Did I get scammed?
Ro and I were loading groceries and stuff into the back of the truck the other night. The Wal-mart parking lot was full.
A 20′ish woman comes up to us. Let’s call her Sheryl. She was clearly embarrassed. (Or was she?) She’d locked her keys in the car. Had only $60.00 on her, and needed only $6.00 more for the locksmith to get her into her car.
I’ve locked my keys in the car before. Easy enough to do.
Ro mentions she should get a magnetic hide-a-key. Sheryl, without hesitation, replies that her Ford key is too long for the boxes. (Or is it?) And being my wonderful wife, Ro proceeds to tell Sheryl that I work for KAFE and that she should listen to the station. So there we are. The 3 of us. Chatting. I even queiried Sheryl about this being a ploy. She pointed to her car. (The one I couldn’t see because it was wayyyy over there, in the dark.)
I felt bad for Sheryl. She’d locked herself out of her car. She was in need of a quick, small amount of cash.
Ro and I gave her the money.
Sheryl disappeared to her car that was over by the Taco Bell.
As we finished the offloading of the rest of the food and goods, my mind starting admiring the scam. If that’s what it was. I admired the creativity and/or the self-congratulatory fact that Ro and I were kind people.
* * Dark, busy parking lot.
* * We were halfway through putting groceries away. Not likely that we would just ‘up and follow’ her to confirm her story.
* * She needed a specific amount. A ‘panhandler’ says “can you spare some change”?
* * She just made 6 bucks. WOW! If she could repeat 3-4 times an hour, she’s making up to $24.00 an hour!
* * She could stay in that parking lot all night, for numerous nights in a row to ‘mine’ the available kind people like me and Ro. (We don’t go shopping every night. More like once a week.)
So..did we get scammed? Or did we just ‘help’ someone?
February 20th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Perhaps you did get scammed, or perhaps you just rewarded a scammer for her creativity. I’m sure feeling like you’ve helped the poor woman get into her car was worth the 6 bucks, even if it was a scam.
Last summer my mother, who is herself broke, was approached by a 40-ish, clean cut man, who told her that he was a fifth grade english teacher and was visiting a friend in the hospital when his car was broken into and his wallet stolen. He needed gas money for the drive home. She gave him a 100 dollars. She told me later that she felt as if she was scammed but wasn’t sure. I told her that there are no ‘english’ teachers in 5th grade, kids have one teacher.
I figure the more elaborate the story, the more likely it’s a scam.
When I was 12 I saw a guy with a sign: will work for food, I gave him some crackers and he basically yelled at me and told me he wanted money, not food. I’ve been skeptical ever since.
Keep up the good work Ken, nice to have you back in Bellingham.
Joey