournal.com]

There used to be an outfit in Central Mass, and probably elsewhere who sold cheap speakers, mostly aimed at college students. Their modus operandii was to drive up in a white van and see how much folks would pay for these "high end speakers". They were shitty construction and only had mid-range, and, IIRC, they only cost about $20 to the distributor, so anything over like $30 was kept by the "salesmen". They worked rather well on the fact that many people thought they were stolen, so many people bought them thinking they were much better than they were.

[qedrakmar.livejournal.com]

I see someone else beat me to the descriptor, though... :(