The worst thing about con-artists is that they make you feel like you did something wrong

[janradder]

About two years ago while heading into the grocery store, I was a approached by a man who looked hot, tired, and panicked. In his hand was a red plastic gas can.

"I'm so sorry to bother you," he said, sounding out of breath. "But my wife just went into labor at Regents Hospital and my van ran out of gas over there on Lake Street."

He pointed to an old tan and brown minivan from the early nineties.

"It's our first baby and I can't believe this happened -- I-I've never run out of gas before -- and I don't have any money. I just need enough to get over to the hospital. Please, if you could just help me out, I'd really appreciate it."

I usually ignore these stories, but there was something about this man and his behavior that made me think he was telling the truth. He was a Black man who looked to be about my age and he had a good, honest smile. And I thought about how I would have felt had the situation been reversed. If it had been my first child, I thought, and I'd run out of gas, I would have looked and sounded just like him. So I gave him the twenty dollar bill I had in my pocket and after thanking me profusely, he rushed off in the direction of the gas station with his red, plastic gas can.

I watched him disappear between the cars in the parking lot and without his bright earnest face before me, I wondered if I'd been taken. Still, I thought, maybe I hadn't, and I'd really helped the guy out.

Today, as I got out the car at another grocery store with the boys in tow, there he was.

"Excuse me," he said, looking hot, tired, and panicked, but without a gas can. "My wife just went into labor at Regents Hospital and I was wondering if you could help me."

"No. I can't help you at all," I said.

I looked at that smiling face, which suddenly looked a little scared.

"Yeah, okay," he said, and rushed off looking for another mark.

I turned away, pissed off at myself both for letting him con me two years earlier and for not saying something when he'd approached me with the same con. "She's in labor and you ran out of gas again?" I told myself I should have said. But I hadn't. Instead, I walked through Aldi, feeling like an idiot for being taken by the guy. But his eyes -- his eyes and his smile, they looked so honest and earnest. And as I drove away, looking to see if he was in the parking lot so I could say something, I cursed him for using that honest face to take advantage of other people.

Comments

[dryadjuna.livejournal.com]

It totally sucks that people who ACTUALLY have big crises that need help will have such a fight convincing people they are in earnest because of these assholes. What I've unscientifically determined, is if the person gets a full, clear message across in the first sentence, they are totally a scam artist. A real person in trouble is so flummuxed by how to convince a stranger they are for real, that they can't simplify it so well. For the cases I can't be sure, if I offer 'oh I'll pay the gas station attendant' or whatever the equivalent is, they get the scared look at run off if they don't actually want whatever it was. We've got one guy at my local grocery store that runs there whenever it's raining to claim he needs a windshield wiper motor. Now I tell him off, but the first time I started to explain where the nearest auto parts store was, and he got the panicked look and kept trying to pull the conversation back to his plan.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

You're probably right about people who really are having a big crisis not being able to sum up their situation in their first sentence. Usually I hear stories about how someone's car has been impounded or how they're trying to get out to the suburbs and need bus fare, none of which seem at all likely. I have to say, this guy was pretty good. He definitely came up with an original problem and he sold it well.

[deanarae.livejournal.com]

Look at it this way: You were supporting his acting career. Maybe he'll make the big time some day.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

Taking the idea that all the world's a stage, perhaps he already has, at least on the community theater circuit.

[rsheslin.livejournal.com]

When I was 20 and living off of Hollywood Blvd. in the early 90s, a girl knocked on my door and said that she was locked out of her apartment, the manager wasn't answering his door, and could she use my phone?

She was there maybe ten minutes. After she left, I discovered that, when I'd stepped into another room for a moment, she'd cleaned out my wallet.

I called the cops, filed a report, then went down to the boulevard to vent at my friends (a group of bikers I hung out with.) Their universal reaction was to tell me that I'd been stupid to have let her into my apartment.

I thought about that for a while, but I couldn't accept it. Then and there, I made a deliberate, conscious choice that I would far rather risk getting ripped off than to live a life of fear and suspicion. I've been much happier ever since.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

For me it's not so much that he got twenty bucks out of me, but that he took advantage of my trust. I've always been suspicious of people asking for any kind of financial assistance if I don't know them, but maybe that's because I've lived in cities for most of my life now. I have to say, I can't see myself giving anyone cash again, but I probably would help them out in some other way if they needed it.

[smeehrrr.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better, I fell for the exact same scam in Seattle a few years ago. I was actually giving the guy a ride to "pick up his car" when I realized he was full of shit and now I had a (apparently benign, but who knows) criminal in my car, so I happily dropped him off at the (notably car-free) spot he indicated and chalked it up to experience.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

One thing this experience did was give me a little compassion for people who fall for bigger scams that sound more ridiculous because for as long as he was talking to me, that guy seemed completely honest and on the level. And I still don't feel as dumb as my friend who got ripped off at three card monty on 14th Street in NYC.

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

you are the better man

you never know why he really needed it

perhaps you helped him when no one else would

i know he is lying. that isn't on you.

you helped someone when they needed it.

he didn't have to deserve it for it to be the right thing to do. if your wife asks, i wasn't here.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

I still feel taken advantage of, though.

[st-writes.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain acutely. I so hate to feel tricked and stupid that I pretty much brush off anyone who approaches me like that.

[janradder.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's really the worst part about scam artists, I think -- they make you feel stupid and they make you think just about anyone else in need is a scam artist too.

[rsheslin.livejournal.com]

This is the reaction my friends were trying to instill in me: that I was stupid to have trusted someone. I can't live like that. It eats me up inside to view the world with a heart tainted with suspicion.

When I first found out that the girl had stolen from my wallet, I felt violated. I was furious, devastated, nauseated at the betrayal.

And yet, I realized I had a choice. Yes, she did deliberately worm her way into my confidence with the intent of stealing from me. But that didn't mean that I had to hate her for it.

I am not stupid. I am compassionate, and if that means that, every now and then, I trust someone who is not worthy of that trust and they steal me blind, so be it. Perhaps they know no other way.

But I will not allow others to define who I am.