Imagine buying a Blackberry and heading to Europe for the summer only to return to mysterious credit card bills, an overdrawn bank account and a burgled apartment. . .

That's just what happened to "Allison" in a Village Voice story I came across yesterday. Allison (not her real name) purchased a Blackberry just before departing on a two month trip overseas. When she had trouble setting it up, she returned to the store and got help from Andre Roper, "a gregarious man of enormous stature, roughly six feet three inches and 300 pounds, with an even bigger personality. He wore a Marc Jacobs purse and hot-pink sunglasses".

And then: "Roper told Allison that he loved her shoes and that she was fabulous and gorgeous and how did they not know each other?"

Now, right there, that's a red flag for me. Super nice people, who think I'm fabulous? They're trying to con something out of me. So Roper helps her get the Blackberry up and running, and continues to butter her up and pump her for information. And then splits a cab with her downtown since he was "going that way." (This is the part of the story where I'd get dropped off several blocks away from my apartment, and then walk around aimlessly making sure no one was following me. Or, I would have taken the subway instead, but that's just me.) Anyway, that's how he found out where she lived and stole her identity for the summer. He posed as her brother, charmed the doormen into giving him an extra key, and threw parties at her apartment--at $20 a head. Despite several red flags that popped up during her trip, it wasn't until she returned to her apartment, and noticed a lot of missing stuff (including her top shelf liquor), a pile of mysterious credit card bills, and some left behind drug paraphernalia, that she finally realized something was amiss. Read the rest of the Blackberry Trickster story.

Via: Gawker