Tales from behind the wheel: "The Scam Artist!"
'Twas the morning before a short vacation when I drove to Cupertino to pick up a client & their family for a full-day booking (8+ hour tour). As usual, I offered coffee or tea and got one of them a drink from Starbucks. Before I could leave Starbucks to head to their hotel on time, they text messaged me (summarized):
Scammer: Hey, my wife is out of diapers, can you do me a huge favor and buy some before you pick us up?
Me: Uh, sure, or I can pick you up early and we can go together and grab them, as I've never bought diapers before and might mess it up.
Scammer: Also, I'm in a meeting and it's our custom to give a work gift, and I need you to pick up a gift card while you're at the store grabbing diapers. A $200 eBay gift card. I'll pay you back right away.
Me: (Alarm bells going off in my head) Ah, um, what? I then try to call them: no answer, and no voicemail box was set up.
Me: I can't reach you, please call, or I'll see you at the hotel in 15 minutes.
Scammer: I'll be out of my meeting in 5.
Scammer: I tried calling you multiple times (they did not) and couldn't reach you.
Me: I'm at the hotel, meet me in the lobby if you are in fact a real person and not a scammer.
Scammer: I won't be insulted like this, what do you think I am!?
Me: I'm in the lobby, just come down and prove you're real and at this hotel.
End of summary. I spoke with the hotel manager and let them know all the details of the attempted scam and how someone was using their location as a fraud meetup point.
At the end of the convo, the scammer admitted to the scam, which I've never seen before, but likely just to get me to feel pity and still give them money, to which I just blocked them.
Summary: When someone wants a gift card, it's a scam. They were never at the hotel and would likely use a local pickup "agent" to grab the goods pretending to be a family member, then disappear, or just try to get me to read off the digits over the phone/text.
Good reason to start my mini vacation early and hop on a plane to Scottsdale. ✈️