Was this guy trying to steal my card?

I was at a gas station yesterday and a guy gave me a story about how he was stranded in my town and just needed gas to get back home. He said he left his wallet on top of his car and it fell off.

I told him I’d help him out, so I went inside and asked to put some money on his pump. As soon as I paid and walked out, he said ‘You can cancel it; I found my wallet’ and drove away.

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What happened to the money you put on his pump? Seems he was trying to scam you by telling a sob story about his missing wallet. I’ve had a variation of this ‘gas money’ scam where someone tried to sell me an inactivated gift card for half the value because he didn’t have cash for gas.

@luke
I assume he wanted cash. You can’t buy crack with pump credit.

JacobDavis3 said:
@luke
I assume he wanted cash. You can’t buy crack with pump credit.

Yeah. This one seems really simple.

JacobDavis3 said:
@luke
I assume he wanted cash. You can’t buy crack with pump credit.

Exactly

@luke
I went back in and asked the cashier to cancel the transaction and he said no prob. I’m wondering if the guy put some kind of skimmer on the reader and wasn’t expecting me to go inside.

sage said:
@luke
I went back in and asked the cashier to cancel the transaction and he said no prob. I’m wondering if the guy put some kind of skimmer on the reader and wasn’t expecting me to go inside.

He wanted money. He didn’t want gas.

sage said:
@luke
I went back in and asked the cashier to cancel the transaction and he said no prob. I’m wondering if the guy put some kind of skimmer on the reader and wasn’t expecting me to go inside.

Ohhhh! He told you to cancel it (not the cashier). Then, I have no idea. Maybe he actually didn’t have money. People who put skimmers on gas pumps don’t stand there and try to get people to use the skimmer, they come back days later and collect the card info.

sage said:
@luke
I went back in and asked the cashier to cancel the transaction and he said no prob. I’m wondering if the guy put some kind of skimmer on the reader and wasn’t expecting me to go inside.

Free gas is free gas. If he was a dishonest person, why wouldn’t he have filled up anyway?

He wanted money to buy drugs. You can’t buy drugs with money on a pump.

Yeah, he was definitely after a quick buck. Usually, they just want cash and make a show of going inside and paying but then not pumping and then getting the cashier to refund the sale and the scammer pockets the $. (I worked at a gas station for a long time and tried to watch for these events).

Once got gas and some cold meds late one night and a guy stopped me asking if I had cashapp and if his son could send me money to put on a pump. I was really skeptical because I know there are Cashapp scams. I said yes anyway. He tried to take my phone to input his son’s name. I said no, just tell me his tag and I’ll request the amount from him. He did, I put money on his pump, nothing happened and it seemed pretty legit afterwards. I don’t think he realized he was being sketchy or that there are such scams, kinda wish I told him to be careful if it happens to him again. He also asked me a few personal questions like what do I do for work and where I worked. I lied cuz I’m 25f and not about to tell a grown man where I worked. Super weird interaction. Be careful out there.

Hahaha…

This sounds just like a person who thought he lost his wallet at the last stop, thinking: probably left it on the car as I always do that… Finding out it’s on / beneath his seat and it just fell out of his pocket. Not everything is a scam.