# Have you ever seen a women used in a 'social engineering' scam? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 5, 2017, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seen-a-women-used-in-a-social-engineering-scam/776379 "2017-01-05T10:55:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seen-a-women-used-in-a-social-engineering-scam/776379/21 "2017-01-05T22:00:00Z")
> [@femmejean](#): > > Even with this social advantage, I rarely hear of women being used like this. However, do you personally know of a story where criminals have lured someone in with an attractive woman? It’s called “Craigslist personals”. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seen-a-women-used-in-a-social-engineering-scam/776379/22 "2017-01-05T23:07:43Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > The ABC show _What Would You Do?_ always runs scenarios where people will accept criminal activity when women do it, but become suspicious when men do it. Lizzie Borden was exonerated almost assuredly because the jury couldn’t believe a well-bred white woman could do such a thing. ---
**Author:** ![mischievous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mischievous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mischievous)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seen-a-women-used-in-a-social-engineering-scam/776379/23 "2017-01-05T23:30:40Z")
> [@femmejean](#): > > …the average middle class woman is perceived as non threatening around people and more trustworthy If you’re going for “non-threatening” and “trustworthy”, a middle-aged woman is probably going to be even more successful than a hawt young thing. I’ve been in a couple of situations where the police were _highly_ interested in my friends’ activities - until a middle aged portly white woman (me) sat down with them. Then the cops suddenly decided everything must be okay and walked away. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seen-a-women-used-in-a-social-engineering-scam/776379/24 "2017-01-06T02:31:14Z")
As to middle-aged women - The gloriously mild-looking Doris Stokes made a nice, and very public, living from doing essentially the John Edwards scam of having people pay to be told what their dead relatives were up to. And I recall a woman of about 60 some years ago who got onto the publicity circuit selling anti-aging products. Her schtick was that although she looked 60, she was in fact 94. This was offered as proof of the efficacy of the products. I saw a very gullible young journalist interview her and asked the con to prove she was 94. Con said Oh, honey, I get asked that all the time, so I carry my birth certificate with me." Journalist asked to see it, and con said it wasn’t on her; she said it was back in her hotel room. Suspicious journalsit pounces with questions about why con didn’t bring it. Journalist thinks she’ll call the con’s bluff, and asks to go back and see it. Con says hesitantly OK, then they go back to con’s room. Lo and behold, there is a birth certificate in her name indicating she is 94. Con points out the elaborate printing, says (in sweet little old lady tones) it would be difficult for anyone to forge it; certainly she couldn’t. Journalist is now credulous. Of course, the con was just pretending that her name was the same as that on a pre-acquired birth certificate. I liked the subtleties in this con. First, she didn’t oversell. It wasn’t as though the con was played with a 23 year old claiming to be 94. Second, she dragged a “broken wing”, making it look as though her credibility turned on the production of the certificate. Audience is led to think she can’t do it - when she does, credibility is now confirmed. But the real lie was always not whether there was a certificate, but whether it was hers, or someone else (perhaps her mother’s). Third, I liked the elaborate talk about about how hard it would be to forge the certificate, again distracting from the real lie - the certificate was genuine, it just wasn’t hers. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seen-a-women-used-in-a-social-engineering-scam/776379/25 "2017-01-06T14:25:38Z")
There’s the classic [kidney scam](https://xkcd.com/914/) [Warning: May not have ever actually happened as depicted or in fact at all] ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seen-a-women-used-in-a-social-engineering-scam/776379/26 "2017-01-06T16:35:18Z")
I know of two famous criminal cases in France where a young attractive woman was used to bait the victims. In the first case, the girl would seduce a presumably wealthy guy and then introduce the rest of the gang in the appartment. They would then rob and kill the victim. It was later made into a movie : “[the bait](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112387/)” In the [second, even more famous, case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Affair_of_the_Gang_of_Barbarians), the gang made only one victim. The girl lured in some random young jewish guy, on the idea that the Jewish community would fork out a hefty ransom for any of its member. He was abducted, badly beaten and mistreated for weeks (with no ransom coming) and even though eventually freed would die soon after. I see that they made a movie out of this one too. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seen-a-women-used-in-a-social-engineering-scam/776379/27 "2017-01-06T16:53:02Z")
When I think about it, both of the women who were used as a bait in these criminal cases later seduced in jail respectively a female guard and the male jail director. Both failed custodians granted them undue privileges as a result and both were sentenced to jail time themselves. I find this quite incredible. ---
**Author:** ![X.L.Lent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/a5b964/32.png) [@X.L.Lent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X.L.Lent)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2017, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seen-a-women-used-in-a-social-engineering-scam/776379/28 "2017-01-07T08:12:06Z")
I remember reading about this many years ago. I can’t remember the details exactly but the scam ran something like this. There were two young guys, one with a smoking hot girlfriend. They would go to convenience stores and the girl would enter first. Once inside she would remove her coat revealing that she was wearing a flimsy and skimpy outfit. She would wander around the store, pick up some small inexpensive item like a candy bar and take it up to the counter. Flirting a bit with the clerk, she would purchase the item and exit the store. While this was going on the two guys would quietly slip in, grab a couple cases of beer and walk out the door. They had hit several stores and were only discovered when a manager discovered some beer was missing and decided to go over the security camera recordings. I never heard if they were caught or not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-ever-seen-a-women-used-in-a-social-engineering-scam/776379.md?page=1)