Well dressed italian man in late 50's stopped to ask me for directions to Newark Airport in order to catch a flight back to Italy. Claimed to have left New York City Javits Center fashion show. It was 11:00 am. Dark complexion with broken english. Said he had to make it to airport by 1:00 pm to return his cream colored Lexus SUV, New York tags. Even showed me what appeared to be a rental agreement.
After agreeing to follow me in my car to get him going in the right direction, he asked me if I would give him one minute of my time to view clothing he had from the show. Again, he was well dressed with shirt, tie, custom shoes, gold watch, etc. He was believable. I agreed to see what he had. He also kept saying "I am a business man, you can trust me". He took from the back seat 2 - 3 bags of what appeared to be designer leather jackets. They seemed to be sprayed with a chemical that made them even smell like leather.
He then proceeded to trump them up to be worth 5 - 8 thousand dollars. Said he did not want to take them back to Italy because the import tax he would have to pay would be too great. He said make me an offer. Very insistent and pushy. I said I did not need any clothes and any offer I would make would be too low. I felt he may have been armed.
At this point all I wanted to do was get away from him. Under duress I offered him $400. For 6 articles of clothing. He played being offended and said to please come up with more. I said no way but he kept on insisting. He eventually followed me to my banks ATM where I withdrew $550. Big mistake. He pulled up to where the ATM was in the banks lobby. Also it should be noted that at this point he placed the clothes in the trunk of my car. So, he tricked me into feeling obligated into giving him something. I finally parted with $550. For 5 articles of clothing, all supposedly leather.
Once I handed the monies over he sped off. Obviously never needing my directions to Newark Airport in the first place. All the clothing had foil stamped tags, plastic bags with the name "Collezioni A.", and even larger seudo cloth bags with the same name printed on them. It is my hope that one of the cameras at the bank caught the transaction and his license plate. A report was filed with the police department and the clothes with tags photographed to be placed on a police website.
I would encourage anyone who was scammed by this low life to report it to their local police department as well so they can build a file of information which they can use to catch this person (s). You should tell as many people as you know about this low life, including where you get your gas in the morning. Maybe someone can get a plate number. It is only a matter of time before I run into him again or he is caught.
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