When "Good Samaritans" go bad

A shadow today was cast over our otherwise pleasant afternoon in Santa Barbara by the theft of Deb's purse. Credit cards, $80 cash, car keys, house keys, Starbucks debit card...gone. I won't go into details, but after quickly cancelling all her cards (which, naturally, were linked to mine, meaning no credit card use by this family until replacements arrive sometime after Tuesday), Deb received a call on her cell. Her purse was found. Hooray! We retrieve the purse. Of course, the cash is missing. A couple of incidental items are gone. Everything else, including the now-cancelled credit cards, seems to be there. But Deb's car and house keys remain in the pocket of one of our three Good Samaritans. They expect a reward. Ahah! A scam. "All the cash I had was in the purse and it's now gone," Deb explains. We offer them $60 that I managed to dig out of my account at a nearby ATM. The Samaritans, obviously disappointed but resigned to the fact that 60 bucks is all they'll be able to squeeze out of us (on top of the $80 already removed from the purse), surrender the keys. We part amicably.

Lessons learned: Even "Good Samaritans" are not always what they at first appear to be. And always keep a real good eye on your stuff.