I don't disagree with your comments, but read the comments here and do a bit of web digging - this scam is far more widespread than I thought.


Also, I note that from This Link that the scammers are still active locally this year - as reported by duped people.

The other point is that as has been pointed out before, whoever runs this scam (or franchise as I would expect it would be by now), that they have done their legal homework.

Here you have 7 days protection under the law, but the people who drive the vans are independant contractors/agents, so the main distributor has no responsibility to provide refunds.

And of course, you can only get your refund from the person(s) you bought the goods off - and then only if you know who they are and can track them down - and probably have to beat the [censored] out of them to get a refund (which is probably why they always travel as pairs).

As an aside, I was offered some of these speakers at the side of the road near (my then) place of employment - the guys driving past saw me paying some money to my colleague (so he could buy his lunch and pay me back the next day, to save a walk to the ATM), the small wad of $20 notes in my hands as I gave my colleague the money, must have lit up on these guys radar - because their van screeched to a halt beside me and my colleague and the "wanna buy some cheap speakers" spiel rang out - I wasn't aware of the scam at that point, I didn't need any speakers - but they were persistant - wouldn't take no for a answer.

You'd have to be pretty stupid or greedy/dishonest to have swallowed their story, but maybe they assume that 1 in 10 people they approach buy a set.
Then its off to the next victim.