[Mess O.]

(07-11-2018 09:07 PM)CleanSlate Wrote:  

I’ve gotten SIF’ed only a few times out of hundreds, so I like to think I have a good eye to sniff them out beforehand.

But one girl was particularly devious and she actually resized her photos by narrowing them horizontally, changing their aspect ratio so she looked thinner. So when she showed up, she was huge. Morbidly obese. I mean, she was wider than she was taller.

I considered feigning not recognizing her and passing myself off as mistaken identity, but she instantly recognized me and practically cornered me as soon as she saw me. I was embarrassed to even be seen in public with her. I racked my brain for any exit strategy as we sat down in the cafe.

I came up with this:

I set a timer on my phone to go off in two minutes. Made polite small talk and only ordered a water. When the timer went off, I feigned surprise and picked up my phone. Pretended to frown and let out a sigh of frustration, saying “oh its my client, they’re calling me. Give me a second.”

Then I finally said to her, “my client wants a meeting with me now. I have to take this because its urgent.”

Then I ran out of there.

Blocked her, but not before her calling me out and demanding taxi money.

That was the worst catfish ever.

As I just mentioned in another thread, I got zinged hard, and I really should've known better. Several indicators were there, but I took a silly chance. As opposed to your example, I rocketed off down the parking lot just in time to escape her field of vision.