The "speaker van" scam is alive and well...

[Bella_Vixen]

Off topic, but...

For those that say that they aren't worried about retribution because it's broad daylight out...both times I was robbed, it was 5 o'clock in the afternoon on a beautiful Sunday afternoon with a lot ful of customers (the first time, the robbers STOOD IN LINE to rob me!).

Just saying.

[MadMike]

I think I saw one of these when I was mowing the front yard. A guy pulls up in a pickup truck and asks me if I want to buy a set of speakers. I told him no, and he moved on.

Looking back now, I should have told him "the guy who lives at that white house on the corner might be interested." The chief of police happens to live in that house.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Like the meat on the back of the truck deal.

*

I know! I was about to say! "they loaded an extra one on the truck" or "they ordered too much meat".

Oh, that's rich.

Seriously, they accidently loaded an entire speaker system into a truck ...by accident. Someone ordered enough extra roadkill to fill a cooler trailer.

This makes me want to blow a gasket.

Car lots do it, too. Ever notice that every car lot on sweet planet Earth ends up having "bought too many cars!" Really? You don't need to have bi-yearly sales to alleviate that problem. You need to fire your buyer and hire one that is competent.

Man!

[IT Grunt]

So THAT'S what that was about. I had this happen to me. I was at my local McDonald's getting ready to hop into my truck with my bag of McNugget goodness when this unmarked white van (Chevy Savanna or simliar model) pulls up. Guy driving asks if I want to buy a high quality speaker set. They're usually worth big bucks he says but they only wanted X amount, which I believe was in fact $400. My alarm bells were going off already at the fact it was an unmarked white van, and the guys driving weren't wearing any kind of uniforms. I simply declined, said I had a good system already (not killer, but it gets the job done), and I wasn't interested. They tried to press further but I continued to decline, and then finally they drove off. Now there were 6 other people in the parking lot by now... but they hightailed it out of the parking lot instead of pitching to anyone else. "Stolen property" flashed through my mind. It's sad that people do fall for this...

And recently, my wife has been fighting through a different type of scam. She frequents chat rooms, and on one chat room, she started talking with this one guy frequently, later on Yahoo messenger, then he starts in: He's from Nigeria, he's stuck in Florida, his boss won't pay him, a mugger stole his money, he needs money (even went so far as to ask if we had equity in our house). All he has is Nigerian money (I thought a mugger stole it?), so he says he will 'buy' money orders and send them to my wife after figuring out our address, with instructions to send the American money to a Nigerian address (I thought he was stuck in Florida?). He got her name off Yahoo messenger, which we're trying to fix but her signon is not her real name but she has it in her profile and Yahoo is putting it in her chats. Anyways, my wife didn't tell me any of this, and when she received the money orders, fortunately she realized things weren't right and took them to the bank to have them verified. Sure enough they were fake and were thus shredded by the bank.

We figured that was the end of it, but then this guy figures out our phone number, again using her name, and starts calling demanding his money. My wife refused several times, even told him that she showed the fake money orders to the police (which was true, one happened to be at the bank when she went). He then threatens to report her to the FBI, and goes so far as to send a fake letter from the FBI director demanding details as to why my wife is 'carting way his (the scammer's) money' (nice English there asshole), and that he was ordering her arrest. (Yeah, the FBI director is going to get personally involved in something like that.) I could tell it was fake just from the address. Since when did the FBI use live.com?

He then happened to catch me one night on the phone, and I gave him the fifth degree, telling him he was nothing but a filthy scammer, he wasn't getting any damn money, he was owed absolutely nothing, and to stop calling. He then threatened to report me to the FBI, to which I laughed and told him I saw his fake letter to my wife, and again told him to stop calling. He didn't call any more that night, but every day since he still calls about once a day but we know his number now and we ignore it. He's been calling now for over a week, so he's a persistent little bugger. I told my wife: You have to be absolutely careful with these chat rooms, there's prowlers like this everywhere just waiting for an opportunity to strike.

[Teskeria]

IT Grunt - did you notify the post office also? It's a federal crime to use the mails to scam if I recall correctly. And since he's still calling your wife, they may be able to track him down easily with the phone info.

[Nohbody]

I imagine the FBI would also be interested in that, ITG. Not only for the obvious scam, but for their trying to look like they're part of the FBI. (No, it doesn't matter that the effort could serve as an example of "fail" in the dictionary. That they did it at all is enough.)

Of course, that would require that you had kept the letter, which isn't something some people would think of. Also helpful would be recording the times of the calls and any details you remember from them.

(To those who don't save that stuff, this isn't a "you all suck!" slam, BTW. Except for the repeated phone calls, if I was the target of the scam I'd have just blown it off, myself.)

ETA: some contact information that might be of help, not knowing where ITG lives.

local FBI offices listing

online report form for complaints to the US Postal Inspector Service (with link to the paper form if you want to mail it in)

[Jetfire]

I'm not in law enforcement or anything, but I'm pretty sure you could get him for Fraud (making fake money orders), cross state fraud (turns the case Federal I believe), impersonating an officer, and probably for fraud over the phone system as well. Definitely contact the local authorities and the Feds and so forth. He's been annoying you, now it's your turn to REALLY annoy him (and hopefully take one more scammer out of the pool)

[Imogene]

They assure you this is a "high-end, audiophile-quality" system (too high-end for you to have ever heard of it.)

"That's nice, I didn't know Rolex made stereos. However, I am quite happy with my stereo, which is missing one cone, because somebody smashed my rear windshield and stole it. (Seriously, someone smashed the back window of the car I'm driving with a paving brick, and took the driver's side speaker, which was exactly the same speaker that had been in that car all its life. Why, I'll never know) Two, I wouldn't spend more than two dollars on something someone's trying to foist off on me."

[Hyena Dandy]

I never understood the meat/stereo/whatever scam. It always seemed odd to me. Is it counting on people walking around having broken stereos/needing a lot of meat? I mean, I've got a spending problem (really, its an actual problem) but I always figured if it ain't broke don't fix it.

[Stormraven]

Nah, it's either the idea of getting something for 'nothing' (comparatively, anyway) or screwing over a large company. If you can convince someone that they're getting a $4,000 system for $400, you'll sell. If you can convince them that buying will 'stick it to the man', you'll sell.

This, despite the axiom 'If it looks too good to be true, it probably is'.

[Hyena Dandy]

Hmm... I don't care about sticking it to the man.

And I'm no audiophile, so I don't care if the equipment is audiophile quality. Long as it makes the right noise.

[Naaman]

I never understood the meat/stereo/whatever scam. It always seemed odd to me. Is it counting on people walking around having broken stereos/needing a lot of meat? I mean, I've got a spending problem (really, its an actual problem) but I always figured if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Nope it's counting on people being greedy, prideful and stupid.

Greedy - Wow! He says it's better than what I've got
Pride - Damn it's crap, but if I report it I'll look stupid
Stupid - They've forgotten "If it looks to good to be true it probably is"

[bunnyboy]

Hmm... I don't care about sticking it to the man.

Really, I thought you liked doin that sorta thing... If you know what I mean.

[smileyeagle1021]

No bunny boy... it's sticking it into the... oh never mind

[Andara Bledin]

Rowr. This thread took a turn for the rowdy.

As for scammers, I keep a couple of email addresses and URL's handy.

Here's an email address for forwarding scam emails, primarily of the 419 variety:
scamreports@fraudaid.com

Here's the URL for reporting mail fraud to the USPS. You know his address, and they have people on staff to go after these jerks:
https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/

Remember: if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.

^-.-^