Learned my lesson the hard way many years ago.
While staying in a seedy hotel (all my young wife and I felt we could afford and long before we owned a credit card) upon checking out and getting into our pick-up another vehicle and I backed into each other simultaneously. Being the young driver, I felt mostly responsible and paid some cash to the other driver, much older than myself and a resident of that town...
Unfortunately, I realized after departing that place that the other driver was there for either drugs or prostitution and if I had simply held my ground and insisted on going into the lobby and calling police (after taking his plate number) he probably would have been the one shelling out cash.
Learn from my mistake and always call the police in a “fender” bender.
Damn.
A couple years ago my husband was backing out of a parking space and hit another vehicle. He felt bad and told them he’d pay for the damage. I was PO’ed because that guy was backing out also and who backed into who? I thought it was a scam and when we got a call less than an hour later telling us that they had an estimate for $3600.00 (more than the car was worth), I knew it was a scam.
By that time I had convinced my husband and he told them to forget about it.
Pulled into the lot to exchange insurance info, and as soon as I went back to my car to get my insurance info, he got into his car and high-tailed it away.
Took me about 5 minutes to realize, he had been pulling out of a bar...
Cheers!