Charles on… anything that comes along

I vaguely remember reading about the White Van Speaker Scam (though I don’t think it was dressed up with such incredible pompous warnings as that page offers: These infamous vans have stalked intersections and parking lots from London, England to Sydney, Australia to Geneva, Switzerland for the past several years. They have spread around the world and have not spared the highways and byways of the United States. They have established hunting grounds from Los Angeles to Cincinnati to New York to Orlando. It seems no city or town is safe. What are these things, SARS on wheels?). Another neat example of the magician’s method: misdirection.

They present themselves as delivery drivers and/or installers who have just finished a job, telling the score that by inventory error, they have extra hi-fi speakers unaccounted for. They often tell the score that they need to get rid of them before they return to the warehouse and have to give them back to their boss.

And you, gentle reader, might end up paying hundreds of pounds for complete junk, because the box they give you ain’t worth it.

So actually, the real thing that makes the scam work is the greed of the ‘mark’ (the one who gets scammed).

How about you - ever fallen for one like this?

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• Clay Shirky: scarily clever (15 January 2009; score: 32.54%)
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• These things I found interesting.. 8 September 2005 (evening) (8 September 2005; score: 29.89%)