Should I kick myself?

"Ignoramus26831" wrote

That, my friend is profound.

Steve

did they have a funny accent?

I am from Russia and we have gypsies there, living sort of like those Travelers. I met some travelers (they were offering me a cut rate deal on driveway repair), and they were quite reminiscent of gypsies.

By the way, the prices that they were offering were anything but cheap. A cheap price would be 1/4-1/3 of harbor freight price.

Or comes knocking on my door despite the no soliciting sign the argues that they are not soliciting, at this point I offer to demonstrate how I remove unwanted growth with my $2 weed whacker. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

It's been said here multiple times here, but

"You were wise to be Leary, Timothy..." ;-)

I would have given him the bum's rush right then, and picked up a phone to dial 911 if they didn't drop the subject and leave. NOW. Our business is completed, now you are trespassing. And if he still doesn't get the message you might have to resort to letting him 'accidentally' catch a glimpse of the butt of your weapon in the shoulder holster.

If you want to buy low-cost equipment with a minimum (but actually usable) warranty, call Harbor Freight. Buying stuff of unknown (and unknowable) lineage out of the back of someone's truck is a recipe for disaster on several levels - it's probably junk that will break inside of an hour, but it could also be stolen, too.

Or they're using it as a distraction searching for a bonus. So they come up to a one-man shop and have you out front dealing with the 'salesman', while his associate (who you conveniently enough haven't been introduced to, he was lurking on the sidewalk) is inside your office stealing a few sheets of blank checks out of the back of your checkbook...

If you buy the equipment they have your signature on the equipment PO to use for check forgery practice, if not they only have to fool the check cashing store, not your bank's tellers...

-->--

Good link, thanks Terry.

I don't see these in my neck of the woods, but we do get the barn roof painters from down south every summer, same sort of style but southern accents instead of Irish..

The ones that we get around here that really piss me off are young, college-student looking types that will come into a business and sell trash from a big black nylon shoulder bag. I went around with the wife over them, she viewed them as just people trying to make a living and couldn't see my point that they were burning her customers in her establishment, with the result that the ripped-off customers would see her as the source of their troubles. She finally saw that it was true, but it took a long time..

I finally solved the issue by catching one at the door- when asked nicely once, and then told not nicely again, he refused to leave. Offering to punch his nose 'till I couldn't reach him anymore, convinced him to leave. The fact that he was the last one to show up demonstrated that they were all of the same bunch and keeping track of the suckers.

John

That's the same guy and same truck that wanders around our area about twice a year. (well... same scam, anyway).

They tout the goods as being 100% US-made and fully warranted by a company out of North Carolina. But if you peek under certain edges, you see "made in Taiwan" on a few items.

What they mean by "made in the USA" is, they buy the equipment _almost_ fully assembled. Then they drive in a few screws, put on castors, etc., and post-lable the materials with their logo. Ta-DA! Made in the USA!

Yup.

(BTW... that same scam is used for much US-made clothing. They buy it from the sweat-shop countries, sew on a button or logo, and call it US goods)

LLoyd