The wife saw an ad on las vegas ABC affiliate for the close out club. These people are advertising all sorts of brand name products such as ipods, gps units, xbox 360, playstaion, laptops - all NEW and all at upwards of 70% off the retail price.
We arrived at the "club" which was actually an old large format sports authority store. The front of the store is set up with a number of people ready to take your money.
The scam starts like this:
The front of the store is set up with a large floor to ceiling curtain which has signs hanging advertising the "membership fee" you must pay to get in. The fee in Las Vegas was $5 per person (each person MUST have a membership unlike a "real" club such as costco which allows one membership per family) and you are not allowed past the ticket taker who punches the ticket without one.
You cannot even look at the goods in the "club" without a membership. They also tell you that memberships are NON refundable. Memberships last for upwards of eightweeks according to the ticket taker, however the ticket clearly states that there are only six weeks remaining.
Once you purchase and enter, the club looks like a large swap meet (flea market depending on what part of the country you are in and the term you use) with tables set up with the more expensive items at the back of the "club" and cheaper smaller items in the middle.
Now don't expect to see new items here. Everything that they sell is old or counterfeit. There are indeed ipods in the back of the location but they are all first generation and are incredibly overpriced, refurbished and may not work - you cant turn them on in the club. They have GPS units which you've never heard of for about $25 less than a brand name from a major retailer.
They also have xbox 360's for about the same discount. It should be noted that with the exception of a few no name items, all of these for sale are either obviously second hand or are remanufactured with no warranty whatsoever.
Laptop and desktop computers are there too, with literally HUNDREDS of old dell computers with windows 2000 operating system sitting behind a table. These systems cost $250, $100 more than the reputable used computer store across the street with a warranty included.
The laptops are old and cost between $300-$700 which means you can purchase a NEW computer for $50 more and have a machine literally 5x more powerful than here at the "club."
The rest of what is there is interesting. We actually had a person ask my wife and I if something looked stolen or legitimate. If we though it "fell off the back of a truck." Also, if you want to purchase open cold medications this is your place.
Most of these nick knacks have no price. A person working a cash register told us that people would switch the tags however i managed to get him to admit that it is basically "make an offer" on most things.
In short we ended up selling our passes for half what we paid to someone who wanted to look in but not drop $10 on he and his lady friend's admission.
Write this one off to a $2.50 indoor swap meet and my wife ended up with some nice incense from a Jamaican guy...
We finally ended up at the dollar store next door, where many of the same small items at the swap meet were - you guessed it, only a dolla
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