The White Van Strikes Again!!!

[JeremyD]

I remember a year or two back, there were several threads circulating the various forums about 2 guys who traveled around in a white van, stopping people in parking lots and on streets trying to sell them what seemed to be an awesome set of speakers at an unbelieveable price.

Well, I just wanted to let everyone know that I was just approached tonight in an almost identical manner. In all honesty, I looked these things over with a fine tooth comb and they DID seem to be very nice. The midranges were kevlar cones, silk tweeter, and they had 10" nomex coned subwoofers built in. If these things looked good to me, they would look good to ANYONE. So just becarefull out there. Even if you do think they are nice, convince them to come with you to your house and let you demo them out first

[Brian Donaldson]

I wouldn't let someone hocking nice looking speakers out of a van come to my house! Tell 'em to p!ss off.

[roddyama]

If they came to Detroit peddling their speakers, it wouldn't be long before 2 different guys would be selling those same speakers out of the trunk of a white '68 Cadillac Eldorado

[kelticwizard]

Jeremy:

How did you know that the mid cones were Kevlar? Did you take their word for it or can you tell by looking at it?

[JeremyD]

I pulled them right out of the boxes and gave them a thorough inspection. They were indeed kevlar.

To even the trained eye, these would appear to be top quality speakers. So be careful out there

[kelticwizard]

Maybe the White Van Boys have expanded to include closeouts of quality manufacturers among their normal cheapies.

I once saw a discount closeout style catalog with some speakers that were reviewed in glossy magazines the previous year for $1500 selling for $125 a pair. they were by a well-known company.

Perhaps the White Vans will pick up a closeout if it is cheap enough, so quality goods can sneak into the picture.

[Brian Donaldson]

Or maybe they are really good stolen speakers. I had a guy try to sell me a pair of Bose 901's in the box, but I wouldn't give $150.00 for them from an authorized dealer.

[mbroker]

Some guys in a white van flagged me down in the summer of 1997 in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and tried to sell me some thousand dollar speakers at 90% off.... I never looked at them, and suspected they were stolen. I told them I had a nice full system at home with no room for more equipment (a complete lie). I thought of calling the police to report the attempted sale of stolen goods, but decided to just let it drop.

Until 5 minutse ago, I thought it was a fairly isolated attempt to fence stolen goods. Now I'm curious....

[trwh]

Hi

I was approached in South Kensington last year by some guys offering to sell me speakers out of a white van. Ironically, I was on my way to buy some luch having worked with a Martin Audio / Crown based PA all morning. I decided not to mention this and politely refused. I wonder if they saw my drama tech crew T-shirt?

Anyway, unfortunately one of my friends was taken in by the scam and bought a pair of speakers for £200. They stopped him right outside a cash machine! I examined the speakers and they had very poor build quality - the cases were made of thin chipboard covered in cheap veneer. When I took one of the cones out, it had a pressed chassis and a tiny magnet assembly. Only the tweeter and midrange drivers had crossovers, which I think were first order and made of small, cheap looking components.

Their brand was BSS Audio, which we later dubbed bulls*it sound! They had a very high power rating given the size of the drivers. According to my friend, the guy was very convincing, and even went so far as to hook one of the units up to his van's radio tuner as a 'listening test'.

I felt very sorry for my friend, as he had been saving up to upgrade his HI-FI and thought that this was a great deal. Fortunately, the uni ran an artice on the front page of our paper to warn people about the scam. Here is another article I just found, which describes the incident very well:

http://www.londonstudent.org.uk/12is...eadingnews.htm

See ya,
Tim.

[trwh]

From that article:

"One is aged 18-25, approx. 5’8”, with short ginger hair and a gold earring."

A bit too much like me for my liking... not guily gov!