Selling to Lure for Attack
The may be lengthy and I apologize but bear with me. We've been hunting for a queen size mattress set, for a bargain for the son to replace his full size, something that would be good enough to put guests on when they visit.
There was an ad which advertised new queen mattress sets $125. I called it, the guy says he's got a couple left, that it's not a store front, so he is not there all the time so I would have to set an appointment time to meet him there. I set up the appointment for 1:30pm got the address, mapquest showed me where it was, and we were on the way.
On the way there, I told the wife, you know... something about this seems fishy. "What if" they place an ad, set up an appointment and lure someone in to rob them? It's not a store, you don't know them, the name of the business, nothing. So we decided that when we got there, she would stay in the vehicle, take a description of the guy (if she saw him), his vehicle and tag number, then if something went down, she could at least call 911 and have the info on the guy should he try to get away, and report the incident, etc. Yes of course I was armed.
What do ya'll think?
Here is what actually happened: We showed up, it was a somewhat large building with several offices in it. Doors in various locations around the building and a drive that went all the way around. Several cars out front and a few out on the left side toward the back. I had a 4x8 utility trailer hooked to our suv. I parked on the front right side of the building because I didn't know where in the building this guy was. I walked around the building and on the far back left corner I came to one of the doors and could see through into a room that had some bed sets that were set up just like in the photo that I had seen in the ad and there was a guy sitting right inside the door on the telephone. He didn't see me because he had his back to the door.
I walked back around to the vehicle, got in and drove around the rear of the building from the right side to the left side and pulled up right in front of the door. At this point he saw me pull up. I was already pretty sure at this point that it was safe to enter. It was one large room with some beds set up on the left wall directly in front of the door an open area in middle and some other sets leaning against the wall on the right.
Turns out the guy showed us a "very low quality" full size that was $125 that was "like" the queen sizes. He said the queen sizes will be on the next shipment coming in next week. The other beds, which were shown in the image in the ad were ones he said were $600+ dollars. He honestly thought I was going to drive an hour and a half, give him money down on a bed that was "very low quality" (like something of the quality that comes on a bunk bed) and then come back a week later to pick it up (if he was still there at that). So I asked about one of the other ones he had, lowest price. He showed us his lowest priced set, looked a lot better but he still wanted $260 for it. This was after I asked what his lowest price was on it. He said normally they let him go down $100 off the price but since I came all the way down and he didn't have what I wanted, he'd go down to $260 on it.
I told him, "No Thanks" and we left. I hate when someone tells you they have something, you drive an hour and a half pulling a trailer, wasting your time and gas, and then they don't have what they said they have, and it wasn't quite what they led you to believe it was in the first place.
But,...what about the scenario?
