White Van Man Scam - another one

JuniorSherlock

Just wondered if anyone else has had this happen?

On Tuesday around 4.30pm a man in a white van pulled up outside the house where my hubby was busy fixing the car. They had a chat and I hear my hubby say that he'd just go and ask me. I went out and inside the van where quite a few mattresses - the van was unmarked by the way.

The story goes that the guy had been delivering these top of the range memory foam mattresses to a store but that there had been a delivery mix-up and they had ordered too many. He couldn't go back to the warehouse with a van full of mattresses still so he wanted to get rid of them (sound familiar so far?). Therefore he was offering these £400 mattresses to us for £100.

My husband was fully suckered in and about to hand over the money before I threatened to chop his hands off if he did any such thing.

The guy put on a convincing act, telling me to take down his number plate and saying he'd accept a cheque.

My husband is still convinced we missed out on a bargain, but I have heard from someone in East Anglia that the same thing happened to them, they also declined to buy one.

Has anyone heard of this? Are they stolen, counterfeit or what?

Jeff_Bridges_hair

Probably not stolen but worth about 50 quid at best.

vikingaero

They'll stop at nothing - used to be videos, then DVD players, flat screen TV's, leather/PVC jackets, laptops which turn out to be a couple of water bottles in a bag etc. I remember throwing out a couple of old videos at the dump and a guy came along wanting them. I expect they'd be poly-wrapped and passed off as new.

Jeff_Bridges_hair

i remember when the blokes in a flash car used to stop you and ask you if you wanted to buy a really expensive watch for the knockdown price of 20 quid!

couple of mates did it the fools and got palmed off with something that even lizzie duke couldnt sell for a fiver

JimmyTheWig

Have seen the scam on "The Real Hustle" with DVD players and the like. When they "put the DVD player back into the box" they didn't - and ended up selling the marks a couple of phone books.

Other than them being cheap mattresses, I can't quite think how they're going to scam you. But I'm certain that they would somehow.

JuniorSherlock

That's what got me stumped, thinking about what their scam could be. You could see the mattresses, they were labelled and looked genuine enough. The guy offered to take a cheque, which we could stop if they turned out to be fake, so what was the catch exactly?

I need to convince my husband that we did the right thing in turning the guy away but he's just peeved off that he didn't get his sooper dooper mattress (we do actually need a new mattress).

heretolearn_2

They will be 2nd-hand or cheap nasty ones, probably not real memory foam.

Just think about the story

the guy had been delivering these top of the range memory foam mattresses to a store but that there had been a delivery mix-up and they had ordered too many. He couldn't go back to the warehouse with a van full of mattresses

Why not? It's not the delivery driver's fault or problem if a customer won't take delivery of an order. What company would want a delivery driver to stop off and start flogging things of the back of the van rather than returning the goods to the firm. Can you imagine it happening in 'real life'. Oh you ordered 2 £400 mattresses from Dreams bed store but when the delivery man turned up you only wanted one, so you wouldn't accept the other. What can the poor delivery man do? Option A - deliver one and return one to the dreams depot. Option B - knock on some random persons door and sell them the mattress for only £100, thereby losing his employer the mattress and £300. Give over.

JimmyTheWig

Not the first time it's happened.
http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?20,443912,444014
No answers there, though. (Unless some of what looks like code talk to me gives some answers!)

JimmyTheWig

heretolearn wrote: »

What can the poor delivery man do? Option A - deliver one and return one to the dreams depot. Option B - knock on some random persons door and sell them the mattress for only £100, thereby losing his employer the mattress and £300. Give over.

I think the idea is that the company don't realise that there's too many on the van and so the driver will be keeping the £100 for himself.
[Though I do agree it's a scam.]

JuniorSherlock

Oh I'm under no illusions that it's a scam. Just wondered what type of scam that's all.

He obviously can't switch the mattress for another one as we could see every single mattress (he had about 5 in the small van). If they were crap and cheap, we could just stop the cheque. The only thing I can think of is that they were stolen.

Unless I'm missing something else?

Jeff_Bridges_hair

JuniorSherlock wrote: »

Oh I'm under no illusions that it's a scam. Just wondered what type of scam that's all.

He obviously can't switch the mattress for another one as we could see every single mattress (he had about 5 in the small van). If they were crap and cheap, we could just stop the cheque. The only thing I can think of is that they were stolen.

Unless I'm missing something else?

No one is sayin g they were crap - you can pick up memory foam mattresses for about 50 quid on the shopping channels - the scam is that he is blagging you with a story and selling you something over priced.