Complaint Review: Matthew Swenten of MSD

This guy is totally bogus.  He approached me at a gas station in Kingman, AZ.  I was initially struck by how clean cut and tall he was.  He is a mid-30s white man, well dressed, and well spoken.  I was traveling through AZ going back to Texas after dropping my son at USC in LA.  My oldest child had recently graduated from Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in LA.  These are both private and expensive colleges.  I had stickers of both schools on the back window of the car, my wife's Lexus hybrid.

The pitch.  He told me that he was an area manager with Best Buy and he had to close a "couple" of stores in this area.  He returning back to his home office with a couple of large projection screens and projectors.  He said that Southwest Airlines (SWA) would not let him take the long screens on the plane.  He said that he was writing off the cost of the equipment and that he was just "giving them away" and asked if I was interested.

The props.  He started off the conversation by talking about LMU and shown me his "LMU" tattoo that he had on his arm.  He said he was a LMU graduate and that he played basketball there.  I did not get a great look at the tattoo but I remember that it was very basic.  In hindsight, I think it was a fake rub on tattoo that he created after seeing my LMU car sticker.  LMU is not a well known big school.  Most people have never heard of it.  He gave me his business card which did not say "Best Buy".  It was a cheap card with his "name", phone number and his "area"...Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah.  He invited me to his van to show me the equipment.  He opened up the box to show the top of the projector.  Really just the top of the box where the 3D glasses and remotes were stored.  The body of the projector was under a cardboard divider.  He did not take the projector out of the box.  He pointed to the long tubes that carried the screens.  He then showed me a xerox copy of the invoice detailing the value of the equipment.  It was around $3000.  On the invoice, he had hand written a SWA confirmation number and departure date and time in the corner of the document as if he was using it as a scratch pad. 

The scam.  He told me that all I had to do was to pay the taxes on the value of the equipment.  He showed me the tax line of the invoice.  It showed a tax amount of $278.  He told me that there was a ATM in the store that I can use to get the money.  I told him that I thought he was "giving them away".  He told me that the taxes had to be paid and that it was great deal to get $3000 worth of equipment for $278.

The suspicion.  While plausible, everything was a bit off.  I have never seen a Best Buy close down much less a "couple" of them.  Why was he hand carrying the equipment back?  Most people would ship especially if traveling by plane.  I have never seen SWA refuse any packages.  I have seen all sorts of stuff in the oversize baggage area and I have traveled with golf clubs several times.  The invoice was a xerox copy.  It was not original.  He probably had lots of copies of the same trumped up invoice.  The invoice did not branded Best Buy.  How do I run into a LMU grad at a gas station in Kingman, AZ (pop. 28,000)?  His business card was not branded "Best Buy" and did not have a formal address or even a PO box number.  It just stated his name, the title of "Owner" and a company name of "MSD".  Who knows what MSD stands for and he was certainly not owner of Best Buy.

The brush-off.  I told him that I was happy to take the projector and screen off his hands but that I was not going to pay anything for them since he was "giving them away".  He did not understand why I could not see the bargain.  I told him that I did not have any money and was not going to give him any.  He stated that I did not have any money because I drove an expensive car and sent my kids to expensive schools.  I am not wealthy but he thought I was.  He thought he had a perfect patsy.  He wasted 15 minutes of my life that I'll never get back.