Seems Legit?

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

A guy rang our doorbell late this morning saying approximately "Hey, wanna buy a driveway?"
the story being something about working a utility job near by and having left-over asphalt.

I'll you you right now, though I feel like an idiot doing so, that I talked him down to half his price and did a hand-shake agreement on it. Then I was confused that he drove off in a hurry. When was he coming back to do the work? No, I didn't give him any money; and no, he's not likely to come back. He was probably making as graceful an exit as he could after my taking too long asking him questions.

My friends quickly edjumicated me that the "left-over asphalt" scam is actually one of the 'oldest scams' out there (for certain hyperbolic definitions of 'oldest'), and pointed me to http://www.apa-mi.org/asphalt_scam_press_release.php (and more generally, https://www.google.com/search?q=left-over+asphalt+scam ).

I called him into to Somerville non-emergency police line, and am posting here in case any of you are as nearly-gullible as I am. If you get the same visitor, you can call him in more promptly than I did and give the PD more useful information.

Let my close-call-stupidity save those of you as gullible as I am. The rest of you, who are too smart to fall for this, be nice.

[tag this "local scams"]

Comments

[ron_newman]

I tagged as "home repair" and "crime".