“I put diesel instead of petrol, can you lend me 10 euros?” But he’s a serial fraud

a series. He connects his victims to petrol stations between Serriat, Bergamo and Carobio degli Angeli. He approaches asking for help: “I put diesel in the tank by mistake. If I add petrol I can dilute the diesel without causing engine problems. But I have no more money or credit cards. Can you lend me at least 10 euros?”

Then he ensures that once he gets home he will charge Postepay or call to schedule a refund. He adds, “Sorry, it hurts to ask for money like that, I feel embarrassed, something like this has never happened to me. I’m a professional, and I understand there’s not much to be trusted with, but if you give me your phone number, I’ll give you a ring, so you also have the contact.” Then we talk and I’ll give you your money back.”

Those who reported this fact say that in the end, in part, for fear of being robbed because the phone number, in fact, showed a Whatsapp profile with the image of the man, they opened their wallet and handed him 10 euros. Driving a gray Mercedes A-Class, he filled the tank and drove away.

The next day the kind driver tried to contact him again and again at different times but got no response. Not even the following days.

“I had certainty that I had been deceived because, when I entered the phone number on Google, two links appeared to me to two sites where there were comments from people who wrote about what also happened to me, more or less with the same procedure,” says the victim.

“I also went to the police because I am not the only one who was deceived – he continues -, but I could not file a complaint because they explained to me that after they agreed to give him the money, the person in question did not commit any crime and I cannot prove that I was deceived.

In the two links referred to, there are testimonies of people who were victims of the same experiment. “This also happened to me in Siriat, at the petrol station near Iper – says one of the users -. He was a strange man, I gave him 10 euros anyway but I would have preferred him to ask me for money out of desperation than to invent the story of diesel instead of petrol I keep calling him all the time but he never answers.”

“He also stole 20 euros from me with the same excuse”, “He also did it from me in the Karopio area”, “He cheated me too, 20 euros, saying he was wrong to put the petrol in the diesel. I couldn’t make note of the license plate, but I see it It operates strictly in the area between Seriate and Bergamo. Looking at the dates of the messages in the site’s chat, it seems the scammer with Mercedes has been using the petrol trick for some time: the first testimony dates back to August 2018.

On the second site, all complaints are recent and date back to 2023. “I also liked it, I was doing something else, I didn’t think about it at the moment, I didn’t think about it and gave it 10 euros,” writes one woman. “Stay away and don’t trust him, he’s a serial scammer,” warns another user.