“Dear PoPville,
Young men in the NoMa/Swampoodle area should be aware of a 30 y/o W/f with a thin build, shoulder-length brown hair, and tattoos who has been scamming men out of cash. Her game:
she approaches you with a sob story about how she’s lost her phone and can’t get home—she claims she lives in Culpeper, VA and just moved there from Florida—and implores you to get her cash for a cab. But when you hand her the money, she disappears. On early Friday morning, she scammed me out $40 near the corner of 1st/M St NE, and then later on Friday evening I saw her attempt the same scam on two other men, one near the corner of 3rd/L St NE and the other near the corner of 3rd and I St NE. The latter attempted scam was of a young deaf man. Both scams were interrupted/thwarted. It appears that the woman lives in the neighborhood.
It’s sad because many of us want to be sympathetic and kind to strangers — treat thy neighbor as thyself — but perhaps that’s the wrong approach in our low-trust society.”