The Chevron on the corner of Arville and Flamingo in Vegas (right down the street from the Rio) seems to be a common place for panhandlers.

I was there late last night, and I was approached by a young white woman (I'd say around 21) who was seemingly walking around aimlessly before I pulled up.

She gave me the usual, "My car is out of gas, and I can't get home, can I have a little money so I can get there?" story.

She pointed out the car which was hers, which was on the other side of the gas station.

I asked her, "Where is home?"

She replied very quickly, "The Budget Suites on Boulder Highway", which is likely true. Nobody would pretend to live at the Budget Suites.

And the place does actually exist: https://www.yelp.com/biz/budget-suit...rica-las-vegas

Anyway, this girl definitely had the "meth head" look to her, complete with the telltale bad complexion and skinny, awkward body.

I could tell that she was once pretty, perhaps as recently as a year ago. Like, she wasn't completely destroyed yet, but I could see she was on her way.

I actually took pity on her and was willing to contribute a few $ toward actual gas for her to get home, if by some fluke this typical scam story was actually true.

I was just about to ask her to walk me to her car and show me the empty gas gauge, planning to then walk to the cashier, put a few dollars into that pump, and pump the gas into her car mysef (so she can't go get a refund).

I knew this was almost surely a scam, but wanted the entertainment of seeing her squirm trying to satisfy my requirements.

However, I was interrupted by the fact that the pumps at this station are awful, and I couldn't get mine started. I told her to hang on, as I pulled back to another pump. Nope, that one was screwed up, too.

While this was going on, she glanced over and noticed that "her" car was pulling out of its pump spot and driving away. Oops! So she said, "Umm... I'll let you get our gas pumped and then I'll come back to you in a few minutes", and quickly scampered away.

She completely lied about even having a car, going as far to point out another person's car at a pump as being hers! LOL

I watched where she went, and saw her walk to the side of the gas station, where two other young people were hanging out. So I guess they were out of meth for the night and she told them she would round up some cash at the gas station, but had to abort when her cover story drove away.

I have been hit with various forms of this scam many times, but it seems especially common in Nevada.

A few years ago, in Primm (the stateline area), a middle-aged Mexican woman who actually DID have a car (I saw her get out of it) approached me with that same, "I'm stranded, I need gas" story.

I asked where she was from, and she said "Las Vegas".

I then asked her, "If you're from Vegas and have no money for gas, why did you drive 40 miles into open desert, with no destination, if you had very little gas?"

(There is basically nothing for like 200 miles if you drive from Vegas toward LA.)

She got very flustered and didn't know how to answer, eventually coming up with a confusing story which didn't add up at all. She eventually settled on a story that she had just come back from LA and fell short of making it back, but it already contradicted another story she initially told. I said to her that this wasn't adding up, and I couldn't help her. She quickly walked away, jumped in the vehicle, and it drove off.

Anyway, last night the final joke was on me, as the multiple attempts to get the pumps working triggered a credit card fraud alert, and it took 6 calls to my bank to get the card reactivated.