Care for some Euroscam? Well here goes: Those guys, who are urgently in need of cash, because granny is in hospital and has no medical aid, so they'll sell you their new leather jacket, or their Rolex or those little one ounce gold bars for practically nothing. All fakes of course and the more greedy you get, the more you'll be had.
And then some Texas scam, which happened to me this year: That nice lady of that rare female audiophile breed I thought, who after some research later turned out to be a guy, no longer here at Audiogon and who took me for three pairs of Bybees, which never arrived of course. |
The scam goes on in Montreal too. A TV show exposing various scams brought a pair to what I think I recognized as a high end shop here that sells, inter alia, Audio Research, for an opinion as to the quality of this junk and they found the quality to be horrendous, not even on par with the type of stuff found at similar prices in places like Best Buy. And we quibble on these pages about the nth degree of imaging. I think the guy said that the cabinet was more suitable as a box for the cat than as an enclosure for speakers. |
pbb: now, that's where a wife comes in handy. (wink, wink. nudge, nudge. knowwhatimean, knowwhatimean?) -cfb |
A bit of a scam. Sign on a Petro-Canada gas station near my home read "Temporarily closed. To serve you better, soon self-serve ". You know how cold it gets here in the winter to pump it yourself? |
The overstocked speakers in the back of the van has been going on 16 years now ,that I know of. No, they are not stolden. In Canada anyways, a guy is southern Ontario makes these super cheap boxes .The current ones are about 42 inches high and 9 by 11 and are called monitor 9's or somthing like that. The packaging looks good, thay have soft dome tweeters and 2 6 inch drivers . They look slick enough to fool the novice.
They cost about 110.00 $CAD. to make. I have not heard a pair my self but have been told they are ok for a novice. The con person who runs this has a system down pat. A couple of guys pick city, lease some expensive SUV s
and go to whomever will listen about how they were just delivering speakers and got pairs loaded in the truck instead of individual speakers and now they have just 4 pairs of speakers at incredable prices. They often have an invoice in hand to justify a list price. I watched this happen just last week to some guy who couldn't refuse such a bargain.
Like all con men they appeal to our inability to get somthing for next to nothing weather we need it or not.
cheers steve |
I have been contacted by your boy there Cornfed, or one just like him. I recall laughing hysterically for a long time after hanging up thinking it was the funniest prank call I had ever heard. |
as i've mentioned before, i useta prosecute telemarketers and the like but now i defend 'em (anybody who can afford it deserves the best legal advice available). one of my more problematic (in as many ways as you can imagine) clients has recently come up with the ultimate chutzpa of telemarketed products: membership on state-supported "do not call" lists. you can probably hear the script in your head: "how would you like to avoid getting annoying calls like mine? well, have i got a deal for you........." -kelly |
Those damn trashy looking, sweet talking girls...ahhhh they get me every time. I just wanted to have "a good time" like they offered, who would have thunk it was against the law. |
Care to explain how you know several people that have bought speakers out of the back of vans? What brands? When? Why didn't your friends recognize they were not overstocked and were in fact likely stolen? Or is it fair to presume your buds knew that it was too good to be true and thus willingly enjoyed the fruits of crime. Are you thus a witness after the fact? Or before even? Don't hesitate to take the fifth as I would if I were in your predicament. |
hey bigpoppa i've been told by a few people who work in the computer field that it's the absolute worst industry right now for mail fraud. id advise everyone to heed ...krell's warning and buy computer gear locally. |
Well folks, here's a LEGITIMATE scam for you, I recently bid on an AMD K6III+450 CPU from a company called CONNECT-COMP in California that was posted on E-Bay. (I can see most of you rolling your eyes already..)
This chip does exist, and was used largely in laptops due to it's low heat, etc.
It is also the last step for my existing super7 mother-board before I move on to bigger, badder computers.
Anyhow, the chip arrived, I installed it on my board and it was DEAD.
After various e-mails back and forth, and me shipping the chip back to them, they acknowledged that it was in fact fried, however, they said that due to the disclaimer on the auction page, they refused to refund me my money, and could NOT supply me with a working chip !
Finally, after a long nasty call to them, they agreed to give me a 50% refund, supposedly... well, guess what? that was a scam too ! they still have YET to refund me the money.
This all started at the beginning of May, and I have since sourced another AMD chip that works perfectly fine on my motherboard.
So, be warned that apparently (I have since found this out) there is an enormous amount of scamming going on with E-bay and "tech" related stuff.
It is difficult for me to persue this - I live in Canada - and e-bay themselves would just take one look at the Auction description and tell me that it was clearly spelled out that the product "could be fried by those not knowing what they are doing". HA ! excuse me, but I've been inside the guts of PC's since back in the 286 days, and could probably build a better PC than these crooks could think of !
My point of claim is that they advertised the chip as "new" and that it was guaranteed to work... it did NOT, and they simply took advantage of the situation.
My total cost was about $200 Cdn. and although it could have been ALOT worse, I have certainly learned NOT to deal with anyone on tech based products that don't live within a couple of hours drive from home. It's just not worth the grief. |
Hey Thunders, how about when you don't believe the guy about the stuff in the purple tin foil so you take it all at once and he really was telling the truth when he said to quarter it and I keep wondering if I'm ever coming back and then again do I really care and....Oh, wait a minute here, this really didn't happen to me, I mean I'm pretty sure it was someone else....yea, it was you wasn't it? Say, have you ever tried to beat a street hustler at 3-card monte??????? |
oregano....... did he try to smoke that??? It's just too funny! |
Sorry, have to take the fifth. Professional magicians and salesmen don't give away trade secrets... |
Oregano in a ziplock bag, sure made my friend mad. Come to think of it, you'd have to be an idiot not to know it wasn't what you were paying for. A fool and his money... |
i know exactly what you're talking about thunders. |
|
Don't pay for anything in purple tin-foil just because it's purple tin-foil and you think that what comes in purple tin-foil only comes in purple tin-foil and nothing else besides what you think comes in purple tin-foil actually comes in purple tin-foil. Chances are what you thought was in the purple tin-foil isn't in the purple tin-foil at all and it's something else that's been put in the purple tin-foil, or so I'm told. |
|
ryllau, 12 years and it still gets to you doesn't it? that's the worst part about being scammed.
one of the oldest around is the van with 'overstock' speakers in the back. i know several people who've been taken by this one and some recently.
virtually every time i go to nyc someone on the street tries to sell me a video camera. one day i'm going to go for it just so i can find out exactly what they're stuffing the box with.
also in nyc one store got busted for selling panassonic radios. notice the double SS? lots of people didn't. |
