Do Not Buy A Marc Vincent Audio Sound System
Yesterday I got a Marc Vincent Wireless Surround System from a friend that MRRP (Manufacturers Recommend Retail Price) at $5599, and I just have to say “Do not get scammed into buying one”
Once I got it, the specifications looked pretty cool on the box, much better than my Logitech Z550 (which is a cheap, high quality surround sound system). I got out the instruction manual and had a read through it. The first thought that came into my head was “I really hope their sound is much better then the quality of the user manual”. Let me go in dot points everything that is wrong with the instruction manual, before I start complaining about the speakers itself.
- In the Fittings in the Getting Started section, every picture is different to what was in the box.
- The receiver unit, completely different
- The remote, completely different
- The FM antenna – well, it doesn’t fit into the system
- The batteries – it shows 2, but the remote only takes 1
- Warranty card – well haven’t even seen it (I wonder why?)
- The instruction manual – difference brand name – ProTechnix
- Images are stretched vertically to over half the size and are blurry
- The manuals say it’s for Australia, but has overseas plugs shown on the diagram
- There is no instructions on how to use the device, what each button does or how to plug speakers into it
- The printing of the pages are poor. On one page, the table gets cut of from the edge on an angle
So now lets move on to the speakers themselves.
- The build quality is absolute crap – buttons are hard to push, you can still see the glue on the outside
- It looks like students have built the system as a school project – it doesn’t have an impressive overall finish (not saying that students produce bad work)
- The box says “Wireless surrounds” so you assume it a wireless surround sound system kit – it is not. Only the front left speaker is wireless. It’s pretty pointless if it’s right next to the amp/subwoofer
- You need to buy your own speaker cabling – it doesn’t come with any in the box
- The amp/subwoofer is crap. For $5599, you’d expect HDMI, Optical and Coaxial inputs, but there are none
- The Menu button on the amp simple goes through a menu where you can individually adjust the sound for each speaker
- The subwoofer either makes a sound or doesn’t. It is really loud or really quite and doesn’t sound good with music or talkback as it over powers the speakers
- If you want to use the speakers on another amp, you will be missing the front left as their is no audio input for it making the whole system useless
It’s Definitely A Scam
Doing my research on the internet, and talking about where my friend got it from, he was definitely scammed. I asked where this friend got it, and he said off the back of a truck from people in a white van. What reasonable person sells good quality discounted surround sound speakers out of a white van without it being a scam?
Below are some sites that support my case and more information about the back of the truck, white van scam.
- http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1236477.html
- Google Search: Back of a truck white van
- http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1249495.html
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOsYy3h4YVw
- htttp://www.scamshield.com/Feature.asp?id=1
- http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Crimes/InPerson/speaker_scams.htm
- http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/4/9/224439/1810
Word of Warning
If someone is trying to sell you speakers on the side of the road, don’t buy them. If you are looking for speakers, go out and find them, don’t wait for someone to approach you. If someone tries to sell you something and it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
So don’t get scammed like my friend did, and if you see anything with Marc Vincent or Protechnix on them, do yourself a favour, and don’t buy them.
Update: South Australian Police contacted me after reading about this post. You can read more about the ordeal at https://www.jackcola.org/blog/88-out-of-the-blue-email-it-was-from-the-police-law-enforcement
Update 2: If you have been scammed by these white van speaker scammers, please contact your local police station or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000, or visit http://www.crimestoppers.com.au/ and report your incident.
Update 3: A Current Affair posted this video talking about the Marc Vincent Scam, which refers to Marc Vincent from Australia’s Got Talent. http://aca.ninemsn.com.au/celebrity/8291586/australias-got-talent-stereo-scam
Hi there,
Thanks for the detailed review of Marc Vincent audio system . This saved me at least $1000 of my hard earned money.
A friend told me that he has 3 units and wants to sell 2 of them which he said retails for $5599 and just sounded too good to be true. And because I had never heard of this brand before, I started looking it up on the internet and found interesting things about this scam.
That’s all from me.
Again thank you very much indeed for your review.
Zalmay
Hi Zalmay,
Thanks very much for your comment. That is why I wrote this article to help spread the word of this scam.
I am glade that I saved you $1000.
has any 1 got da scammers number in sydney i just got dun for a $1000 please let me know asap please 🙁
I don’t have a number for Sydney, but if you send me an email through my contact form, I can send you the details of the police officer that got in contact with me from SA, so you can give them a call. Or you can just call your local police station to report it.
😮
Well my hubby got got scammed Yesterday
Yep was out the back of a white Temporary Courier Post Van,
Not Happy 🙁
Hi Kristin,
That’s too bad.
I hope he didn’t spend too much money or payed cash.
If he payed by cheque, you better ring the bank up asap and put a stop on it.
If you need any more support on this issue, please do let me know.
Regards,
Jack
I just purchase the product yesterday, my brother told me it is shit. i payed $1500 damn it.
what a waste of money.
if i ever see that van again i will report it to the police.
That’s too bad Nancy. As I pointed out in a previous comment, I was contacted by the police to see if I could provide them with any more information.
If you remembered or got the van’s license plate number, contact me at [url]http://www.jackcola.org/contact[/url] and I will provide you contact details of the police who are investigating.
Yeah I fell for it too… I have their mobile phone numbers and the registration of their car… Which was a white van….
I had them write me a receipt as well… I was kinda worried I was getting screwed, but took most pre-cautions….
I bought it for $500…
Hi Matt, if you thought you were getting screwed, why didn’t you just say no?
If you would like, contact me through the contact form on this website, and I will forward you the contact information of the police investigating so you can give them the details to that you gathered to help catch these scammers so they don’t do it to any one else.
sugarrrrrrrr!! just got scammed today. bought for $ 600.00 i got his mobile phone number. any chance that we report to the police ? i might be able to call them.
Hi Rusli,
Please see the email I just sent you.
Jack
I’m guessing this is all happening in Oz, I am In NZ and just witnessed a very plausible operation out the back of an unmarked white van. Two young guys, one Indian and One polynesian mid 20’s offering excess stock only one unit for $1500 . the van was full to the brim but probably dummy stock and empty boxes for all i know. my brother unfortunately parted with $1200 and 3 boxes, of which one is missing .
Sad enough i found this website after the deal was done, goes without saying not to buy from the back of a Truck
Hi Phase,
Yes, I am assuming all the commentors are from Australia – I am.
Unfortunately, people don’t look for this sort of stuff until after the buy it. If you have mobile internet and you buy something off the streets, you might be able to do some research before hand. It would be interesting to see how they react when you tell them your going to google them. But if you do, I wouldn’t tell them that you think its a scam in case they kidnap you or something.
My rule of thumb is “If people approach you to sell you something, turn it down. Only purchase things when you approach someone”
Thanks again for your comment.
These same monkeys came to our work earlier on today. One oversized Poly and a his mate (looked to be of Indian descent). One of our workmates nearly dished out $650 before I quickly did a check on on google for Marc Vincent and your site came up.
Rego of their vehicle and the Poly’s ph number was passed on to Police 5 mins after they left. Hopefully they catch the cheeky crooks.
Hi Joe,
That’s great news, and lucky that you checked first before your mate spent the money. Hopefully the police will catch these people.
Would this be in Auckland by any chance? Wonder if I could exchange information with you if possible.
Yeah my mate just got hustled out of 2grand yesterday on quay street auckland.
By looking at those boxes i’m sure most people are smart enough to stay away from them. They even got pictures of the Nintendo 64 on them, budget packaging and are gettin sold from a van.
That’s no good. In my situation the box made the speakers sound good, and not bad like yours. It says the speakers are wireless, but only one is, and for something to say it has a MRRP of $5599 and it not to have HDMI input is really dodgy.
But for something to have a Nintendo 64 on it, that makes it sound really old.
WITE VAN NO IS AO-80-MR
Last seen in Townsville Sat 4th Dec 2010
Looks like they are doing the rounds in North Queensland now.
I have seen this audi system for sale in New Zealand on trademe.co.nz currently the bidding is up to $1,100 at 03/11/2010
hopefully the transaction does not get completed. Seller will recieve complaint from myself, cheers guys
Thanks Matt for pointing that out. I just having a quick look myself. Did a quick search on Marc Vincent and http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/SearchResults.aspx?searchType=all&searchString=marc+vincent&type=Search&generalSearch_keypresses=6&generalSearch_suggested=12 appeared.
2 results strike to focus on is http://www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics-photography/Home-audio/Home-theatre/auction-328384068.htm currently at $151. This is the same unit as I have – same pictures etc. If you look at the images, how can it be Blue Ray ready without having HDMI? As if someone will hook their bluray up through AV cables. And the title includes “White Van” sounds suss to me.
And the second one is http://www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics-photography/Home-audio/Home-theatre/auction-327944778.htm. But this comes with the projector as well – I am not sure how good it is, but if it goes by the quality of the speakers, it will be poor to.
Thanks again for pointing this out.
Hi guys,
My hubby and I are in the market for a new sound system as ours is old and no longer performing as it should so, as die hard Trade Me members, we looked on Trade Me for reasonably priced alternatives.
Woohoo – we found a Marc Vincent system that seemed to have all the requirements we were looking for and reasonably priced.
Now, we know all about the scams being run out of the back of unmarked vans – the ‘Italian Leather Jackets’ is one of them being touted right now – so thought we were informed and savvy enough not to get fooled.
Well, apparantly not!
We bid on a Marc Vincent system and won – cost, low $300’s.
However, I suddenly felt uncomfortable about the product after being altered to a possible scam by a friend and did some research and low and behold this page, amongst others, popped up.
I contacted the seller and told him that I did not want to complete the trade and my reasons why. He was very apologetic and has accepted my request to not complete the trade and says he will dump his unopened system.
I believe that the seller is genuine when he says he was given the system. I also believe that he is not part of the shysters who are trying to ripoff people. Looking through the many other auctions for this system, however, there are sellers who obviously are part of the ripoff and knowingly selling these systems with the intention of ripping off buyers.
There are MANY of these systems for sale, or previously for sale, on TM. I am going to send TM the link to this page so that they can choose whether or not to allow these products to continue being listed.
If it had not been for this webpage we would have gone through with the auction and purchased ourselves a dud. Thank you.
Your welcome Sally,
With the other sellers you are referring to, yes, they may be part of the scam, or they may be the people who got scammed by a lot of money, thus wanting to sell the products at a high price to recoup their losses.
The person will probably only sell it at the price they have paid which can be anyway between $300 and $3000, and probably won’t make a profit on them.
The person you were buying it off, as you said probably did get scammed, and being a kind person, they understood why you didn’t want to buy it.
Thanks again for your comment.
Driving home from work through the backstreets of Darwin NT Australia, 2 big Maori lads and another korean lookin guy, just pulled me over on the side of the road, I thought they wanted directions but they wanted to sell me a “Misplaced” entertainment set, I managed to talk them down to $175 bucks from $1200, They were very persistant and it seemed it didnt matter how much they sold it for. thought I got a bargain until i got home, I would rather listen to a drowning cat than the surround sound system I bought from that white van,
If I see them again I will RUN THEM OVER IN MY 4WD, to ensure they do not rip anyone elso off. 🙁
i recently bit trademe on a wireless system for our family for Christmas thank you for alerting me to this i will be withdrawing my bid from Trade me.
some put posted a question on a item i am selling and said to google the system…wooooo lucky thank you…
Watch out, they are targeting NSW inner west suburb carpark.
Especially if u’re Chinese looking around the areas! It’s a jackpot for them. They sure deserve an Oscar, such good acting skill!!
Shame on them.
Has the police done anything about this Jack?
Thanks for the notification Katie.
I haven’t been in contact with Police about what they have been doing in catching these crooks. If you want to provide the officer that contacted me some details about what you saw, shoot me an email through my contact page and I will forward the details to you.
hi, just been reading about marc vincent scams ,I got approached yesterday by two guys in white van trying to sell me a system ,they had courier shirts on and said they had to sell the unit cos the guy who ordered it had moved and their boss told them to get what they could for it.I am in Townsville QLD. SO JUST SHOWS THESE SCAMMERS ARE ALL OVER THE PLACE.luckily I didn’t buy as I thought there were a few too many dodgy things about the whole approach and IT SEEMED TOO CHEAP TO BE LEGIT AND I HAD NEVER HEARD OF MARC VINCENT.
Just a question, how did they approach you?
There tactic from what I have heard to is to pretty much drive you off the road until you stop.
But the excuse you they gave you seems to be a common one.
Hey Jack,
they approached me as I was driving away from home in my ute,they just stopped and yelled out to me “hey this sounds crazy but do you want to buy a sound system”.One guy was asian[maybe chinese or korean] the other guy a white kiwi.Both in their late 20’s.Both sharp talkers.
Thanks for that.
That’s a similar story from what I hear, and I can’t believe it works on some people.
Look out for Number plate BH76VF – White Van.
Our scammer was a kiwi guy and his mate at WoyWoy Deepwater Plaza Shopping centre carpark. I did a google search as soon as I got home – I haven’t even opened the box yet…unfortunately we were scammed $1200 for the projector, surround sound, screen etc Have already notified the local police, hopefully they can catch these boys before someone else gets scammed.
That’s really unlucky. Hopefully the police do something about it.
got done at marks point newcastle 7/12/10 by kiwi bloke and asian man in white van showing me delivery dockets sporting courier shirts.got them to plug everything in to c if worked and seemed ok.no speaker wire,wrong system in box,havent tried 3d projector system yet.2 ropeable.when i get hold of them im goin to shove blunt starpickets through their eyesockets and shoot em down with a shower of their own shit.
I know how you feel Damo… The system sucks, lost heaps of money, and those scammers still get away with it.
But I would advise to not take the law into your own hands – let the police know and make sure they keep you updated.
Email me, by visiting my contact page and I’ll forward the police contact details that I got if you want.
I had a chance to check E-Bay & the Marc Vincent Audio web site.
But DID NOT think about Google!!
Google is the answer to everything it seems!
May you please E-Mail me the cops E-Mail Address to see if we can handle the pair that got away with my $1,300 in Melbourne.
Thnanks Jack, await to hear back from you asap 🙂
Hi,
I replied to your email.
My partner got scammed today in Proserpine Queensland. They were driving around the back streets and got my partner while picking up my daughter. My partner got a number plate….should we report it to police or will we get charged with purchasing goods out the back of a van.
After writing this post, I got contacted by the police (there is a link in this post to it) and they stressed that I would not get in trouble helping them through this investigation.
It’s not your fault that you got scammed by them, so I would suggest going to the police.
You can send me an email (fill out my contact form) and I will send you the information of the police officer that contacted me if you wish to follow it up with them and provide them with more information,
Hi Jack can you send me the cops details so that I can contact them
Check your email
In Proserpine my partner was sucked in by an asian man and kiwi/aussie man. White courier van 953KPI(most probably stolen). Apparently heading from townsville to brisbane. I reported to our local police last night.
We set up the system after reading damo’s report. Lucky ours works suprisingly well…good picture and good sound but I dont even want it in the house as it makes me so angry that people can just take money from others and seem so genuine and that they are doing us a favour.
Hopefully the police follow up the issue and not just ignore it.
I briefly set mine up, and I was actually scared about using it. I didn’t trust it at all and thought that even having it just plugged into the power-point with it off, it would burn down my house.
I only got the speakers, so I am not sure what the projector is like.
After notifying the WoyWoy police, they put a watch on the van and found them!!! Apparently what they are doing is legal as they did actually have a permit to sell out of the back of a van. As long as the goods are in working order, they aren’t doing anything wrong…Our electrician seemed pretty impressed with it and the price (even after we told him of the less than impressive reviews!!!), so luckily for us, he has traded it for some electrical work we needed done. So it’s a happy ending for us. I have to say, these boys could win an Oscar for their acting skills – they were pretty convincing, charming snd persuasive!!! I still can’t believe how sucked in we got, it’s as though we just left our brains at home that day…
If the police say its legal, are they being legal by advertising the products falsely as in False Advertising?
The goods may be in working order, but they don’t match the specifications on the box (well at least my system it doesn’t). Mine says its BluRay compatible, yet there is no HDMI ports. 😡
Well for you, at least you have traded yours in for something useful.
I had a look in my unit of the electrical circuit, and it looked a bit dodgy, and if your electrician thinks it good, then, I wouldn’t trust your electrician on what’s good or not.
But I am basing that off what I saw on my system, it may be completely different on yours.
🙁
Well I almost got scammed with this stupid system through a friend of a friend. He’d obviously bought it and figured out it was crap, luckily I had the opportunity to take it home and do some research and found your website. My husband had also been approached at work by some guys in a white van trying to sell this stuff but luckily he turned them down, so imagine his surprise when I turned up with the very same thing in the car. Luckily no money has changed hands and it’s going straight back to the prick who tried to fob it off to me.GRRRR. Sorry to hear about all that have been scammed so far, hopefully word will spread so far no one will fall for it. I might ring the herald. :Pirate:
I am glade you found this website helpful in making your decision not to buy it. 😀
But I am happy that I have helped you, and that you have not transferred any money and purchased these faulty speakers.
Today I too joined the pissed off people by being scammed out of $400 for the dreaded Marc Vincent system. They came to me in a two pronged attack where the Asian fellow got my attention me with some broken english, while the Kiwi was waiting to hijack the conversation with his sales pitch. They had a plain white van half full with Hi Fi stuff and they were showcasing a projector & speakers. They were also decked out in Harvey Norman uniforms which make them tougher to catch out.
As angry as I am this is a valuable lesson in paying attention and not buying stuff out of vans from a couple of dodgy looking dooshbags.
Sorry to hear Charlie, but thanks for describing how they approached you.
Wish we had known about this scam, $2,500 for the home theatre system, plus an electrician, we are out of pocket now $3,500+ dollars and the piece of shit is still not going, plugged amp in, blew up, projector mounted on ceiling, picture upside down and the sparky is still trying to figure out how the fuk to get it round the right way-con artists, luv to get my hands on them and NO we were not led to believe it was stolen goods and we were ripping off someones boss, we were told that their boss had told them to sell it rather than take back to the warehouse, how pist off am I, these blokes were so desperate to rip us off, they came out the next day to collect the cash and home deliver the system, just need to find the rego number I wrote down along with the mobile for the guy they recommended install it, he probably would have charged me less than my sparky, but the whole thing is still a piece of crap, I never knew about people doing this sort of shit, I do now and if I ever come across ass-holes like this again I will drag there black arses out of the van and beat the shit out of them!
Oh Lynne, 😮 $3500 is the worst amount I have heard about. I am so sorry to hear about it – and the fact that they know where you live!
just got done for $600 what a pair of dicks told me they were over stock for harvey norman sounded to good to be true im in newcastle so be careful everyone same m.o. white van two mid twenties asian men.
Sorry to hear Dean, but thanks for your input, and their current location.
quite a story ill say. they came up to me once and you know, did there little talk. i told them i’d never herd about the brand before and so i didnt purchase anything from them. now where i got scammed for $1000 was with my dad. a few weeks later, they approached my dad, unfortunatly, my dad really didnt know anything about these systems so he purchased them. so 1k down the drain, and dont worry guys, as soon as they approach me again, 000 is going to be called ;-)) ;-)) oh by the way people, if you still know what they look like, notify the police, that way we might be able to get our money back.
These crooks must be eager. But what are the ods of them talking to both you and your dad?
But I don’t think you will see them again, they’ve probably moved on to another town.