Direct Sales Ltd. At Airport this Sunday

ChippingSodbury

Hi,
I got a letter in the door today about a Stock Clearance Sale on in teh Great Southern Hotel at airport this Sunday. It is run by DIrect Sales Ltd. Carlow. The prices on the leaflet seem ludicrously low. It also says remaining stock will be auctioned.

Anybody been to one of their sales before? Is it too good to be true??

Tony

look closely at the leaflet and see if they are minimum reserve prices

kaizersoze

ChippingSodbury wrote:

Anybody been to one of their sales before?

Yes. They are a load of ****e.

degsie

ChippingSodbury wrote:

Is it too good to be true??

Usually YES! You can get suckered real easy....caveat emptor 'n all that;)

ChippingSodbury

Tony wrote:

look closely at the leaflet and see if they are minimum reserve prices

Yep, they are. So the question is "Should I stay or should I go now...."

numorouno

do go.ive been at one of their things in cork and you do get value if and its a big IF you go in there with something in mind that you want and you know the retail price. they're will be "bidding" but the price will already be set just to get the "bids" up to it but good deals none the less. id advice you to go anyhow

andrew1977

Went to one myself before out at the Red Cow, ended up coming home with a load of rubbish which appeared a bargain at the time !!.Most of the sale is out of line/outdated stock which they just want rid of
Also the queue to get into the auction was crazy.

savemejebus

ChippingSodbury wrote:

Yep, they are. So the question is "Should I stay or should I go now...."

Better question is should you give your hard earned cash to some scumbags who are expressly setting out to con you by enticing you with a low price and then trying to pressure you into a bidding war.

Personally I'd say no...

beolight

may be a cover charge also to get in

ChippingSodbury

The sentiment seems to be "maybe".
So maybe I'll go! If I do, I'll report back next week.

degsie

ChippingSodbury wrote:

The sentiment seems to be "maybe"

Where did you read that then?

okidoki987

There was some discussion about the same sort of thing some time ago
(Use the search facility).
Mightn't have been the same crowd though but I bet it will be the same end result.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

They're a load of rubbish, there to prey on people who don't know any better.

I was at a gig like that ages ago in the Raddisson Stillorgan. The auctioneer was a total sleaze. It wasn't an aution at all really, they'd just get the "bids" up to their selling price and wouldn't go any higher. The whole "auction" thing is a gimmick to drag peopl ein.

jor el

I've been at these before and it's always the same. There'll be an "auction" for some item that will have people bidding like crazy, but only one will be sold. I'm not sure if it actually goes to a real punter or a plant (I always thought a plant) but anyway when it's done they'll ask who else wants one of these. Lots of people put their hands up and they end up buying a "similar" item of a different make, which is usually some cheapo knock-off, that's over priced too.

That's the general trend and the majority of people who come away from these things later realise that they were shafted. Stay clear of it as you won't get a bargain. Wait for a proper sale in a large store, or shop online for what you're looking for.

Kristopherus

Stay well clear of that crowd and the rubbish they try to offload to anyone thats gullible enough to think they can get a bargain. Once you buy you're on your own, no comeback, no refund, definitely no bargain !!!

hk797

andrew1977 wrote:

Went to one myself before out at the Red Cow, ended up coming home with a load of rubbish which appeared a bargain at the time !!.Most of the sale is out of line/outdated stock which they just want rid of
Also the queue to get into the auction was crazy.

Second that. Also went along to one in the Red Cow and sat at the back of the room (suggest you do likewise if you go). The so called spotters just pump the price to within 20% of the new price and then its sold time. New items on display with refurbs, seconds or used items handed out from what i could see. Buyer beware.

OMcGovern

andrew1977 wrote:

Went to one myself before out at the Red Cow, ended up coming home with a load of rubbish which appeared a bargain at the time !!.Most of the sale is out of line/outdated stock which they just want rid of
Also the queue to get into the auction was crazy.

I went to one of those in the Red Cow also, and ended up with rubbish.
A cheap socket set... nothing decent.

If you ever watch that program "The Real Hustle" where they show you all the scams and con-jobs, one program was on these sort of auctions.
The audience "plants" get the serious bargains, eg. a huge TV for say EUR500.
Then they train the audience to stick their hands up real fast to anything, then offload the rubbish. I'm never going to one again.

degsie

OMcGovern wrote:

I went to one of those in the Red Cow also

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh:D

parsi

Shouldn't that be moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ?

LoLth

parsi wrote:

Shouldn't that be moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ?

maybe he's learning a foreign language...

degsie

LoLth wrote:

maybe he's learning a foreign language...

I wus referrin to the fact that people act like sheep at these things and get sucked in in big time

So the the OP, go be a sheep, then come back here to moan 'n bitch about the whole baaaaad experience:p

wingnut

Have you ever seen the film Trojan Eddie with Stephen Rea and Richard Harris?, its all about these 'auctions'.

They are an old old scam and I am surprised people still get suckered into them. Well not that surprised after the pyramid schemes took off in Cork! Whats next 'find the lady'?

Anyone want to buy a genuine 'sunny' walkman? or a 'panaphonic' television retails at €1000? Who will give me €50 for wahts in this bag?

The best advice is always 'walk away'. Almost all scams work by making you think you have to commit straight away and if you don't you loose the opprtunity. If you don't take the offer you are no better or worse off.

thefinalstage

The real hustle on bbc showed something similar to this. The first person is a plant to get people interested and to buy the real deal than people flock to buy the fakes without properly inspecting them .

Access

thelastangryman got in there before me....

THESE "AUCTIONS" ARE GOING TO BE MADE ILLEGAL FROM LATER THIS YEAR ... IT IS A COMPLETE SCAM!

It was shown on BBC 3 - the real hustle. They have decoys in the crowd who force the sales prices up and half the stuff is reconditioned goods - (items return to suppliers by customers due to problems/faults/cosmetic detail faults.)

They sell EMPTY x-box/psp boxes to the decoys for stupidly low money and then everybody wants one!

You have been warned!

Capt'n Midnight

Funny how many of these guys have UK accents.
Also typical that we only ban scams after the UK does, but with enough of a delay to allow them setup their phone lines / you've won scratch cards / fake auctions or whatever here.

I can remember stuff like this in town 15 years ago - should have been stomped on then.

The Roach

I went to one of these about 6 months ago, and as everybody else has been saying, it's just a huge scam. Everything about it just seemed sleazy; the bidding was a joke, the "auctioneer" would start out with a low price for an item, someone would put their hand up (possibly a plant, still not sure on that) and then other random punters would put their hands up too. At this point the auctioneer would just start streaming off increasingly higher numbers, so by the time the item was sold the people buying it had no idea how much they were actually paying.

The other thing that seemed really dodgy was their description of where the stock came from. They were saying that a lot of the electrical items came from a certain chain of electrical stores that sold them to them as either ex-demo stock or because they were old models etc. However, I know from working in the stores mentioned for over 5 years that this doesn't happen; ex-demo stock was simply stickered and marked down, but still sold in-store. And stock was never sold off to any of these companies for being an older model, the same thing applied; sticker it, discount it and they'll be gone in just a few days. So wherever these guys get their stock, I'm pretty sure that it's not from the stores mentioned. I doubt they're getting it illegally or anything, as the cops would surely get involved then, but just think, if they're not getting stuff for much cheaper than retail prices, neither will you.

I'd say you're much better off looking online (ebay etc) for whatever you want, don't give your money to these scam-artists.