Buying an LCD TV from a strange man on the street is not a good idea, but it’s a better idea than selling a fake LCD TV made of wood to a couple police officers, as one Indiana man found out. What went wrong?

First, the suspect asked 6 strangers (who all turned out to be plain clothes cops), if they’d like to buy some LCD TVs that he had in his trunk.

The cops agreed to take a look at the merchandise, one of them, Officer Keith Gluekert, said that he would look at the “merchandise” after grabbing his coat.

After retrieving the coat, the oh-so-observant suspected noticed the word “police” on it, and asked if the men were cops.

“Gluekert replied that he was. The suspect then reportedly claimed he wasn’t trying to sell anything,” but still allowed the officers to examine the contents of his trunk, which yielded the following:

Inside were three packaged items that appeared to be LCD TV sets from Best Buy, but upon further examination, were really large pieces of wood sealed up to look like TVs.

One of the St. Joseph County officers, Neil Hoover, is a part-time employee of Best Buy and immediately recognized that the items were not from the store, despite several labels taped to them with the name of Best Buy, according to police. The so-called labels appeared to be cut out from newspaper circular ads and taped to the packages.

The officer probably didn’t need to be an employee of Best Buy to know that the stickers were fake, but it just goes to show you, you shouldn’t buy stuff out of some random guy’s trunk. Even in the heartland.—MEGHANN MARCO

Block of wood didn’t promise to have good reception [South Bend Tribune]

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