here's another for you, in the category of 'was I being scammed? if so, how?' I was pumping at a lonely gas station in north Texas, late at night, and a guy came up to me and offered to repair the hail damage on my car. it was dark, my car was in the shadows, and anyway it had no signs of hail damage. it had hailed in the area, tornado season, fairly recently. so maybe he was just blind pushing his business to everyone. at a nowhere gas station? 11pm? without any flyers, cards, or evidence of business ownership? I said, "my car doesn't have any hail damage." he said, "yes it does." I looked at my car. he looked at my car. finally I said, "I'm good thanks" and he walked away.
That's a good category. One time a guy stopped me on the sidewalk to ask for directions, while holding a smartphone in his hand. Fishy! But his phone was broken and he wanted directions to the Verizon store. Sometimes people are just crazy. I was walking to the Port Authority bus terminal in NYC one night around 2 a.m. and brushed shoulders with some guy. He dropped a plastic bag, then started complaining to me that he was a boxer and that was his chap stick or Vaseline or something he needed and now it was no good. I offered to buy him a replacement and we walked in to the station together. He was more intent on the mission than I was and he got a few steps ahead, allowing me to take a detour. I had to lie low by my gate until the bus showed up, but survived to tell the tale.