Genesis Media scam and how I lost respect for a family friend

[navyman]

Alright, I was visiting some family friends in Orlando and one of them shares the same passion that most of us here have. He is a big fan of anything home theater and just built a new house where his main focus was his man cave. Unfortantely he relates good to expensive and does not understand the technical side our hobby, which is fine as long as you seek out good advice and do not rely on the words of the schmucks at best buy, which apparently is a huge fault of his.

So last time I visited he was on his way to setting up a nice system with high end def tech speakers and an svs subwoofer and I had hime sold on the Pioneer Kuro. Then I left. 6 months later I went back for another visit and he has 2 lg scarlets hanging on his walls (which are good tv's so I am not going to hit him on that) but the main atrocity was his def techs sitting on the side of his room collecting dust and no subwoofer anywhere to be seen. Instead he starts telling me about the steal of the century. Apperantly he was at best buy looking at speakers when someone passed by and said he come check out my van I have amazing speakers that I can sell you for a fraction of the price. Now this guy being niave decides to follow. He goes to the parking lot and in the van they are selling a brand called genesis for 500 dollars he could get 2 floorstanding towers and a htib system that they claim goes for 8k retail. So he goes and buys them runs home and installs them. He kicks the 3k tower def tech speakers to the side and connects these genesis speakers.

Now I know most of you are familiar with genesis and know that it is a very good very expensive brand. So when I get to his house he tells me to look them up online and I do since I know the brand I open up the genesis web site and he replies that is not it. I say what do you mean that is not it this is the brand I am very familiar with it. He tells me to search genesis media which I do and the first link that pops up is genesis media scam. So here is this schmuck with bose speakers in his living room and cheap chinese made sub 200 dollar speakers connected in his man cave while he has over 4k of real audio gear collecting dust on the side. He offered to sell me the def techs for 1k and I thought about taking them from him since he can't appreciate a good thing but I couldn't bear to rip off a friend.

Anyone else here hear of this scam or have a similiar story?

[Blu-Dog]

"You can't cheat an honest man." - W.C. Fields

Make sure the DefTechs are still in working condition, are not available on sale somewhere at a lower price, and then buy them from him. No point arguing with the guy, if his mind's made up.

[groovyone]

Yep. Happens a lot. In fact some guy tried it in the grocery store parking lot last week. Unfortunately my father-in-law got the speakers from the van deal. Receiver blew in days.

[MozartMan]

Originally Posted by groovyone

Yep. Happens a lot. In fact some guy tried it in the grocery store parking lot last week. Unfortunately my father-in-law got the speakers from the van deal. Receiver blew in days.

It's called White Van Speakers Scam. We had thread about this some time ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_van_speaker_scam

[phlydude]

Originally Posted by MozartMan

It's called White Van Speakers Scam. We had thread about this some time ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_van_speaker_scam

Here you go https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=74145

[CasualKiller]

Yeah, you want to see the worst part, go look them up on Ebay

Edit> of course now I go look there's only a couple of listings, usually there's a page or 2.

[Clark Kent]

At some point we all demonstrate an amount of ignorance. If you are close to him I would try to explain where he has gone wrong. I do realize that some are resistant to admit they made a mistake like that. Only at that point would I buy the speakers off him if he still feels he must sell them.

[quexos]

Buying stuff off a van is kind of asking to be scammed. Some people lack common sense.