#fake #deceived
Caught at three-and-sixty, he lost three-and-fifty. Money, cash, 350 euros. Roberto M., 85 years old, had just left the Milanese branch of Crédit Agricole in Viale Giovanni da Cermenate, perhaps “baptised” at that very moment by the fraudster-spy who imagined him fresh from a withdrawal, the ideal victim who had in the meantime returned to the own Toyota C-Hr. From here, a sophisticated plot started last March, with the con man tailing him in a blue Fiat Panda, ready to strike. And in fact “boom”, Roberto hears a noise, “like a bump on the bodywork as I turned into via Pezzotti, but I didn’t think I had hit another car, so I continued to the newsagent to buy the newspaper”. The stranger immediately joins him, gesticulates, shouts, accuses him of having rear-ended him, shows him the rear part of the Panda: “Which is actually damaged…”. He already was. And that noise? “I think he rolled down the window and punched my side, which was higher.”
The script of the fake accident is well thought out and also acted out by accomplices, because the devil is in the details, such as the presence on the Panda of a woman and two children, a “family picture” that makes that man “Italian with an accent from the South”, first and foremost a father, a husband. An agitated guy because, perhaps, he is in a hurry to take his children to school and therefore he cannot get lost in reasoning, let alone a friendly observation. And the victim lowers his guard. What makes the elderly Milanese take the bait completely, «but despite my age I consider myself smart, I still play bridge and golf», are some blue signs (the same color as the Panda) on the front bumper of his Toyota: «Who knows how they they had facts, when… But I was really stupid, the next day I filed a complaint for fraud, and if I now expose myself in the Corriere it is to raise awareness among citizens, because these people are skilled and have aggressive ways that arouse anxiety and confusion”.
We were talking about accomplices, a qualitative leap compared to the more well-known but similar (in dynamics) “mirror scam”. In this case the new actor, the one who must convince the victim to put his wallet in his hand immediately, because it is what is most convenient, is a self-styled traffic policeman who answers the scammer’s call on speakerphone. Mr. Roberto remembers his words well: «We don’t have time to go out, come to an agreement among yourselves, otherwise whoever caused the damage risks a 490 euro fine and a deduction of 6 points from the driving license». Inventions. But here it is, the input, the economic threshold on which to negotiate.
Even the elderly man, a bridge enthusiast, tries to play a “card” to surprise the accuser with a small family spectator. «I suggest he go to my body shop to assess the damage. Obviously, as it happens, he replies that his trusted workshop is closer, in Via Lusitania. We reach her, but in my car, because he “just needs to show the photos” of the ruined part. Only he enters, into the body shop that doesn’t actually exist, but I discovered it the next day, and when he comes out he is even more furious: “To repair the car you need 700 euros. So, what do we do? I have no more time to waste.” As I take him back to the Panda, I give him everything I have in my wallet: 350 euros.” End. Indeed there is still room for one last coup, which is a humiliation, the manifestation of the scam: «The man retrieves an anti-Covid mask and cleans the blue dye from my bumper, then disappears while the woman on the Panda with the children sets off again to recover it. I check the area of the hypothetical “failure” better, there wasn’t a scratch.”
