They're still at it in 2007!
Farnborough, Hampshire, UK.
Guy stops in his rental car, blue Ford estate and as I get out of my car, asks me in Italian, if I speak Italian. I say a little, and he goes on to tell me, in Italian, how he has been to a big exhibition in one of the London, Hiltons but has a few products left which he cannot take back for excess baggage reasons. I look at him somewhat stupidly and say in English 'So... what? '
He then shows me the jackets and tells me that he has 4 left at prices ranging from 400 to 600, but can let me have them all for the price of just one! I tell him I don't have that sort of money, even though the jackets look nice and he even mentions Emporio Armani.
He asks me how much I do have in cash and I tell him only 50. He thens asks me how much I could get out of an ATM. I tell him 150 (why am I telling him this?) and he does a great act of grudgingly agreeing - he even offers to drive me to the ATM! I refuse his offer of a lift but say I'll be back in 10-15 minutes.
When I get back about 20 minutes later, I'm quite surprised to see that he's still there. I make sure that he is still giving me all the jackets that he had first shown me and I give him 150. He feigns disappointment because he says he had thought that the 150 would be added to the 50 already in my wallet.
He then grudgingly agrees and then makes a big show of throwing in 'a gift' for my wife and gives me the jacket he has already shown me. As soon as the exchange has been made, he's off.
During this interface he hasn't left the car, he's smartly-dressed in a suit and tie and good-looking - in an Italian-kind-of-way. He has told me that his name is Gino and that he'll be flying to Rome from Heathrow in just a few hours.
He was very convincing and looked and sounded the part. At no time did he leave the car and I remember him saying that he was looking for someone of medium build, like him, as all the jackets came only in medium as they were primarily for exhibition.
The strange thing was, that while part of me knew I was getting ripped-off, at the same time, I thought was a reassonablly good deal for 4 jackets. Any wasy, when I got
Chris
Camberley, Arizona
United Kingdom
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