People Asking For Money at Gas Station - Scam Alert

Today I was at a gas station filling up my car when I hear the person on the other side of the pump asking a guy for a couple dollars for gas. The guy was reluctantly starting to help him and was going to use his credit card. In the middle of the transaction he must have changed his mind because then I heard the first guy say, “It's ok, I'll ask someone else.”

Me being the next closest person, I was thinking oh great, I'm next. Sure enough the guy comes over and asks for a couple dollars. He gives a story about how his card got declined and he was from out of town. He even said he would pay me back, which is ridiculous. I'm not sure why he even said that.

I was in the mood to help someone out and I figured if he is at the point where he is begging for a couple dollars at a gas station, he must be in pretty bad shape. So I gave him a few dollars. He went inside the store and I finished pumping the gas for my car.

I got in the car and stayed there for a few minutes just trying to process the situation and keep an eye on their car. A minute later they drive off and did not even fuel up the car! So at that moment, I figured I just got scammed. He probably just went in to buy something else or just faked it and drove off to run the same scam again.

My takeaway from this is that I probably will not be giving out money like this again because it is most likely a scam. It's unfortunate it happened, but for learning a lesson that only costed a few bucks, it's not that bad.

I wanted to share this story to let other people out there know about this potential scam so it does not happen to you.