The "Van Stereo" SCAM!

It happened to me again Today! I was walking through the parking lot of the local mall and a van pulled up to me and the driver yelled out "Hey buddy, want a home theatre system?! We've got an extra one with a projector and everything!"

This marks the third time in the last 9 years that I have been approached. The first time I was approached it was the same situation, I was in a mall parking lot and it was just one guy in a large van. I was a little more curious back then so I got closer and asked questions. The fellow quickly got out and lead me to the back of his van where he bent me over and had his way with my behind... hah possible... but that's not what happened! He lead me to the back of his van where he had a large stereo box. The box was professional looking with lots of pictures and product description details. He was very slick as he described himself as a product sales person that had one last set of top of the line speakers. He proceeded to open the box to show me the very large and very sexy looking speakers. Had I not been very suspicious I would have thought they were $800+ speakers. The guy continued to explain that he had a deadline and had to get rid of his stock today. He also stated that the speakers had a warranty buy the manufacturer. I believe he was trying to dump them on me for $150. So a long story short he had what appeared to be a great product, the motive to sell and a super low price. I declined that day out of pure suspicion.

A few weeks down the road I was hanging out with one of my friends (Dave) at his house and I happened to notice the exact same speakers that the van dude was selling. Dave told me that he bought them from a guy out of the back of a van. Of course I asked Dave how they worked and he said he can't get decent sound from them but figured he didn't have a good enough stereo to run them. I looked at them further, removing the nice black velvety speaker grills and discovered that they were cheap plywood and crappy little 4 inch circular speakers in a 3 foot tall box. The velvety covering was glue-gunned on and the speakers were barley secure. Cheap low gauge wires connected the speakers to the radio-shack connectors. Bottom line, the speakers were very low budget home-made CRAP! They wouldn't cost more than $30 each to make with the materials. Probably less if you bought bulk.

So the last two times I've seen these mobile van scammers I have been very blunt to tell them "Get Lost!" as they are nothing but scam artists. Beware!

IaN