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Storage Wars is Fake, Dave Hester Fired.

  • 12-12-2012 9:27pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 55,433 ✭✭✭✭Mr E


    I know there are fans in this forum (yeah, me included), but yuuuuuuuuuuuup, the show is allegedly scripted, rigged and totally fake. Dave Hester just got fired for confronting the show runners about it.
    “Yuuupp," Dave Hester has filed a blockbuster lawsuit against Storage Wars, RadarOnline.com is reporting exclusively.

    Hester, one of the show’s best-known personalities who is infamous for his brash “Yuuup” while bidding on storage lockers, charges that the A&E hit show is fake and fired him in retaliation days after he complained about it to network and production company executives.

    Hester says was fired days after meeting with executives and subsequently asking to be indemnified by the show for any third party claims regarding “the authenticity of the auction process and the Series.”

    In a suit that is sure to cause ripples through the show and the network, Hester charges:
    • Producers staged entire units and enlisted the cooperation of owners of storage facilities to do so.
    • The show pays for storage lockers for “weaker” cast members as part of the manipulation
    • The show plants items in lockers after having them appraised weeks in advance
    • The show obtains items to be placed in the units from a business regularly featured on air
    In addition, Hester charges that interviews with cast members are scripted and scenes of biding are faked to the extent that there are no auctions taking place while cast members and members of the public are shown bidding.

    Lots more here:
    http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/12/storage-wars-sued-dave-hester-show-faked

    That means Storage Wars Texas is almost certainly guilty of the same crime, and it must definitely throw doubt on Auction Hunters too. Yikes.


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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 35 Leadamp


    I could have guessed it was staged.


  • Registered Users Posts: 43,757 ✭✭✭✭Basq


    "Reality TV in Staged Shocker.."

    C'moooonnnn.....


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    That's not Nigellas actual kitchen I hear.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 548 ✭✭✭Wils110


    Read up on auction hunters them lads are actually actors


    The biggest giveaway to it being fake it's against the law to load a unit on someone you can't bid it up to load it off for a higher price and admit your doing it


  • Registered Users Posts: 38,247 ✭✭✭✭Guy:Incognito


    He complained about it being fake after about 50 episodes :confused: Did he just realise the pages they gave him each week to read out were scripts?


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  • Posts: 25,611 ✭✭✭✭ Kasen Old Vegetable


    I dunno how much it's staged but it's obvious from watching a few episodes that it is. There'll be a few episodes in a row where they buy crap lockers for **** all and make a small profit then every so often they'll buy one that looks **** and there'll be a bidding war up to 1200 and there'll be enough in it to break even. Amazing the success rate they have!


  • Posts: 15,814 ✭✭✭✭ Lorenzo Gifted Peppermint


    You'd have to be an absolute idiot to think any of these shows were anything other than fiction. I remember an episode of one of these type shows, think it could have been Anerican Puckets where our intrepid hosts show up unannounced at a house and try to enquire about picking or done crap. Cut you shotgun wielding old man telling them to get off his property. The fact that he's micced up and the cameraman is behind him as he exits the house says all you need to about these shows.


  • Registered Users Posts: 247 ✭✭seamey beag84


    My brother is hooked to all these Discovery Bull**** programs. Drives me nuts! They're so dramatised it's irritating as **** to watch. How anyone could think these programs are anything but scripted nonsense. And ya, as the comment above says, the camera angles of a lot of the shots give away what's really happening..


  • Posts: 15,814 ✭✭✭✭ Lorenzo Gifted Peppermint


    Last time I was at home I saw a few minutes of an episode of Pawn Stars. Someone had brought in a Native American Artifact and when we first see it there were coloured beads and string attached to it. Cut to the scene with the expert and the colour of the bead and string has changed. Really showed how little effort they put into continuity.

    Years back when it first started I checked out a Les Paul someone had brought in to sell on the show. Found a guitar ship in Las Vegas listing the guitar for sale and in the contacts page was a picture of the guy who had been on the show.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,424 ✭✭✭telekon


    Its obvious its fake, all these History reality shows are. And you know what, I for one don't care in the slightest. Take it for what it is and you can still enjoy it. I find it very funny (especially Barry) and some of the stuff they 'find' is really fascinating.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,828 ✭✭✭Reamer Fanny


    It's more of a "yeeeeeaaaap" than a "yuuup"


  • Registered Users Posts: 55,433 ✭✭✭✭Mr E


    Everyone knows these shows are fake, but it's unusual for it come out this way (i.e. a lawsuit and a set of accusations).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 35 Leadamp


    most if not all reality shows are scripted in some way. If you just take them as entertainment and don't take them seriously you'll be fine


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,792 ✭✭✭✭2smiggy


    i had looked up Storage Wars before for mistakes on the show ( i was bored that day !!)

    there were a few mistakes with items been moved in different camera shots, but it is television after all , and they do retakes due to bad language or someone walking in on shot.

    It was just the people on the message boards who said they had been buying storage units on and off for years , and the chances of finding some of the stuff they seem to find most weeks is very very rare.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 21,634 ✭✭✭✭Richard Dower


    Leadamp wrote: »
    most if not all reality shows are scripted in some way. If you just take them as entertainment and don't take them seriously you'll be fine

    ice road truckers is scripted, but hugely entertaining. my issue is when the stars/production campany/channel lie about it being fake and scripted.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,996 ✭✭✭Duck Soup


    I'd always assumed there were a few planted items - or at least that the show runners and storage owners had checked the lockers out to make sure that day's lockers had some interest - but it's the stupidity of the buyers that's so compelling.

    Barry Weiss buys a locker and tosses out everything but a tiny knick-knack. Darrell Sheets buys the same piece-of-crap locker, points at a stack of crap and says "That's 300 bucks, right there, all day long." I find myself shouting at the TV "No it's not! That's two and thruppence, if you're lucky." I need to get out more.

    All reality TV is staged. It wouldn't be much of a show if people continually bought lockers full of discarded domestic items and made twenty dollars profit on each. I'm not sure the Hester 'disclosure' will even hurt the show that much. I know I'll tune in just to see if the nature of the lockers has changed.


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,792 ✭✭✭✭2smiggy


    Duck Soup wrote: »
    I'd always assumed there were a few planted items - or at least that the show runners and storage owners had checked the lockers out to make sure that day's lockers had some interest - but it's the stupidity of the buyers that's so compelling.

    Barry Weiss buys a locker and tosses out everything but a tiny knick-knack. Darrell Sheets buys the same piece-of-crap locker, points at a stack of crap and says "That's 300 bucks, right there, all day long." I find myself shouting at the TV "No it's not! That's two and thruppence, if you're lucky." I need to get out more.

    All reality TV is staged. It wouldn't be much of a show if people continually bought lockers full of discarded domestic items and made twenty dollars profit on each. I'm not sure the Hester 'disclosure' will even hurt the show that much. I know I'll tune in just to see if the nature of the lockers has changed.

    i enjoy the show, even knowing it had a fair element of fakeness to it. But there valuation of the items is laughable. putting hundreds of dollars value on trash can get annoying to look at. barry is a friend of the producer i think, and fairly wealthy , but to see him trash most of the stuff in the locker is annoying.

    at least in Pawn Stars , there is realistic values on the items, and they seem to pass on items they think are valued too high. no doubt interesting items are lined up for them, but that probably happens more naturally now as the fame of the show has grown


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,996 ✭✭✭Duck Soup


    I agree with you Smiggy - Sheets in particular puts (unquestioned) valuations on absolute garbage and the counter in the corner just clocks up the numbers. I do wonder at the show's characters in general though. Only Hester seems to have made a living pre-show at buying lockers. Sheets claims to have been doing it for years, but given the ludicrous prices he puts on everything, you have to wonder.

    Everyone else seems to have just appeared at the beginning of the first series. Same goes for Storage Wars Texas. Ricky and Bubba mirror Darrell and Brandon. Moe mirrors Barry. Victor is a variation of Barry's dilettante with too much money. Jenny Grumbles appears just to be eye candy, without the character and dynamic of Brandi on the original show.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 23,556 ✭✭✭✭Sir Digby Chicken Caesar





    somewhat relevant


  • Registered Users Posts: 55,433 ✭✭✭✭Mr E


    2smiggy wrote: »
    barry is a friend of the producer i think, and fairly wealthy , but to see him trash most of the stuff in the locker is annoying

    He is looking for the rare or unusual. He donates most of what he finds to charity.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 43,017 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    Barry needs his own show


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,996 ✭✭✭Duck Soup


    Mary Padlan - the ahem "Junkster" - on SWT has to be the most ludicrous character yet. "I'll buy this desk of drawers and turn them into a double sink. What's that you say madam? You'll give me $1,000 for it?" Riiiiiight....


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 33,733 ✭✭✭✭Myrddin


    Are there people out there who actually believe most of these 'reality' shows are in fact reality? The American ones are horrific, with the rest of the worlds ones not too far behind.

    Edit - granted some of them can be mildy fun/amusing yes, but its so blatantly obvious that its all for the camera


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    The fakest reality show out there has to be hardcore pawn. I only watch it in the hope that someone will punch les or his 2 kids in the face really hard.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,327 ✭✭✭Merch


    ken wrote: »
    The fakest reality show out there has to be hardcore pawn. I only watch it in the hope that someone will punch les or his 2 kids in the face really hard.

    I've watched a few storage wars, dont like, suspected probably scripted but dont like the characters anyway.
    Hardcore Pawn, annoying, hate the nasty family.

    Pawn Stars (In Las vegas) I like, they have some interesting stuff on it,old guns and the like, plus they are pleasant and it actually seems quite genuine, they dont appear to be ripping people off (or at least they aren't being pleasant to the customers face, while gouging them and then going on about it behind their back like american guns, which I also think is part scripted too).
    Or maybe Im being naive


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    Merch wrote: »
    I've watched a few storage wars, dont like, suspected probably scripted but dont like the characters anyway.
    Hardcore Pawn, annoying, hate the nasty family.

    Pawn Stars (In Las vegas) I like, they have some interesting stuff on it,old guns and the like, plus they are pleasant and it actually seems quite genuine, they dont appear to be ripping people off (or at least they aren't being pleasant to the customers face, while gouging them and then going on about it behind their back like american guns, which I also think is part scripted too).
    Or maybe Im being naive
    What i really liked in pawn stars was where the woman came in with the broach looking for $2000 and rick told her it was worth more and offered her $14000. Probably scripted but looked good.


  • Registered Users Posts: 372 ✭✭Belfunk


    Barry needs his own show

    He is getting his own show i can't find the link though :(

    I was in the Pawn Stars shop in Las Vegas its a complete dump and very small with nearly everything over priced, well i thought so anyway.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,977 ✭✭✭youcancallmeal


    Merch wrote: »
    Pawn Stars (In Las vegas) I like, they have some interesting stuff on it,old guns and the like, plus they are pleasant and it actually seems quite genuine, they dont appear to be ripping people off (or at least they aren't being pleasant to the customers face, while gouging them and then going on about it behind their back like american guns, which I also think is part scripted too).
    Or maybe Im being naive

    I was actually disappointed to find out the entire show is scripted :(
    Fake customers with interesting items I can deal with but scripting doesn't even make sense to me. I would of thought that with people bringing in interesting items to sell there is no need to script every single line!?
    I saw a script online before but can't seem to find it now?


  • Posts: 25,611 ✭✭✭✭ Kasen Old Vegetable


    Duck Soup wrote: »
    I'd always assumed there were a few planted items - or at least that the show runners and storage owners had checked the lockers out to make sure that day's lockers had some interest - but it's the stupidity of the buyers that's so compelling.

    Barry Weiss buys a locker and tosses out everything but a tiny knick-knack. Darrell Sheets buys the same piece-of-crap locker, points at a stack of crap and says "That's 300 bucks, right there, all day long." I find myself shouting at the TV "No it's not! That's two and thruppence, if you're lucky." I need to get out more.

    All reality TV is staged. It wouldn't be much of a show if people continually bought lockers full of discarded domestic items and made twenty dollars profit on each. I'm not sure the Hester 'disclosure' will even hurt the show that much. I know I'll tune in just to see if the nature of the lockers has changed.

    Hester is far, far worse for the bull**** valuations.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,871 ✭✭✭paulbok


    History Channel: making scripting history, every day!

    Kind of ironic these shows are on the History & Discovery Channels.


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