The great Italian leather jacket scam

[AdeeC]

I know this scam has been around for decades and a friend of mine got caught out about 18 years ago with it and bought 6 fake leather jackets from a scammer.

Yesterday I was doing some shopping when a car pulled over. An Italian man got out, told me he was hopelessly lost and trying to get to the airport. He was very well dressed and affable. I gave him directions and then he started a conversation. He told me he was a fashion designer for ARMANI from Milan. I thought he was completely genuine. He gave me his business card and asked if I had one for him which I did not have. As I was starting to walk away he beckoned me back and said he had a gift for me. He opened the back door of his car and pulled out some fancy ARMANI shopping bags with leather jackets. This was when the penny dropped and realised I had finally been exposed to the scam. He said they were my size and shoved the bags into my hands. He said he could not take them back to Italy with him and I could have them. He pulled some jackets out of the bags but not out of the cellophane wrapping and gave me a slick talk to how good they were and were worth over $2000 each.

He got me to feel them. I was not fooled but went along with him. Then he asked for a favour and needed to buy an IPad at the airport. At this stage I had enough, I put the bags on the ground and went to my car. He followed me and still tried to get me to take the jackets.

I did a Google search and this scam appears everywhere with same or similar story. An Italian man claiming to be a fashion designer selling or giving away expensive leather jackets.This seems like a very organised international operation that has been going on for decades. Question is; Who could be behind it? Seems very professional.

As for the jackets, they are blatant fakes. The one my friend showed me looked good at first but was made of some cheap plasticised cardboard like material that tore easily.

 

[Monitor]

I heard of this, it happened to a friend, but that must've back in the 80's, I think it was, though yeah the MO was identical - even the Armani bit. I don't think there's anyone running this, just scammers learning tricks from each other, possibly working for someone local who is capable of organizing the whole thing, since the scam usually involves a decent car, etc. And that's an old trick, I'm surprised they're still bold enough to try to pull it off, with everyone having the entire sum of world knowledge on their phone.

 

[Justhandguns]

I got stopped by a couple of similar scammers in a car in London a few years back. Didn't fall for them obviously, but I guess any person with a bit of intelligence and logic would have realised that within a second.

 

[AdeeC]

It must be a successful scam or else it would disappear. All the scammers seem to be young elegant fashionable native Italians. Kind of like a working holiday job perhaps. With all the similarities it does seem organised.

 

[Cyber Lip]

I don't get it. So he offered to give you jackets, but then alluded to needing money for an ipad in the hopes you would fork over some cash?

 

[AdeeC]

I don't get it. So he offered to give you jackets, but then alluded to needing money for an ipad in the hopes you would fork over some cash?

Yes, I googled similar tactics Trying to make one feel obligated for accepting such valuable merchandise. They have a very well practised pitch and have several different approaches.

 

[navetsea]

how this pleather feels nowadays? are they deceiving to eyes and touch and smell? or still easy to tell apart.

 

[AdeeC]

how this pleather feels nowadays? are they deceiving to eyes and touch and smell? or still easy to tell apart.

Well this guy only got me to touch the bottom corner of the jacket without taking the whole jacket out of the cellophane wrapping. He was moving and grabbing different jackets real fast along with fast talking to keep me distracted from giving them a thorough examination. He also had some suede jackets.

The jacket my friend showed me looked good at first sight. I did not know much about leather then but it was very light for a leather jacket. After the first initial creasing, the finish started crumbling and tore easily. The jacket would have disintegrated in a few weeks with regular wear. The smell I can't remember.

 

[Edward]

I've seen variations on this theme. Last year, I was walking into work when an Eastern European gentleman stopped me and asked if I'd dropped a ring he'd just found. (I actually heard him throw it on the ground behind me - heard the sound, and I clicked right off what he was doing when he produced the ring.) Cheap, gold-coloured thing, looked like a standard wedding band. It had hall-marking in it. Too much detail for a theatrical costume piece, so presumably a piece designed to be fake from the off. Of course, it turned out to be too small for him, so he offered it to me. I was amused enough to go along with trying it on.... then he got into the "I give you ring, you give me money for food". This was the confirmation it was a complete scam: I offered him the fifty pence I had in my pocket, and he angrily demanded his ring back and went looking for the next victim. My guess is that he was in for about fifty pence on the ring, and hoped to scam at least five pounds out of me. This was down in front of the High Court on the Strand, an area of London where he presumably expected to find wealthy marks. In retrospect, I should have thought to report it to the police, but it was about eight 8am...

 

[AdeeC]

Here is a link describing the same scam
http://gothamist.com/2014/06/05/armani_jacket_scam.php

 

[tropicalbob]

Edward, the exact (and I mean exact) scam was pulled on my wife and me outside the Musee d'Osay in Paris a few years ago, and I reacted the same way as you. Gypsy woman, I believe.
Scams are interesting. The one with the jackets sounds like a very good one, given the right operator. I've known very bright people who fell for a lot less.

 

[navetsea]

my late father got scammed outside of his office, without even a leather jacket, probably through hypnotic or something like that, the guy talked to him, and then somehow my father opened his wallet, and the guy took all the money inside in the name of Jesus, he really said that like when translated into english it sound "so I take this money in the name of Jesus" ... lol it sounded so funny.

 

[Big J]

I've seen variations on this theme. Last year, I was walking into work when an Eastern European gentleman stopped me and asked if I'd dropped a ring he'd just found. (I actually heard him throw it on the ground behind me - heard the sound, and I clicked right off what he was doing when he produced the ring.) Cheap, gold-coloured thing, looked like a standard wedding band. It had hall-marking in it. Too much detail for a theatrical costume piece, so presumably a piece designed to be fake from the off. Of course, it turned out to be too small for him, so he offered it to me. I was amused enough to go along with trying it on.... then he got into the "I give you ring, you give me money for food". This was the confirmation it was a complete scam: I offered him the fifty pence I had in my pocket, and he angrily demanded his ring back and went looking for the next victim. My guess is that he was in for about fifty pence on the ring, and hoped to scam at least five pounds out of me. This was down in front of the High Court on the Strand, an area of London where he presumably expected to find wealthy marks. In retrospect, I should have thought to report it to the police, but it was about eight 8am...

I had an experience like that in Transylvania about 10 years ago. Some kid said I dropped a bracelet, but it was nothing I'd ever have worn. There's a lot of street kids there, so I figured the kid was switching up from begging. Anyhow, it was freezing cold, so I just gave him some money and told him to get some hot food.

 

[IRVIN-FAN]

In France , we have these italian "players" as well as the romanian kids all over the place.
Tell them you call the cops and most of the time,you will never see them again...
In any case, sad things that a lot of naive especially elderly people get trapped.

 

[rocketeer]

I've seen variations on this theme. Last year, I was walking into work when an Eastern European gentleman stopped me and asked if I'd dropped a ring he'd just found. (I actually heard him throw it on the ground behind me - heard the sound, and I clicked right off what he was doing when he produced the ring.) Cheap, gold-coloured thing, looked like a standard wedding band. It had hall-marking in it. Too much detail for a theatrical costume piece, so presumably a piece designed to be fake from the off. Of course, it turned out to be too small for him, so he offered it to me. I was amused enough to go along with trying it on.... then he got into the "I give you ring, you give me money for food". This was the confirmation it was a complete scam: I offered him the fifty pence I had in my pocket, and he angrily demanded his ring back and went looking for the next victim. My guess is that he was in for about fifty pence on the ring, and hoped to scam at least five pounds out of me. This was down in front of the High Court on the Strand, an area of London where he presumably expected to find wealthy marks. In retrospect, I should have thought to report it to the police, but it was about eight 8am...

I didn't get scammed, but on the Pont Alexandre III bridge in Paris, I stopped to take a picture of the Seine by one of those fancy lamps. Just by the lamp at chest level I spotted a gold wedding ring, a large ring stamped 24K. As I had not heard of the scam I just thought it had been left by some spurned lovers. Yes it sounds a bit sentimental and yes I pocketed it with the intention of giving it to a police officer but then I lost it, or thought I had but it had fallen into a hole in the pocket lining of the coat I was wearing.
When I got back to England it turned up a few weeks later and I wondered if it was worth anything so took it to one of those cash for gold merchants that are everywhere but it was simply brass over steel as it was magnetic.
But yes I had thought maybe there was a sad story behind it, lost love, suicide? Well, it was Paris, and I had proposed to my now wife there the day before we found the ring.

 

[MacAero]

From time to time this same "Italian Job" is appearing in the Rhein Main area of Germany too. Met ihm personally twice. Offered suits and overcoats, fakeware from a local supermarket. So I knew the "designer brand". LOL... The second time - about one year later - the guy tried it again, but remembered me and vanished. Always using a car with Italian plate. I made a photo of his car with my mobile but never managed to contact the police - of course the guy switches his cars...

 

[AdeeC]

The jacket scammers. seem to target different demographics. The scammers are not gypsies or usual tourist trap types. I got accosted in a boring middle class suburb where nothing much happens. They target locals in their home environment and not naive tourists. A reason why I might have been targeted was that I used an ATM a few minutes earlier.

 

[Edward]

my late father got scammed outside of his office, without even a leather jacket, probably through hypnotic or something like that, the guy talked to him, and then somehow my father opened his wallet, and the guy took all the money inside in the name of Jesus, he really said that like when translated into english it sound "so I take this money in the name of Jesus" ... lol it sounded so funny.

I had an experience like that in Transylvania about 10 years ago. Some kid said I dropped a bracelet, but it was nothing I'd ever have worn. There's a lot of street kids there, so I figured the kid was switching up from begging. Anyhow, it was freezing cold, so I just gave him some money and told him to get some hot food.

Doesn't surprise me. I was in Brasov in 1992, just about two years after the revolution (or counter-revolution depending on opinion ), and there were a lot of kids begging. It was late January, still very cold down there, and I saw some of these kids running around in the snow. There was the beginnings of a market for Western tourists there then, as it was astonishingly cheap for us (and there are the nearby mountains around Poiana(?) Brasov, which was selling itself as a cheap place to ski). I've only been in Romania once since, in November 2011, Tigur Muis (again, in Transylvania). I didn't spend much time in town so I don't know if begging kids or kids selling trinkets was common, but I imagine it probably is again now. There was a hard recession in Romania over the past few years, as the post-Ceaucescu economy was based on attracting international investment. When the crash hit, a lot of that was pulled out of Romania pretty fast, and the jobs with it.

The jacket scammers. seem to target different demographics. The scammers are not gypsies or usual tourist trap types. I got accosted in a boring middle class suburb where nothing much happens. They target locals in their home environment and not naive tourists. A reason why I might have been targeted was that I used an ATM a few minutes earlier.

Folks are likely less on the lookout for a scam in their own patch, I imagine. That and it looks less like a scam in those circumstances, I should think.

The oddest one I've seen involves guys hanging around outside shops on London's Tottenham Court Road, an area known for its computer and technology shops. They'll approach folks leaving these stores and ask "are you looking for a laptop?" If folks bite, they'll take them round the corner and offer them a 'new' laptop out of the boot of their car, for about half price. Invariably, it's a bate and switch, and what folks receive is a shiny laptop box with a brick or a bag of sand inside. I don't understand how anyone doesn't twig there's something dodgy right from the off, but I suppose a lot of folks are just blinded by the idea of making a big saving...

 

[mihai]

Quite common this found ring/bracelet thing is run by Romanian gypsies(esp in Europe). Happened also to me and my parents in Paris, their gypsy accent French was amusing.
However they are a minority, an ethnic group(gypsies) living in Romania. They are Romanian citizens(if they have the papers ) but they are not genetically related with the Romanian population. Gypsies are a cast from India brought as slaves in the late middle ages in the Austrian-Hungarian empire area.
Please note also that this beggars that some of you visiting Romania saw, were most likely gypsies. Although before 1989 and above the state tried to integrate them (special places in schools, allowances) they choose to live by their own old rules. As a result most of them parasite instead of doing something useful. Begging places are territories and you need to be in a certain branch to have access. If you're willing to help these people would be better to offer them something to eat instead of money. The money go to their pimps and up in hierarchy - the big gypsy mafia bosses. You'd be amazed to see which Mercs, Bmws, Ferraris, Porsches... they have in Romania. (see https://www.google.lu/search?q=interlopi+ardeal+tigani+masini&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=955&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=5tRqVdvIJomiU6CQgKgJ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=interlopi+tigani+masini+palate)

Now about the Italian scam stuff. I see every day things advertised like Italian made(clothing,shoes,furniture, leather...) that look/work mediocre or does not justify the sticker asking price. Go figure out 30K euros for a kitchen(no rare essence wood or rare crystals). Maybe coming from a certain country I'm rather over-sensitive to scamming.

 

[Monitor]

They are Romanian citizens(if they have the papers ) but they are not genetically related with the Romanian population.

How can human beings not be genetically related to human beings?