Talk:White van speaker scam/Archive 1

Untitled Comments

12/09/10 - This article is commiting slander. SERIOUSLY. You have no way to substantiate the motivations of those LEGAL companies. To list REAL companies and state their products, because they are poor quality, are intentionally misrepresented as counterfeits is absurd. COBY brand is sold just about every where but its logo looks remarkably similar to SONY. This whole concept is as old as companies. This isn't even a scam? You are just an idiot if you buy a product you've not done research on at all. Furthermore purchasing an expensive component from a place without a return given the fail rate of even legitimate hardware is a personal choice. Look at the comment below me. Some guy had them for five years and enjoyed the product. How is that even a scam? Even the largest, most legitimate, company over-sells their products. It's just how things are. Stop trying to protect people from themselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.183.234.11 (talk) 10:52, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

10/05/09 - I read something about the some speakers containing tweeters / woofers that were just there as decor, and weren't even active as a part of the system. Someone should add this in...if not I will, I just want to verify with someone else if it's legit. Also, should add that it's not always "white" vans, or even vans at all. I read that someone got scammed out of a brand name SUV. Lastly, someone should add that there is a bit of a placebo effect that is endowed upon the victim. My dad had these speakers for the longest time, and he gave them to me as a gift (thus, I looked up the brand and discovered this scam). He claimed that the speakers sounded "great" all the years he had them. He paid $500 for a pair. If anything I mentioned is already in the article...just ignore it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.88.181.66 (talk) 13:56, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

please discuss the factuality of the removal of such unattributed sources.

I really can't understand what you write, either your statement above or the material you keep adding to this article. This time, instead of deleting all of the unreadable mess, I attempted to edit & keep what little I could understand and was not just your opinion. Foetusized (talk) 02:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

opinion is a description of how a **"multi level Marketing"** scheme exists. trade secrets are secrets, i suggest deceit being exposed is not mess. what speaker company you work for.

Innovative Sound Concepts

1121 Edgewater Ave, Ridgefield, NJ 07657-2139, United States Phone: (201) 941-7091 SIC:Electrical Apparatus and Equipment Wiring Supplies, and Construction Materials Line of Business:Whol Electrical Equipment

I hate to break this to you, but you are not exposing anything. Text like "The speaker trade is a large business or scam as called nationwide international and abroad it is an apparatus of monopoly." doesn't expose or illuminate anything, because it fails to follow basic rules of punctuation and grammar, and no one but you can tell what you were attempting to say. Keeping this article factual and readable is the best way to keep people informed.

Not that it makes any difference, but I'm a state employee who repairs vintage speakers as a hobby. Foetusized (talk) 00:44, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

so fix the spelling and leave the facts, Stalin. get a job as a white van man and break it to yourself.

What facts? Facts require citation, as original research is not allowed. WP:NOR There's a difference between spelling errors and meaningless gibberish with no identifiable facts; the sentence I quoted above is all spelled correctly, but still conveys no understandable meaning (some commas might help, but it is hard to tell). Your failure to communicate effectively is your issue, not mine. Foetusized (talk) 14:08, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

A similar scam occured recently in two separate offices that I've worked. A man (usually young, college aged)in paint-stained clothes walks from office to office in a highrise building claiming to be a worker in a redecorating project on "the fifteenth floor" or some other. They said something along the lines of "We were supposed to get 6 of these paintings, but we got 6 cases!" Very similar scam, where the marks tend to be women rather than men.

I was surprized to see that the "White Van Scam" was still around! I remember seeing them in the late 1970's in southern California. They were in every major parking lot searching for victims. Soapy 15:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

A scam survives as long as there is at least ONE person able to fall for it. Anyway, what is with that whole 'beer money' sentence at the end of the fouth paragraph? It doesn't mean anything. I'm removing it. Smith Jones 17:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

- My friend was a victim of this scam today (4/10/07) in Boston- Two twenty something year old kids from New Hampshire sold him Matrix Audio Concept Speakers for $200, claiming the speakers were valued at $2800... and they told him it was such a good deal that he should buy them a beer if they ever run into eachother again!! They claimed they were in Beacon Hill installing audio equipment and had one high end speaker set left over....

RE: location of oklahoma city warehouse, vehicles, and corporation phone numbers as of Jan. 2005

i worked for these guys two years ago and i feel sorry for anybody who was scammed and will be scammed.

the oklahoma city warehouse as of 2 years ago 436 N Rockwell Ave. right off of Rockwell and Melrose Ave.

Vehicles Used: Two white vans, one grey van with chrome rims, a red '99 ford explorer. All with texas plates.

Speaker brand: Theater Research

Corp. Numbers:
North Corp. 405-787-9400 436 N Rockwell Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73127-6119
Central Corp. 817-590-0604 2663 Gravel Dr. Fort Worth, TX 76118-6965
South Corp. 561-615-4544 6917 Vista Pkwy N West Palm Beach, FL 33411-2708
North and Central Corp are AP S&S (American Pride Sounds & Solutions)
South Corp. is Home Audio For Less Inc.

the invoices they show you list the company as "GoldCoast" something or other...
Again this information is from 2005 so things may have changed or moved. These speakers come on a pallet stacked 8-10 feet high and each speaker is roughly worth only $60-$80 (not a typo)

By the way, the beer money thing... was just a way to get a little extra money, also at the end of the sale they usually said "next time im in town we should have a beer together" also when opening a brand new sealed box to show to a potential buyer, for instance on the sub-woofers, the salesperson would reach their finger into the port and snap a wire or two, or poke holes in the speaker cone with a pen, or other sharp object intentionally damaging the product. I hope this helps some of you out.
If have any other questions or want to send a thank you please direct all email to: satad3str0y3r@yahoo.com
Please Put "White Van Scam" in the subject.
Thank You,
SATA DESTROYER

I know this isnt the place, but i had this scam tried on me twice, even in my little town. It was really uncanny reading this article, coz its EXACTLY how it happened to me. Twice. Woulda fallen for it too, but my better half advised against it.--Dinny McGee 12:40, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

"Almost scammed"

Hey, there is a guy running around San Diego, CA trying to sell the same. Used almost word for word the approach. Saying he is doing professional home audio installing and that this guy ordered an extra set and didn't know about it, so he said they can keep the extra sets, so he offered to sell them to me + some trades. So if you are in San Diego, CA be careful. -Adam Cascio

This one has been tried on me twice here in Las Vegas. Didn't fall for it either time. The first time, I thought about it, but didn't really need new speakers, even at a good price. About two months later, I thought it was amusing how the second guys used the exact same script as the first two, and was hard pressed not to laugh at them. The script included a reference to some "foreign" worker at the plant getting "kicked in the ass" by his supervisor, and making the mistake after that. It's the details that make the story, don't ya think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adamcomic (talk • contribs) 04:25, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Double con

I think part of the way it works is that even though the "extra speakers" story is suspicious it seems like they're trying to sell stolen goods. So they make the mark think they're getting a deal on fenced but high-quality speakers. Turns out they're not stolen at all, they're just pieces of shit. But that's original research. 142.162.78.180 (talk) 13:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Scam Pulled On Me Wednesday

I just had this happen to me. Watch out people in Darien IL!

My case was significant - this guy was trying to sell me the "Dan Wave" speaker brand. Maybe it should be moved up? Dpaanlka 21:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Scam Pulled on me today in Orange County California I can't believe I fell for this. I was coming out of the barbershop and I saw a van in the parking lot almost run into another car going the same direction towards me. The car moved on and the two young men in a van asked me if I wanted a great deal on a home theater system. Of course, immediately I said no. Right away, college-prep looking scammer said his boss had gotten systems he didn't order (or some dumb crap), and asked them to give them the first "good guy" they see for a great deal. They told me their boss said they could keep the money they get as a Christmas bonus. The college-looking guy offered to show the speakers and pulled out a professional-looking price list showing they were over $2,300. "What if I were to throw out some crazy price at say, 300 bucks?" That got my attention even though I never would've paid that much. I got them down to $200 and it was a deal. I asked for their names, their bosses name and a card. Didn't have a card but the skater-looking guy scribbled down a number. When I called, some other guy answered and verified their names, and that they worked there. I thought I had a deal until I went on the Internet to check the quality of the speakers and found nothing but references to scams and sales of the same system on eBay and Craigslist. How stupid could I be? Lessoned learned: "If it's sounds too good to be true, it usually is." Hey! That's got a ring to it. Feel free to use it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.228.94.23 (talk • contribs) 04:03, 1 December 2007‎

Scammed today in Indianapolis

Same thing, but with Genesis Media Labs. Everything exactly the same as stated. The old adage if something is too good to be true, it ALWAYS is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.73.166.30 (talk) 19:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit: added 'Linear Phase' to the list, needs a proper citation, go here for starters: http://www.smr-archive.com/forum_2/messages/517.shtml —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tacoekkel (talk • contribs) 22:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Why is this such a big deal to people????????

You buy somehting you thought was real cool for what you wanted to pay for it and then it wasnt that cool but atleast it works and its not a brick in the box........ultimately a lesson to be learned just don't buy something you don't know about or don't buy something in 10 minutes without thinking about it. I never will again!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.251.80.2 (talk) 03:37, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a problem with this...

I know that this scam may be shady, but this article is very objective. The point of Wikipedia is to inform, not propagate! I got site numerious examples, but I don't think this is necessary if you've already read the article. Infiniteknowledge69 (talk) 22:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Link Placement

The external link that was deleted earlier today [1] was the source for a fourth-hand indirect quote within the article, where a quoted reviewer was quoting an expert who indirectly quoted a false claim made on this web site. I added a citation to the DiVinci Sound web site to support this quoted false claim.

Also, if someone wants a topic taken to the talk page, they should be able to take it here itself. Thanks -- Foetusized (talk) 12:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The way you have done it now as a citation looks perfectly reasonable to me. As a "sample" website it was purely a spam magnet which is what the page had become. I still think it is a fairly unencyclpedic page the way it is currently written. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:10, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense

This claim [2] makes little sense. Most receivers even high end ones don't have Dolby Digital encoding (decoding perhaps) and 5.1 surround doesn't indicate a device should have any sort of digital input or compression decoding Nil Einne (talk)

This entire page should be put up for deletion! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.183.234.11 (talk) 10:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

To a "T"

This just happened to me.

In Fort Lauderdale, precisely right down to the "beer money". Not a white van, a small SUV. Hahaha I got 2000 dollar speakers for only 250. Ohhh, South Florida, you've done it again. I searched "Image Reference" and this came up. Daniel Christensen (talk) 23:18, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I will upload pictures to add to the article, including the fake msrp on the box. I may also dismantle it to show the shotty components. First I will see how or if it actually works for 250. It's 50 pounds of something, so if it functions at all... it may not have been a total scam. Daniel Christensen (talk) 00:05, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Pictures; Miami

This time I took pictures and tried to put them here but they got removed as OR, in which case it is impossible to provide a picture for this article. I actually had a long conversation with them and he suggested I take a picture of him to after I took the one of the plate:

White van speaker scammer in Miami, Florida

File:White van speaker scam license plate *redacted*, Miami, Florida.jpg

License plate, known as a tag in Florida, of the Jeep Wrangler shown above

Daniel Christensen (talk) 16:19, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Without being able to be a vigilante and putting these legitimate images on here, regardless of any difference they would make, I feel the power of myself as an action taking libertarian citizen being taken away from me by this phony liberal wikipedia democracy intent on protecting the gray market. Daniel Christensen (talk) 16:34, 11 June 2011 (UTC) What if I had taken a video, too, and used that as a reference. Daniel Christensen (talk) 16:35, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

It's inappropriate for Wikipedia to present the photograph and license plate of an unknown person and label them as a fraudster, solely on the word of the editor who uploaded the picture. Under WP:OI, you are "introducing an unpublished argument" - there's no way for other editors to reliably confirm the context of the photo. It's not impossible to illustrate this article, we'd just need a picture that was supported by some court or newspaper coverage. It's one of the fundamental pillars of Wikipedia that all of its information should be drawn from reliable published sources; while investigative citizen journalism is important and valuable, I'm afraid Wikipedia requires a higher level of published authority for something like this.

If you want to do something about this guy, presumably you could take this same information to your local police, contact local press, find some websites whose policies support this kind of accusation (a quick search turns up Scamshield), or set up your own site and write about him. I'm afraid basic Wikipedia policy just doesn't support this kind of "vigilante" behaviour (and you can imagine what most of the tricky-to-illustrate crime articles would end up looking like if it did). --McGeddon (talk) 16:56, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course, for my own entertainment, I brought it to my local Miami PD Headquarters (slogan "professional law enforcement"), and, as I walked in, I was met by no security at the x ray gate and a few laxy dasiy cops behind the desk, joking around with someone who was already there and not listening at all. It's not that something couldn't be done, the real laws that are broken are the lack of a business license, sales receipt, and charging of sales tax, but the cops here are about as ambitious as the guy at the exit ramp. One simple thing they could have done, without even having to get out of their chairs, would be to have run the license plate for validity. Daniel Christensen (talk) 17:16, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Images#Pertinence_and_encyclopedic_nature has more information about this sort of thing. In general, if the picture looks like the typical situation, then it's usable. We don't need to know that it really, truly was a scammer, just that this looks like the typical scammer vehicle.

However, Wikipedia:Image use policy#Privacy_rights prohibits the use of these images here. The pictures include a real, identifiable person, and the caption is accusing the person of committing a specific crime (and you might be wrong: the deal might be legit, or the speakers might be perfectly good, but stolen). You'd have to have a really good WP:Reliable source to back that up before we could accept it. We won't know or care if, having been blown off by the police, you then decide that your next stop is the Herald to chat with a reporter and arrange the publication of that reliable source, but we've got to actually have a properly published source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:46, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Not so fast, they admited there's to be Kinetics, a known white van brand, after I told them I already knew it was a scam based on Image Reference. They said "well ours are good, we've got Kinetics." Daniel Christensen (talk) 18:08, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

It just doesn't matter. Posting something that effectively says "This guy is a con artist" is libel. You could get sued for this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:56, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

We need good sources

I know this isn't news to most of you, but:

An internet chat room, online discussion forum, or anonymous message website is not a WP:Reliable source. It's not good enough to "cite" something that was written by any old person (including maybe someone who's mad at their legitimate employer, or someone who just thought it would be fun to make up a hoax). This information needs to be supported by legitimate, WP:Published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and editorial control, not just "some guy on the Internet".

When you find bad sources on this page, please tag them appropriately:

{{Verify credibility|date=May 2024|failed=y}}

(Leave out the "failed=y" part if you're not sure that it's an unreliable source.) Badly sourced information can also be removed, if you think that will be a better way of handling a particular piece. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Another Paradyme?

http://www.paradyme.com/

This one is located in Sacramento rather than the one we have which is located in Colorado. Compared to most white van scam sites, this one seems to be well constructed and even has a real address rather than a warehouse. I'm not sure if this is another scam and probably isn't, but if this is real, should this company be mentioned?--BallinChadWarden (talk) 01:17, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

This web site is for a retailer, not for a manufacturer -- Foetusized (talk) 03:09, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Pro Dynamics?

A real brand?? From something called Tyler Acoustics. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.239.138 (talk) 01:25, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

List of brands associated with the scam

I cut this list for being potentially libellous last month but an IP editor added it back. Does this article really benefit from an incomplete, unsourced list of brands which passing editors (including, it seems likely, some white van scammers themselves) have selectively added and removed names from? We risk libelling manufacturers by implying that their products are "associated" with the scam, and there's a danger of misleading the reader into thinking the article somehow speaks from great authority (and that if the speaker they're about to buy isn't listed, it might be okay).

Wikipedia is not a legal advice column. I'm sure there are websites out there that are keeping track of dubious manufacturers, and whose list is exhaustive and vetted - http://www.scamshield.com/Feature.asp?id=1 looks like a good one, grouping reports by country and state. I think we'd do our readers more of a favour if we just linked to that, rather than trying to maintain our own list. What do other editors think? --McGeddon (talk) 15:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

As someone who once tried to keep unreferenced entries out of the list (but have not been able to keep up lately), I also recognize that many of the "sources" that are used in the list do not meet Wikipedia standards for reliable sources. A few good external links to other sites that maintain such lists would be an improvement over the current mess -- Foetusized (talk) 02:31, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Looks like Scamshield was already in the external links - I've gone ahead and cut the list, and clarified the usefulness of the Scamshield link. --McGeddon (talk) 17:00, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I came here specifically to see the list of brands !

Scamshield database is down 'for upgrades' as of now.

--195.137.93.171 (talk) 06:06, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

whitevanspeakerscam.com

User:2607:fb90:282c:a9c0:fa29:4df:53bc:d264 wants to add a link to a brand new "report scams here" website. It has, so far as I can tell, just a single report on it. The domain was registered two days ago. It seems like a "personal web site" of WP:ELNO #11 at the moment.

This article already links to a Scamshield database that goes back years. Do we need a link to whitevanspeakerscam.com? --McGeddon (talk) 18:24, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

The site now appears to be offline, with a Google cache showing only five entries by the 12th of December and a footnote of "Reports up until July 2013 available at Scamshield", so let's just link to Scamshield. --McGeddon (talk) 09:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Scamshield no longer seems to have a list of the bogus brands. Huw Powell (talk) 21:07, 1 December 2015 (UTC)