Buying Furniture off the Back of a Truck
This past Sunday I heard a knock at the door and opened it to find a guy who gave me a quick pitch about how he was in town from North Carolina with a tractor trailer loaded with furniture that they were liquidating as part of the “summer markdown.” He went on to say that they were selling it for $0.30 on the dollar and invited me to see what they had in the truck. It turns out that they were going up and down the street trying to get people to come out to see their wares. We don’t need any furniture, and there’s no way I’m going to buy it off the back of a truck from a guy who cold called at my front door but, curious guy that I am, I went out to see what was up.
When I got out to the street, I noticed that the door of the truck said something about Thomasville Distributing Co. (or something like that) out of High Point, NC. While I’m familiar with the Thomasville brand of furniture, I somehow doubt that these guys were official representatives of Thomasville Furniture Industries, Inc. It seems more likely that they slapped some letters on a truck that made them sound official and then went out looking for some scammable souls.
Anyway, when I got to the truck, it was chock full of apparently new furniture, ranging from a grandfather clock to living room and bedroom sets. They had some slick brochures and official looking price lists, but it was unclear exactly what brand the furniture was. And what about those low, low bargain prices? Most of the full sets were ‘marked down’ down from ~$10k to ~$3k, which got me wondering… How often do these guys stumble upon someone that’s willing to shell out three grand for furniture off the back of a truck from a total stranger that happened to knock on their door on a Sunday afternoon? It must work at least occasionally, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing it. Beyond this, I’m really curious as to what the underlying scam is — again, I’m assuming here that people with legitimate truckloads of Thomasville furniture don’t make a living by pulling into subdivisions and trying to unload their wares in the middle of the street. I’ve Googled around a bit looking for an answer, but I haven’t run across anything related to this.
Was this really Thomasville furniture, or some sort of knockoff? Were the pieces factory seconds, or perhaps otherwise damaged? Or maybe they were stolen? Then again, maybe it’s perfectly normal for roving furniture salesman to go door-to-door trying to offload a truckload of home furnishings on a Sunday afternoon.
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3 comments:
Am I the only one who has this in my Google Reader? LOL
This guy knocked on my door and I ignored him. I thought it was more steaks being sold out of the back of a BIG truck...Do these guys think we are stupid?
I actually did buy several things off of this truck, but only after I asked for some type of proof that this was not stolen goods. They produced the manifest where these items were purchased from a facilty that handles RTV's for manufacturers. I work for a manufacturer so this made sense to me because I am familiar with these holding facilities and I know that they wholesale items after they are there for a set period of time and never claimed. I have got a fabulous dresser and mirror for $550 and the same thing would have cost me well over $2000 if purchased from a store; also, they carried it up my drive, into my house and moved the old one to the garage, free of charge. It was not Thomasville furniture, but they had leased a Thomasville truck, which the driver guy admitted was a little deceptive.
It isn't a "Thomasville furniture Inc." truck it is simply a truck that has "Thomasville" on it. And yes it is a scam no connection what so ever to the real named furniture company, these are sleazy men out to steal peoples money for fake cheaply made furniture, that is represented as quality named"Thomasville" furniture. The better business bureau and Thomasville Inc., have many complaints and warning listed for this scam. If anyone sees this truck again and is solicited to buy in there neighborhood or from a parking lot, request the ID of the men and driver of the truck, the CDL drivers license has the real address and name of the man as well as state of issue. Take down the name address and licenses number, contact the better business bureau and get the names out there once the anonymity in this scam is not there anymore the scam will stop and true charges can be put on these men. The truck plates can be faked but the CDL license can not be. The truck is out of high point, nc one of the drivers is a man about 6 foot tall, red burr hair cut about 30 years old. He was in our neighborhood a month ago but when licenses were requested and truck information was requested they left. BEWARE. Anonymity is what keep this going, charges can't be pressed without names, addresses and CDL numbers. This is fraud and theft, and needs to be stopped.
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