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Old Cons

We're The Great Old Ones Now

16:00 / 27.05.02

Two lads in a white van just tried to flog me some surplus speakers. I thought no one did that one any more. It's about the same age as 'find the lady'.

I asked them to come have a pint and tell me about it, but they drove off in a huff.

Anyone else been targetted for con tricks so old they've got moss on them? Anyone ever pulled any?

17:30 / 27.05.02

I fell for that one when I was a student. The speakers still work, though, they're perfectly decent, just a little overpriced.

I also fell for the "got change for this two pound coin?" one in Brixton recently, an update of the "got change for this one pound coin/fiver?" trick. What was really galling was that the guy then stood around and laughed at me. What could I do? Call the police? Attack him? (He was bigger than me, anyway.) In that instance I prefer to think that I'm the sort of generous soul that is prepared to give people change for two pounds, rather than a gullible twat.

.

21:06 / 27.05.02

Uh-oh! Don't go falling for that speaker con!
I personally have encountered these white van scam men twice around various parts of London... It aint quite a "Scam" as such, more a "Hustle"... Check out here (read past the first few (possibly fake) reviews and there are several hundred complaints) and here...

If you have spent a couple of hundred quid on speakers like these, think yourself relatively lucky- my ex-flatmate spent £800 on his pair. Didn't have the heart to tell him it was totally dodgy. He proudly showed me the faked specifications sheet stating the "£1600 RRP" price tag (yeah, but not in any shops).

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:40 / 27.05.02

At least your mate got actual speakers. In really extreme cases, people have been known to take home a pair of £800 concrete blocks.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:24 / 27.05.02

I haven't had the speakers one for a good five years now... but it used to be a regular occurrence.
On an almost related topic (but not quite so irrelevant to be considered threadrot) I think someone THOUGHT I was engaged in an elaborate scam this morning...
Finished work, went to the early opening pub for a few hours. Then, went to Farringdon station, thence to get a tube to Camden to see "Clones" (again). Obviously, having been down the pub for a few hours, I was fairly pissed, and oblivious to what was going on around me. Saw the bit on the machine where you put your money in, and- yup! put a tenner in it. Only then to realise that there was already a woman in the process of buying a ticket from said machine (I thought the money bit was attached to the machine next to it, you see). And had put her credit card in. Her ticket (£9:50- fuck knows where she was going) popped out, along with 50p in change. I nearly died of embarrassment, and would have just run away and written off the money, but one of my friends had seen all this, and said "I think you just paid for that lady's ticket". At which she (and, it has to be said, I) looked really confused, much confused conversation went on, and she gave me a tenner. And I gave her the 50p. (And her ticket, obviously).
It was all above board, and nobody got ripped off, but I'm sure she's probably wondering even now if it wasn't some elaborate scam, because it must have seemed dodgy as fuck.
I hope she gets her credit card statement soon, cos that's the sort of thing that would prey on your mind until you knew you hadn't been robbed.
Actually, that was kind of off the point, wasn't it?
Mea culpa.

00:48 / 28.05.02

Nick wrote: It's about the same age as 'find the lady'.

Is that the same as "Three Card Monty"?

13:17 / 28.05.02

The white van speaker scam is international in scope; I wonder if it is all connected somehow or there's just a "big book" of scams out there potential crooks follow to the letter. It's always a white van, and always the same story.

13:35 / 28.05.02

Ive never gotten taken in, not on the street, by phone, by mail, by internet..... must come from living in the city and seeing some of the stupid (and usually very easy to pull) shit tourists and drunken college kids would fall for.

the "har hars!" were plentiful

13:37 / 28.05.02

...and Ive never seen the speakers, but Ive seen and heard a lot about the tv or vcr, always filled with either junk or a genuine (albeit very old and crap) products

15:11 / 28.05.02

For future reference, what exactly are the details of the "speakers one"? I don't think I even want to know about "find the lady"..

I always think these things are kind of funny in a "yes, my wares are so legitimate and fairly priced that I'm selling them by yelling out of the window of an over-revving van at some traffic lights" way. I mean, you'd think they could come up with some slightly more convincing swindles..

15:18 / 28.05.02

if Im reading them as the ones Im familiar with, someone will offer to sell you some "surplus" items, which are usually stolen or not an item at all, but rather a box from said item filled with either a used tv (or speakers, etc) or as someone else said, concret blocks or something else worthless

15:34 / 28.05.02

The speakers are actually speakers that work, but aren't worth what you pay for them. They look big and impressive but you could get them cheaper elsewhere. They're put together out of a kit or something. They tell you they're surplus gear they're flogging off cheap so that you don't ask questions, thinking you've got some sort of dodgy but sweet deal.

Like I said, I still have a pair of the speakers... they work fine, they're not bad speakers at all and they have wicked bass. I paid 300 quid for them though, when I could have got a pair from Richer Sounds that were just as good for 150 or so.

15:43 / 28.05.02

The speakers are actually speakers that work, but aren't worth what you pay for them. They look big and impressive but you could get them cheaper elsewhere

so rather like those stupid-ass 6-foor-high-with-flashing-lights-but-about-10-watts things they sell in Dixons?

18:44 / 28.05.02

These days, the best con jobs I hear about are on & from the net. I don't know if this is true or not, but here's one I read about eBay:

Before the xbox came out somebody painted a box black and wrote "xbox" on the outside. then sold it on ebay for $300. They even said "this is only a cardboard box that i painted black and wrote xbox on."

pointless and uncalled for

19:15 / 28.05.02

I friend of mine once got caught with the hash trick. Because he wasn't given the opportunity to check his purchase there and then he wound up with an eighth of baked licquorish and flour.

Another reminder that you really should know better than to buy your drugs on the street for a someone you don't know.

15:51 / 29.05.02

I got done with the carpet version of this. Paid 20 quid for an off-cut that would have cost me a tenner in a shop, so I didn't feel too bad about it. I needed carpet pretty badly but couldn't be arsed to actually go to a carpet shop, so really it worked out okay. Except that the carpet was as rough as sand-paper - imagine hairy string covered in sharp glass fragments and knitted together. No skin on my knees for the next 4 years.

08:48 / 30.05.02

Saveloy wrote: No skin on my knees for the next 4 years.

Uh, you got some, um, "hobbies" that you're not telling us about?

10:24 / 30.05.02

so rather like those stupid-ass 6-foor-high-with-flashing-lights-but-about-10-watts things they sell in Dixons?

dixons - worse than any white-van con artists...

El Gato Was Right: the t-shirt

03:44 / 31.05.02

Haven't lived in NYC for a few years, but an old trick was pretending that you had to get to (a)the AIDS clinic, (b) homeless shelter, (c)aunt's hospital room, etc. and just needed enough to (a) get your car out of the garage, (b) ride the subway, or (c) take a cab. These folks would corner you and preface their well rehearsed spiel -- which was meant to be sincere and spontaneous -- by saying they weren't trying to rob anybody, but...

Anyway, the good ones would ome off very earnest. Once my friend gave $20 before my very eyes to a "MTV exec" trying to get to see his aunt. He promised to mail my friend back the money, took his address and everything, and added that he would also send him some posters and CDs as a thank you. I watched the whole thing but didn't feel I could stop it.

10:44 / 31.05.02

Unfortunately I have to say that, in my experience, everyone you meet in the street who offers any sort of monetary transaction that does not appear to be begging - asking you for money to get home, changing money, selling you something - is trying to rip you off. At least begging is pretty direct (and despite the Daily Mail, I doubt that there are a huge number of people out there who sit on Oxford Street with a cardboard sign saying "hungry and homeless" and then go back to loft apartments.)

Sometimes, though, you need to fall for these things just to put a reign on your cynicism.

Morlock - groupie for hire

16:29 / 31.05.02

Coupla weeks ago I get called over to some guy in a small car. Claims to have been employed to set up a fashion show for Armani, or something similar, and that as a bonus he's been given half a dozen leather jackets. However, he claimed he was travelling on to South Africa, and didn't want to pay the alleged 20% import duty. Waving his car key to show the hire firm's keychain. Was willing to sell all of them for the price of one.

Not as obviously dodgy as the speakers, but enough to walk away. Didn't like the coats anyway.