White Van Speaker Scam

[stopthegrays]

There was a post on another board concerning a scam involving a white van with two guys doing a hard sell for speakers/sound systems. From the amount of responses to that post I did some research and found more than one website concerning the scam:

White Van Scam

Most of the posts were the same:
White van or SUV (sometimes a green truck).
2-3 people, one silent the other quite vocal.
Selling speakers or a sound system "worth" $1400.00 US (more like $200.00 US).
Wants to sell it because "the boss" over ordered and they do not want to take it back.
The MO is to pull up in the van next to someone and offer to sell this "expensive" sound equipment for way under retail. They have fliers and stereo magazines showing the high priced equipment in there "confirming" the quality of the equipment. Any attempt to decline purchase is met with hostility.

Apparently this scam has been going on for a while and in more places than seem possible. On the Scamshield site they say England has also had this scam going on. My question is: Has anyone on this board run into this scam before and if so what happened?

BTW I have never run into this before.

[Steed]

Watches,

last year outside a DIY store, almost exactly the same 'spiel' The 'salesman' was very pushy, wanted about £100, the more I declined the pushier he got. He ended up asking me 'how much money I had on me' & make him an offer.

I offered something like £1.37 & he gave up

Hi,

So you had a quid more than I did.

STS

[bouncingjohn]

The White Van Speaker Scam has been featured in What Hi-Fi magazine (as part of a "things you should know" feature) for years.

[Memfis]

nvr had it myself and i've seen a few scams in my time.

~Mem

[NOVELFUNK]

Hi

I got recently scammed in Oxford. The scenario was very similar to what you've described. Two guys in corporate uniforms off non-existing audio company from London stopped me while cycling down to the shop offering "deal of my life" on pair of superb looking speakers called MATRIX MX-1200 ( on Wikipedia is a whole list of fraud makes ) which were redundant after equipping a studio. They looked just perfect ! It was very convincing and they had very sophisticated strategy to persway people. By the time i agreed to the sale for unbelievable £ 300 they started to be bit nervous and were hurrying me up to finish the deal. I made them to drive me to my house where they dropped it and I gave them the cash. They gave me their mobile phone number for contact which I rang and it was working. Then they left. I quickly googled it and started hitting my head against the wall. Number they gave me was ringing but nobody picked it up. I tried few messages but nothing. Day after I take the speakers to the shop for evaluation. Result - "they are worth about £ 20 each"....
I'm in the process of reporting it to the police cos i know I won't have chance to sell them as I wasn't the only one in here. In the local ads theres about five folks who got scammed too trying to sell them on. Now I don't regret the money anymore but I want the scammers to get punished and make the sales impossible for anyone trying to do it again by making public aware of it. Cops can't do much but at least they'll know about it. If I met them on the street again I'd smash their face with brick and wouldn't let go until they'd give me money back.


Contact me if you have any questions

[silver]

I have seen a back of van scam,. well someone was doing some work on the house and 2 'likely lads' pulled up and had a shady "leather sofa" - we didn't hear all the sales pitch as neither of us wanted a leather sofa (tho the guy I was with did call his wife to check) no idea what they wanted for it but no doubt it was very poor quality and would've fallen to bits in 5 mins..

the old adage 'if it looks too good to be true' is apt but it is easy to get sucked in as the routine is well rehearsed ..

[tattaloop]

I know a brilliant scam that has worked on loads of people.

I will tell you how for 100 quid

[Doggy Doo]

I know a brilliant scam that has worked on loads of people.

I will tell you how for 100 quid

Originally Posted by tattaloop

Your on, the squids are in the post.

An other scam is they show you the goods out of a box as in demo gear but then give you a sealed box with c**p in.

Whats the old saying "Only fools rush in"

[crankykick]

Now, of all the people our new friend Michael should try to flog dodgy TVs to that day, we probably weren’t the best choice.

Somehow, in a busy car park, he managed not only to pick out the sole two broadcast journalists around, but also the sole two journalists there with a car full of secret cameras!

As it happens we’d just finished a day’s filming in Brighton for last week’s story, which explains why we had secret cameras.

South Today

Hi all long time no see

[silver]

opps - 600 quid lighter http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03...potato_laptop/

[puggsley1980]

Your on, the squids are in the post.

An other scam is they show you the goods out of a box as in demo gear but then give you a sealed box with c**p in.

Whats the old saying "Only fools rush in"

Originally Posted by Doggy Doo

Aye this is the oldest one in the book, i've had people try this with me a few times.