Hey guys I'm a gullible college kid and I got hussled in College Station, TX yesterday in the Best Buy parking lot. These a**holes are good. They squeezed $240 out of me, ouch! I went back to my dorm 5 min later and noticed that "Surround" was spelt incorrectly on the box and it got my roommate and me... So i searched and obviously found this forum. I read a few posts and was so PO i called 911, but they just gave me the # for the police dept. and all i could do was file a suspicous person report. After a while of getting over it, we hooked them up to our TV and decided that they weren't even worth keeping. I think that i will try selling them to one of my friends for cheap if he doesnt realize that they suck a** or drag them behind my car or through them threw my some chicks window. Lata

God, I love this thread!!! Feeling a little down, no problem, just hop on and ride this train for a while. Love those guys(no women?) who are soooo maaaadd that someone stole their money while they were trying to buy stolen goods. Too good to be true. Great incisive comments from the regulars, I guess you need a fun break too
tjg

i feel dumb, it happend to me 2. i got taken in the woodlands, TX by some big black dude and some white guy. the drove a Chevrolet TrailBlazer licence plate 9YRF24, the white guy claimed to be a Big John F and i asked the black guy for his drivers license and the name was Evitt Hoge and his DL # was 111310891. It was probably fake but he showed it to me and i wrote it down. I dont know if i can do anything to these guys but any ideas. Yeah i know it was my fault but it still bugs me. How i was some help.

TJ, you are so right about this thread.

Scheecter, you want some help. DON"T BUY STUFF FROM SOMEBODY SELLING IT OUT OF THEIR VAN IN A PARKING LOT.

Karma can be your friend or your enemy, depends how you use it.

well that wasnt much help cuz i gathered that already but yeah, thanks anyway.

So what exactly do you want help with?? Would you like me to not buy any stuff from guys in a parking lot. I can do that for you anytime.

Glad to be of service:)

It certainly doesnt suprise me to see this old scam is still going on.PT Barnum was right,there is a sucker born every minute,live and learn folks!Flashback to 1984,East San Francisco Bay Area(San Lorenzo).I'm fresh out of high school looking for summer work,and i run across an ad in the local paper that went something like this,"rock-n-roll atmosphere,looking for enthusiastic motviated people to work for audio wholesaler.Make 400-800 a day,must have sales experience or willing to learn.Start immediately!".Back in 1984,$400 a day was a lot of money,most people barely made that in a week.So off i was to "Advant Electronics"(sound familiar but yet not Advent?)There i met a guy as tall as the jolly green giant by the name of Richard A Hayes who interviewed me and hired me on the spot.And i was truly eager to work since i had a high maintenence hot blonde amazon girlfiriend and a 65 GT Mustang Fastback that was a money pit for gas and whatever parts id break on the previous weekend at baylands raceway.Anyways,my first day of "training"was with a guy named Ron.and i first noiticed something was amiss as we were loading up the speakers.I noticed ron was making out an invoice by hand on a legit company invoice sheet.I asked him why he was making it out by hand and he said he needed to be able to show law enforcement in case we got stopped.(red flag!)So off we are in the van with our load of 6 pairs of speakers,our phony invoice and our cheesy looking promo sheets for them.The promo sheets showed the speaker with a hot looking womans leg up on it(sex sells!)a long list of specs that made it seem like a high end speaker to the unknowing and a retail price of around $1500.At this point i was already feeling this was a mistake,but the dumb kid in me still gave them the benefit of the doubt,my next question however confirmed the truth much to my dismay.I asked ron where our first delivery was going and he started laughing.I asked him what was so funny and he told me,"i guess richard didn't tell you about how we actually sell these!"At that point he enlightened me as to how we are going to make our money,and by the time he was done i knew i had made a terrible mistake.Basically this is what i was told.The speakers were made at an undisclosed location in the USA for less than 30 each with cheap speaker cones with small magnets that probably couldnt pump more than 1/5 of the wattage what they were rated for.Our overhead was 125 per pair which we had to give to the shop.We sell them for between 250 to 400 per pair depending on the area we were in or the customers appearance of having money(suit versus casual clothes).Then we give them the cover story of going to pick them up at the wholesalers,that we were supposed to pick up 6 speakers and got 6 pairs instead.The story varied but was pretty much the same about getting extra paris that we had to get rid of since it wasnt our mistake and wed pass on the savings to the "mark" instead of having ot take them back to the warehouse.Needless to say after hearing this i was truly dissapointed at being taken into this whole bullshit scheme,but i was still young and naive motivated by my need to keep my gf happy and keep my pony running.That day we went though various parking lots of shopping centers,malls and we even tried the financial district in the city trying to sell these crappy speakers.All i could think about was how much i wanted out of this van but i knew i was stuck in it for the day.I did however do my best to not let anybody get taken in to this so behind his back as hes trying to sell them,i was shaking my head to clue them in not to buy them.That worked for the day except for one yuppie who was taken in by his own greed and bought a pair.From what ron told me this was a really slow day and i almost broke out laughing knowing i was pretty much the cause.He told me he usually sold out every day and some days he had time to go back for a second load so i did understand this had the potential to make a lot of money,but i wanted no part of it.That was my first and last day,i never showed up to work the next day and they never called me to find out why.I guess they knew i wouldnt work out.But all you out there follow this simple rule,"If it seems to good to be true,IT IS!"Caveat Emptor all the way.Hope this can save some people from making the mistakes a lot of others have already made.Take it from me,i was on the inside even if it was only for a day.

I have had two potential clients ask Me about theater research speakers. When they asked Me I thought the name was familiar.
At CES in 2005 My wife and I saw some home speakers in the car audio area. There name was theater research. We talked to them for a while and found they would make speakers and put whatever name you wanted on them. Wholesale from $30.00 to $200.00 for tower speakers, real junk.
If you type in theater research on the internet you will find all kinds of stories about the white van.
So just go to CES in 2006 and let them have it.

I can't believe that this has been going on since 1984! How many people have bought speakers without even listening to them.

This thread will never end.

I just got taken by these guys. any idea what to doi. you said to contact if this happened.

I just f*cked by this scam. I paid $300 for these peaces of sh*t. They got me at Fry's in Wilsonville, Oregon just south of Portland. If someone finds out where they work/live let me know.

My contact info is here:

[Link: pixelllc.com]

I had these type of guys stop in front of my house when I was a kid - we're talking like 84 or 85. I laughed. I was like dude, where am I going to get $400 bucks. As I was washing my jetboat and custom pickup. I must have fit their profile. Never even dawned on me it was a scam at the time.

Funny. I ran into these guys a couple weeks ago at Uptown shopping mall in Portland. White van with story of speakers left over from a job. Having known about this scam for years, I whipped out my notebook and started writing down the license plate number. When I asked for names, one guy got in the van and the other grabbed my notebook. I chased them halfway down the street before I came to my senses and realized they weren't worth pursuing. I can't believe these scammers still find victims.

Next time I encounter these types, I've decided to play along. Then I'll have them wait while I go to the ATM only to call the police.