Thread: Have you got cheated by any strangers?

All my life, wherever I am, I get into some random weird mess somehow. It's my special talent to draw the crooks toward me and I become the freak-show of the day.

For example, Once I was travelling on a bus and going to my uni and I sat near an old lady. She reminded me of my grandma who passed away a few years ago. She kept saying that her son has gone to the ATM to get the money to buy the ticket, but hasn't returned. I couldn't help, but nod along with her. At one point, when the driver started the bus, she turned to me and asked if I could lend her a Rs.50 to travel and she'd pay me back when she sees me next time. Although it freaked me out a bit, I felt bad for her and gave her the money without thinking twice. After about 10minutes travelling, she said that her stop has come and she got off in a hurry making a huge fuss looking for her bags making the bus wait for 2 minutes in the middle of the road. Everyone in the bus looked at me like I'm her daughter or something and asked me what's delaying us to get off. The place to which she got the ticket was out of the town, but she got off early. And I did nothing to stop her. Still, I don't know whether she cheated me or she couldn't remember her stop because of her bad memory or something.

Another instance when I was returning from my uni, there weren't a lot of buses that day, so I had to take 3 buses to get home. When I was waiting in the bus stand alone for the 2nd bus to arrive, some school students, probably Advanced level boys came up to me and asked if I had 10 rupees. And I had, so I told them yes. They asked me to give it, I did. All the while, I was thinking that they were asking for a change or something. But they took the money and they went. It took me a minute to really understand what happened and then I realized I got mugged by some little morons without even realizing it. It was just 10 rupees, but I could have offered it to a beggar, but instead, I got cheated by those boys very smoothly. Still feeling ashamed.

Have you gone through any instances like the ones I went through?
It would give me a peace in my mind, knowing that there're people around here like me...