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ALERT: scam artists selling home theater speakers in Berkeley

U

udonoogen

Diamond Member
these guys in a maroon colored ford expedition tried to sell me a $4000 dollar home theater system for $300. the punks stopped me on MY WAY TO MY MIDTERM. "hey do you want a home theater system?" i thought they were giving them away for free ... otherwise i wouldn't have stopped. 🙂

they were smooth talkers. fortunately i dont carry my checkbook on me and i wasn't interested. but i went back into my house and my housemate told me they were the "white van" scam artists. the speakers are "audiophile" speakers. they had their entire routine practiced, obviously, because they fooled me. they had a magazine/catalog with the speakers and bogus prices on them. WATCH OUT. i live on northside berkeley. they stopped me outside soda hall. don't let your friends or you get hoodwinked. do a search on google. i wish i took a picture of their car or got their license plate. i had a clear shot of the car from my house. grrr.

edit: im glad i have a housemate that surfs the web/anandtech. otherwise we might have been out $300. what kind of punks scam college kids. during MIDTERM season.
 
See, to prevent that sort of thing happening to me, I beat them to it...I spent a thousand or so on my HT last summer so I wouldn't give into someone like that on the street...I let them do it in the store. 😉

 
They were selling Audiophile brand speakers? Those rock!

I "fell" for this scam once; bought 2 speakers at $75/ea. I resold them for $100/ea., but fully disclosed to the buyer what he was getting. He liked the sound, so what can I say? 🙂

Rob
 
they were slick ... they said they were coming back from a delivery that they couldnt make. he said he made $8 an hour and that his boss was going to get mad at him if he came back with them. he said his boss was known to have taken stuff home before and that we'd be doing them a favor by buying them. what jerks.
 
My old roomate was had by this scam. He was such an impulsive guy, I can't believe he hadn't heard of this, it's been around so long. I always assumed the junk was just stolen though, I never though about coordinated distribution. The speakers didn't sound bad, but I could have done better easily for 300 bucks. 😀
 
This happened to me before. Some guys in a van tried to sell me a speaker set for $150 but I told them I wasn't interested. When they kept selling it to me I told them my apt. was a piece of sh*t and I had no space for them (this part is also true). One of the major scam operations is fairly close to where I live back home.
 
happened to me too

i actually whipped out my camcorder and started to tape them. they got pissed off real fast and sped off.

ahahahhaahh
 
Originally posted by: udonoogen
they were slick ... they said they were coming back from a delivery that they couldnt make. he said he made $8 an hour and that his boss was going to get mad at him if he came back with them. he said his boss was known to have taken stuff home before and that we'd be doing them a favor by buying them. what jerks.
Click to expand...

Exact same situation, exact same story used on a friend of mine in Morgantown, WV. He was going to class and was walking passed a gas station where they picked him up with that story...showed him the mag....showed him an invoice...gave him the story that they couldn't deliver them and the boss would take the speakers and they needed gas money to go back and maybe some extra for beer money. He gave them 50 bucks he had on him and they walked him to an ATM while he withdrew another 200....all in all he got 2 speakers for around 250.

I told him at the time that it was a scam and probably stolen...this happend in 99
 
I bet the drivers in those speakers are worth about $4/each. The cabinet is assembled with scotch tape.

😀
 
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