One common characteristic I've seen in reasonably good cons is that the
amount of money involved is small enough that it won't be greatly missed by
the mark, and not enough to raise a lot of concern about all the details of
the story.
I was a bit surprised by my neighbors story 'cause the amount was $50--which
I'd view as pretty significant--but I guess my mindset hasn't kept up with
inflation.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles H. Buchholtz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Mayer, Ann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <UnivCity@list.purple.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2005 10:25 AM
Subject: Re: [UC] Re: Scammer or Casing Alert
> From: "Mayer, Ann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2005 22:58:07 -0500
>
> These guys sound smarter than the guy who stopped me one morning
> Telling me a story about how he had just lost a $25 bill and
> Desperately needed a loan to get a taxi to take him to the
> Airport.
>
> There's another one that I've seen three or four times in as many
> years. It was pretty convincing the first time, but now that I've
> seen it a few times I'm impervious. I've run into this in different
> parts of the city, with people heading in different directions.
>
> Say you're walking west on Walnut. A guy approaches me walking east,
> and asks me directions to 69th street station. So, you tell him to
> turn around and walk about 25 blocks west. He deflates, he's already
> been walking for 15 blocks because some cop gave him bad directions.
> So, now he's walking alongside you, talking to you. "Maybe the cop
> gave me bad directions on purpose. The cop got all freaked out when
> he found out I had AIDS, didn't want me near him and stuff." "Oh,
> that's awful", you say. He tells you what a good person you are, many
> people don't understand about AIDS, but you aren't one of those. He
> takes your hand, and there's a touching moment (literally) because he
> really appreciates the simple human contact. Then he explains that
> he's on his way to an AIDS hostel or retreat or something in
> Swarthmore, and that once he gets to 69th Street station he's got 50
> cents for the train - someone said it was the R3?. After that, it's a
> pretty standard con, money for the train to 69th, money for the R3 to
> Swarthmore, money for food, etc. He may throw in that he needs to be
> there by some deadline, that he isn't going to make if he needs to
> walk to 69th and then panhandle for the fare.
>
> I've gotten this in center city when I was walking east ("City Hall to
> Temple"), and in west philly walking west ("69th street station to
> Swarthmmore"). Same story, possibly the same guy, it was more than a
> year later. As I said, I've gotten it three or four times. Probably
> comes from walking a lot.
>
> One guy added a particularly pathetic twist. He appeared to be a deaf
> mute, with a small pad of paper and a pencil. Same story, though.
>
> --- Chip
>
>
>
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