I just read a thread in the ICEforum about "Cheap Speakers" and it reminded of a true story that made the local news a few years back.

A few years back someone got hold of a few container loads of crappy speakers in big speaker enclosures from some place in the US.

They then employed students to drive around towns up and down the country accosting passers by thus:

"hey - wanna buy some cheap speakers?"

When you looked in the van,. they had a van load of speakers alright - all in their original packaging and despite the sellers statements otherwise of course, everyone thought they were stolen goods (why sell cheap speakers if not?) - the deal was "cash on the spot" and you take your speakers with you. (yeah like you carry a trolley round with you in case someone offers you the deal of your life - psst, wanna buy a cheap refrigerator?)

Of course, it wasn't long before the complaints to the police flooded in about these guys driving white umarked vans selling cheap speakers from the roadside.

Naturally the cops investigated, they found it was all above board and apart from making some comment about the sales pitch ignored them from then on.

Then, someone bought some speakers, found they didn't sound very good quality (surprise, surprise) and complained to one of those consumer rights TV shows.

And that show then ran some test on the speakers it turns out the speakers were pretty cheap and nasty, with terrible bad response curves, etc.

But, there was no comeback under local laws to the sellers (assuming you could find the guys you bought your speakers off of anyway - difficult since the vans were all rented and the students had disappeared to other towns elsewhere).
And in any case the goods were, exactly as they were described i.e. "cheap speakers".

Dunno what happened after that - I assume once the story was blown wide open, that no-one with any sense would buy them anymore, so I guess they just folded their tents and stole away in the night....

Still must a lot of those speakers gathering dust around the place somewhere.