HenryLaxen - 29 Jul 2003
- The Ill Daughter
I saw this on the MazInfo mailing list:
Yesterday evening a man came to our door asking for help for his daughter that had been stung by a scorpion. He wore a baseball cap, had black hair & moustache, spoke English and was of slight build. He said he lived 1 1/2 blocks from us but we had never seen him before. He said he had taken his daughter to Cruz Roja but they didn't have any antiserum and he didn't have enough money to buy it. He said he had tried to call the US consular agent but they were closed. I asked him to wait a minute while I checked with a guest who knows the agent personally and got the 24 hr. cellular phone number. When I gave it to him, he said that was the number he had tried and even the police had tried to reach her, to no avail. When I explained that he was going to have a hard time getting help this way because there was a scam going around using this very same technique, he said, nervously, that he didn't have time to dally, he would just have to continue to go door to door and left. We checked and he was nowhere to be seen!
Posted by rockydog85251
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- The Stuck ATM Card
Thieves are putting a thin clear plastic sleeve into the atm card slot at local atm machines. When you insert your atm card, the machine can't read the strip, so it keeps asking you to re-enter your pin number. Meanwhile, someone behind you watches as you enter and re-enter your pin number. Eventually you give up, thinking the machine has captured your card and walk away. The thieves then remove the plastic sleeve complete with your card, and empty your account. The way to avoid this is to run your finger along the card slot before you insert your card. the sleeve is rigid and has a couple of tiny prongs the thieves use to get it out of the slot, and you will be able to feel them. The police would like as many people as possible to be aware of this, so please pass this information along to your family, friends, and co-workers.
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- The car door molding
This actually happened to me, and is typical of the kind of small time scams at which the local Mazatlecos excel. My friends Jack, Valerie, and I pulled into the parking lot across the street from the Sharp hospital, and were approached by a couple of locals who motioned us over to the car we had just parked. They proceeded to push on each of the doors and demonstrate the large subsequent motion they could induce. They told us this is because the manufacturer did not seal the doors properly, and for only 20 pesos per meter of material, they would be happy to seal our doors properly. We had a doctor's appointment in the building next door, and they promised they would be done before we were finished with our appointment. Sure enough, as we exited from the building, they were waiting for us. The slammed all the doors and pushed on them, pointing out the lack of motion. They then announed that they had used 25 meters of material, and that I owed them 500 pesos. I was a bit incredulous that they could have used that much material, but upon opening the doors and inspecting the work, I could see that they put two or three layers of their stuff around everything. I had been scammed, and since they were quite a bit bigger than we were, I decided it would be best to pay up. The next day Nadine started complaining that every time she closed the door, it would not stay closed. She had to really slam it to get it to close properly. A few days later I had the stuff they applied removed, and the doors worked great, just as they always had. I have to give these guys credit for an imaginitive scheme.
- Mustard/Ketchup Bandits
by JackMoreau March 16, 2005
It's happened all over Mazatlan but lately in some of the grocery stores such as Mega, Soriana, Walmart, and Gigante. There are usually two people who tell you that you have mustard or ketchup on your back and they offer to help you by cleaning you off. While they do this they also clean you out, of your cash, wallet, credit cards etc. The best thing to do before they touch you is to scream loudly “NO” NO” until they leave you alone. Also shouting policia is a good idea.