A familiar fraud may have returned to the North Shore after a smooth talker allegedly offered up seven leather jackets in a bid to charm a North Vancouver woodworker out of $300 on the afternoon of Saturday, May 25.
Peter Forbes was pulling into the Rona parking lot off of East Third Street when he was greeted by a well-dressed man with a thick Italian accent who was apparently searching for the airport.
"Of course I told him, 'You're miles away,'" Forbes said. "I'm being a nice guy and I point out the map, give him directions and all that. So he's getting very friendly and at first I'm thinking, 'Maybe the guy's hitting on me' . . . as Seinfeld says, 'Not that there's anything wrong with that.'"
The alleged scammer said he was a fashion designer in town for a convention and he happened to have a few samples in the backseat of his car, a white Lexus SUV crossover.
"He shows me this really nice-looking stylized leather jacket, and he says, 'I purchase this, this is really fancy leather, about $1,500 each,' and I know didley-squat about leather. To be perfectly honest it felt a bit vinyl-ish, but I don't know," Forbes said.
The fashionista said he would rather not pay taxes on the coats when getting on the plane, Forbes said.
"He says to me, 'Well, being that you're such a nice guy and helping me out, here,' and he gives me one of the jackets," Forbes said. "One thing leads to another and he ends up giving me seven of these jackets in two bags."
The designer stipulated that the jackets could not be sold as they wouldn't be released until 2014.
Red flags were rising in Forbes's mind, but he said he was getting set to shake the man's hand and walk away when he heard one more request.
"He says, 'Well, before you go, (at) the airport I want to buy some perfume for my daughter at the duty-free. . . . Maybe you could help me out and give me some money because all I've got is Euros,'" Forbes said.
Referring to the man's story as "cockamamie," Forbes offered a modest sum.
"I said, 'Well, all I got in my pocket is five bucks. . . . And he's going 'I just gave you $9,000 worth of jackets,'" Forbes said.
"I didn't even want seven jackets. I'm not exactly a fashion plate."
The man became aggressive, requesting they find an ATM, but Forbes wouldn't budge, ultimately giving the alleged fraudster back his coats and keeping his $5.
"Probably the first thing I would've done is tried to sell them. And I'm sure if you go on Craigslist there's probably a ton of people that got sucked in that are trying to sell them now," Forbes said. "Con artists are con artists 'cause they're good. The guy's smooth, I'm just cynical. Nothing's free, right?"
Forbes described the man as being in his late 40s or early 50s, balding and wearing glasses, a dark blue jacket and a light blue shirt.
He also had a business card bearing the name "Emporio Collezione."
A fraudster with a similar approach managed to take $600 from a victim in the 1300-block of Main Street in May, 2012, claiming he had a stack of high-end Italian leather jackets he couldn't take on a plane.
Offering a 90 per cent discount, the fraudster sold the supposedly $1,000 coats for $100 each.
The material turned out to be faux leather. The scam also bamboozled $600 out of a man in the Save-On-Foods parking lot on Marine Drive in March, 2012.
Police have no suspects in the case.
