I have had three different run ins with them. They are scum of the earth. The first time was at a rest area off an interstate in South Carolina. A young couple with a baby approached me and said they were stuck and almost out of gas.
I told them I would buy them $10 worth at the next exit. We stopped and they waited for me to give my credit card to the cashier then proceeded to fill their tank with around $30 worth. I should have phoned the sheriff but was in a hurry and just chalked it up to experience.
The next time, I was doing a little shovel work in my parent’s driveway. They were in their 70s and financially comfortable. A guy in a new pickup stopped by and asked about paving the driveway. I told him my parents liked it just the way it was and he drove off without any problem. I had immediately sensed a fraud tho.
The third time I was caught off guard as I had phoned him from a card he had left at a nearby store’s bulletin board. He advertised yard work.
I needed someone to haul a new yard tractor home. He agreed to do it and said he would only charge me for the gas it took. I told him that was not enough but he insisted so I said OK. After we got the tractor on his trailer he stopped for gas and filled up two empty tanks. Took around $60. Nothing much I could do and just decided to think of it as one of those things to never fall for again.
They tend to be handsome, well groomed and drive new pickups. They will often hit a general area for a few weeks then move on but some are semi permanent residents.
Their scam I saw was thus:
They approach the victim and say “Our boss told us to go to the warehouse and get 10 of (whatever. In one case it was large speakers). We accidentally got 11 of them, so we need to get rid of one now, before returning to the boss. We’ll give you a great deal”.
They then open up a box and display the large speakers. “But hey, let me give you an unopened one” they say.
And when you get home you find it is full of bricks.
2 dudes tried it on me in an Academy parking lot. The product was “A home surround sound stereo system”. I laughed in their faces.
More recently I was in an HEB supermarket. A child passed behind me and threw something at my back. He was acting odd. I followed him. Turns out he was a filthy gypsy who was eating food off the shelves and hiding the wrappers, all with his parents’ approval. I stood by the family as they stole; the child was very sneaky about it. I contacted management. They did not believe the part about the parents coaxing the children to steal; it was just too crazy for a law abiding American to conceive, so I took the manager to the wrappers and then pointed out the family. The dad looked like he was going to stab me!
Filthy gypsies are filthy, disgusting people who think that one of their ancestors obtained a nail from Christ’s cross and thus God allows them to steal. For real, that is the justification for their criminality.