My poker buddies are apparently con men...

Saturday night I was with some buddies playing poker.  Nothing surprising there.  One was asking questions about a new business he was thinking about starting, and that led to talking about how I am considering getting back into the storage auction and resale game, at least part time.

They had questions about how things work and I gave them the 10,000 foot overview.  The inevitable question came up about the storage facilities making money off the auctions and I told them about how in a lien auction they only get what they're owed and in theory have to give anything over that to the owner.

The next thing asked was :
"Well then... couldn't you just rent a cheap locker, put a lot of boxes in with labels indicating expensive items, or empty boxes from expensive items and decoys, then let the unit expire and see if someone paid more than was left on rent to make a buck?"

Sometimes I worry about the people I hang out with...

It's been done and will be done again.

Of course if the un-ethical person who does this uses his own I.D. his credit history will take a hit for not paying his bills. Won't matter if the auction brought in what was owed or more than was owed.

Several years ago that empty box scene happened in Sacramento, CA. Guy paid $4K for the locker of empty boxes (brand new cardboard tool boxes, etc). He put up such a stink that he got his money back and the guys who had done the setup were banned from attending auctions (yes, they were auction buyers who knew the biz).

Those guys haven't been back since but I'm sure they're up to no good somewhere.

yeah way back this was kind of an issue. in my area some of the facilities are taking your social security number and turning you over to collections if you dont pay. the couple hundred bucks you make off running a scam like this isn't worth ruining your credit unless your credit is already in the toilet anyway. technically this is fraud since they had the attempt to defraud hte storage facility as well ass bidders however it could never really be proven. this annoys me, anyone who's ever been in the storage auction game i would hope would never do this as you understand how much work it is, how thin margins can be and what a disapointment this would be if it happenned to you.