Worst scam you've fallen for

I was intoxicated on a particular pharmaceutical remedy one night, walking back home through the city-centre in something of a zig-zag pattern , and was apprehended by a plain-clothes citizen with a strong inner-city accent who said his name was Garda John O'Brien. He ordered me to show him my backpack, and then turn around and face the wall. He then went through my pockets, and ordered me to sit on the ground.

Still feeling convivial from the night's proceedings, and grinning like I had an advanced case of tetanus, I decided to humour him, and sat cross-legged on the ground while he went rifling through my backpack. The strange thing is, I knew he wasn't a real Guard, but was in no mood for an argument to spoil my night. On some level, I think I even thought we might be friends and maybe this would be an amusing story I could tell at his wedding.

I was still capable of some cognitive tasks, however, because I did a quick mental inventory of what was in the bag -- nothing important, just a raincoat and a newspaper,and I deliberately don't carry a wallet (to avoid incidents like this), so no biggie. He went off empty-handed and I went home to bed.

I woke up next morning having forgotten the whole thing, after checking my personal phone, reached for my work phone. But It wasn't on the locker. It wasn't in the kitchen. Nor the bathroom, nor my jeans -- and then I saw the open, empty backpack on the floor. It turns out I really didn't have any basic cognitive intelligence, and of course I'd had my work phone out, and of course he'd stolen 700 euro of phone which was absolutely useless to him anyway, as it was locked. And the Guards* tell me that once it's blocked, it can't be unblocked unless the phone leaves Europe.

*Obviously I didn't tell them the whole story. In the sanitised version, it was an opportunistic pilfering.


I didn't get the phone back, and tbh, I didn't deserve to.