Haha I've been seeing this since the 80s. Once, my roommate actually came home with a pair of speakers from one. He paid 1/4 of what the guy was asking. $75 for these 2 gigantic speakers. They were with us the next 2 years we lived together and how many years with his wife? I think he was happy with them, but he has no expert ear. What gets me is that they readily admit the product was obtained for free and unlawfully. You'd think they'd wanna make it look legit. Hey if they got it free then maybe they should just give it to me! Recently, actually just a couple weeks ago, I was approached in the Future Shop lot by an Escalade. Yeah it was white. Guess they're moving up in the world! He wanted to sell me a projector. They're branching out! I can see the logic of scouting in a home electronics store lot but it seems risky to do this on their turf, like a small time hood doing a shakedown in the back alley of the mafia hangout.
One of my past meetings was pretty funny. Many many years ago. The guy accused me of being rude just because I didn't buy anything. I was as polite as could be but he twisted all I said and did to look like I was being mean to him. Strange sales tactic that.
Maybe I should be a better citizen and write down license plates and turn them in. Or would the cops just laugh at me. I bet they all have white van speakers in their houses!

Just a couple of weeks ago I had a (light blue) SUV roll up next to my passenger side at a stop light during rush hour headed home. The guy motions me to roll down my window, and asks "Hey man, you wanna buy a home theater?"
At first I just stared in disbelief, because I was sitting in my fully logo'd work van, my partner in the passenger seat, both of us in company shirts. All I could get out was "What?"
"Yeah man, it's a HD theater, costs fifteen hundred bucks, it's got HDMI and everything! I'll give it to you for cheap"
I looked in the back of his bronco or whatever it was, and there's a couple of smallish boxes with HDMI in huge letters, nothing else readable. 
He went on to say that it was leftover from a job and he didn't want to take it back to his boss, and he could follow me home if we wanted. 
I pointed at the side of my van and said "Do you see what I do?"
He looks and says "Oh sh*t! You're the real deal! Haha man, hey, what's the best stuff you sell? Like what brand TV?" 
I was feel contentious - "Runco!"
"What?"
"Runco! R-u-n-c-o"
"Oh. Well, you want this one? It's really good! It's like that brunco!"
Thankfully the light turned green, and his passenger decided to try the lady on his right at the next light. I still get a good chuckle out of that one, I never thought it would happen to me in my work van. 

Lol! Happened to me in my work truck too. Same thing, guy rolls up next to me at a traffic light, honks, motions for me to roll down my window. Then he asks if I want to buy some speakers, left over, blah blah. I make a downward motion with my index finger and his eyes go to the sign on the door of my truck. He just got a sheepish look on his face and rolled up his window. Then the light turned green. I was just shaking my head and laughing!

The funniest thing is that I pull a 10' trailer with my name and number in big letters on the side. I'm not sure that someone that blind needs to be driving!
G

I've known about these products for years but today was the first time that I had to break the news to someone that they had been scammed. The white van guys (not in a white van) sold him a projector+screen and two surround systems for bedroom and theater. I was afraid to ask the price paid.

The call began with me not recognizing the brands and a quick Google search while talking to him revealed what I was working with. I asked him where he purchased the equipment and he said "from a friend" and I was like "I have some unfortunate news about your friend." He was very persistent about wanting us to install but I had to respectfully decline the bid knowing there is no way I could end up with a happy customer. I think he was still in denial about my warning when we got off the phone. (he hung up on me)

Has anyone considered driving around and selling legitimate equipment from their van? The price that people on the street pay for this stuff is actually the retail of some decent equipment with margin.. Tough times, desperate measures?

I can't believe more "smart" people with "smart" phones don't google random stuff offered for cheap (because the circumstances are "shady") out of a van in a parking lot.

I worked for a major Wisconsin electronics/furniture/appliance company and was in hte front parking lot one day when a white van pulled up and the guy got out to ask if I wanted to buy some speakers. I pointed to my logo'd shirt and asked "Did you see who I work for? Why would I want to buy some crap with no name?" and he answered with "These are name brand speakers! Good stuff!". I told him to leave, or I would call the cops.

A friend called and asked if I could listen to the speakers he was considering. AOmeone he worked with was selling them and they were the fine, fine, fine 'Denmark' brand. They looked good, looked like they had decent drivers but sounded like crap. I explained the scam to him and he gave them back.

Their business model is suffering because of smart phones. The moment someone starts to google the brand name they take off. They keep trying until they can find a sucker who gets caught up in the scam.

Guys - that projector has great specs!!!!

25,000 hour LED lamp. 45000 ANSI Lumens.

And cheap too!

If you order right now they will double your order - just pay separate S&H.

They actually use the smart phone as part of the sale. They make them immediately go to the fake manufacturer's website them show them awards and accolades about the product.

It was difficult to get the guy on the phone to visit any website other than the manufacturer's page. Greed and denial make this scam work.

I've been on the phone with a friend as he was about to get white van scammed. I told him the stuff was junk and it was a ripoff, but he was calling me at the ATM 15 minutes later planning to flip this good deal on eBay. Luckily, I was able to stop him, but some people are just idiots.

So, I joined this site today just to say thanks. I recently won a bid on Ebay for a napali projector. I'm pretty tech savvy, but know nothing at all about projectors. The specs did look great. I googled it prior to bidding, and couldn't find a single review. So I bid, and won. Before I paid nearly five hundred bucks, I decided to dig a little deeper.

Someone really needs to get the message out about some of this stuff. I never saw van guy, but that's too shady for me instantly. Ebay and several electronic sites are selling these crappers. Can nothing be done about it?

You're welcome.  Somebody here would be more than happy to help you pick out a real projector.  

Unfortunately, not much anybody can do about it.  It's just a knock off brand.

Had a dude hawking a "sound around" system to me while I was gassing up the signed company van.
Started barraging him with technical questions and I saw his eyes go from me to the sign on the side of the van. The light switch clicked on in his meth addled brain , he stopped his sales pitch mid sentence, wished me a good day and wandered off to the next potential sucker.... err customer.

When I was younger/dumber I almost got in a fight with two of those idiots. Throwing shit (speakers) in the back of my truck and trying to climb in the cab with me while telling me to drive to an ATM to give them "their money" for the speakers they "sold me" kinda got a rise out of me.

How that bullcrap scam survives in the age of the interwebs is beyond me.