Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This happened to me at a NOVA store. Two young women - one black and one white. They asked me about the Bible. I did not think it was a scam at the time but now I do. It was so odd that they only approached me and left the store after I shut them down. Thanks for warning others, OP.

PLEASE SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT IS THE SCAM/THREAT

Please

I know the women are being annoying, but I don’t get what the scam or the threat is. Can someone walk me through it?

It was explained above this post. You have an expensiveish bag or products. They figure your house is a good bet to rob. The air tags are to figure out where you love to determine if it is a good idea to rob.

This is made up out of thin air. This does not happen.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People still carry purses? Why?

I have almost been approached in parking lots, only for them to divert when they see I have no purse.

No purse = no cash.

I also do NOT understand the flashy purses or the flashy shoes in public in this area - my God, you people are just looking to get mugged. Don't get me started on the jewelry.

You don't have to be totally street smart, but you don't have to advertise that you are not - step one to not being approached.

What do you mean by this area? I wouldn’t think carrying an LV bag in Mosaic District or Wegmans to be risky. Where do YOU think flashy purses can be married without “asking to be mugged,” then?

LV aren't flashy. They're affordable. The new Coach.

Flashy, not high end. Yes LV is flashy. So is Gucci.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This happened to me at a NOVA store. Two young women - one black and one white. They asked me about the Bible. I did not think it was a scam at the time but now I do. It was so odd that they only approached me and left the store after I shut them down. Thanks for warning others, OP.

PLEASE SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT IS THE SCAM/THREAT

Please

I know the women are being annoying, but I don’t get what the scam or the threat is. Can someone walk me through it?

It was explained above this post. You have an expensiveish bag or products. They figure your house is a good bet to rob. The air tags are to figure out where you love to determine if it is a good idea to rob.

It's not one specific threat or scam. It's a little odd for one person to randomly ask you about bible verses or phone number in Target, and doubly so for two people to. Whenever you've got a second person involved, it makes many of us jump to the conclusion that one person is there as a distraction while the other does something shady--steal a wallet, scan your credit cards from your purse using RFID, whatever. The OP encountered variations of this scenario multiple times, which makes her think it's a something hinky.

Anonymous wrote:This happened to me at a NOVA store. Two young women - one black and one white. They asked me about the Bible. I did not think it was a scam at the time but now I do. It was so odd that they only approached me and left the store after I shut them down. Thanks for warning others, OP.

PLEASE SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT IS THE SCAM/THREAT

Please

I know the women are being annoying, but I don’t get what the scam or the threat is. Can someone walk me through it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If 2 self professed church ladies approach you and you totally aren't interested, tell them you are a member of a satanic temple or a witch and they better leave you alone. That will probably be effective. Assuming they are church ladies.

Don’t ever tell that to people proselytizing. That will just encourage them.

This. You give them a firm "sorry" in passing. Don't slow down, don't stop. Just keep moving and make your tone final.

Yes, that’s me. Firm no and keep it moving. I trust no one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still don’t understand how or why an air tag is used.

it's a tracking device, about the size of a quarter. Most "normal" people use them to keep track of their luggage, handbag - those types of items. But now criminals are using them to track YOU. They put them on your car so they can find out where you live, for example. And they're small enough that you wouldn't necessarily know you have one on you.

What benefit does tracking you give them? They can follow you and discover that you live in a house? And this makes you a better target for crime why?

Why would breaking into the house of someone who they saw at Target be better than breaking into the house of someone they didn't see at Target?

Are you really this naive?

I'm just confused, I guess. Can you explain why the criminals want to talk to people shopping in Target before they break into their houses? Why don't they just break in to houses based on how expensive the houses look? Or follow people home who have nice cars? Do they really want to know what kind of Swiffers I like?

I assume maybe they see that you're buying a big ticket item, so they plan to meet you at your house and rob you in your garage. That's the only thing I can think of.

This happened to me at a NOVA store. Two young women - one black and one white. They asked me about the Bible. I did not think it was a scam at the time but now I do. It was so odd that they only approached me and left the store after I shut them down. Thanks for warning others, OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People still carry purses? Why?

I have almost been approached in parking lots, only for them to divert when they see I have no purse.

No purse = no cash.

I also do NOT understand the flashy purses or the flashy shoes in public in this area - my God, you people are just looking to get mugged. Don't get me started on the jewelry.

You don't have to be totally street smart, but you don't have to advertise that you are not - step one to not being approached.

What do you mean by this area? I wouldn’t think carrying an LV bag in Mosaic District or Wegmans to be risky. Where do YOU think flashy purses can be married without “asking to be mugged,” then?

LV aren't flashy. They're affordable. The new Coach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people on this forum are either very sheltered or just don't realize how much human trafficking and crime actually occurs in this area.

Nobody is trafficking adult women in the laundry detergent aisle at target

The last time they opened one of those shipping containers full of trafficking victims they found it was all McLean moms in Lululemon. One still had the lacrosse travel schedule open on her phone. Chilling!

I’m one of the PPs who have experienced this at Target, but I loled at this post!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"but I was caught off guard/trying to be polite. I was scared to come off as a "Karen" reporting people to management, but I'm glad I did "

Ok so the "Karen" thing is supposed to shame middle-aged women into silence. I'm glad you overcame your reluctance to speak up but ask you to please not perpetuate the idea that no one wants to hear what women say.

Not when they are calling the cops on little black girls with lemonade stands or black men walking dogs, nope.

The Karen meme is a thing for a valid reason.

This doesn’t qualify as Karening, though, since the behavior is legit suspicious and loitering is actually prohibited in stores like these.

But, no, we should perpetuate the idea that no one wants to hear what self-appointed, self-important hall monitor Karens want to say. They are obnoxious, horrible people.

Uh-huh. And it is important to highlight whenever this is done by middle-aged women because why? Because middle-aged women make great scapegoats. Everyone can unite around the mutual enemy: women who no longer can manage or can be bothered to be pleasing.

OP hesitated because she has absorbed the message that she had better not annoy anyone or else.

Thanks for the explanation!

Stalkers using AirTags makes perfect sense, as does car thieves tagging cars. But I still don't quite see why this hypothetical crime ring would hang out at a store looking for a person wealthy enough to have an expensive car or an expensive house when they could instead just....look for an expensive car or go to where the expensive houses are.

Seems like a baroque approach to a straightforward crime. But I'll watch out for the church-lady AirTag gang the next time I'm looking well-off at the Target!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still don’t understand how or why an air tag is used.

it's a tracking device, about the size of a quarter. Most "normal" people use them to keep track of their luggage, handbag - those types of items. But now criminals are using them to track YOU. They put them on your car so they can find out where you live, for example. And they're small enough that you wouldn't necessarily know you have one on you.

What benefit does tracking you give them? They can follow you and discover that you live in a house? And this makes you a better target for crime why?

Why would breaking into the house of someone who they saw at Target be better than breaking into the house of someone they didn't see at Target?

New poster. Not Target-specific but a few seconds of searching could have shown you that yes, using Air Tags to track people is becoming a real thing. Stalkers (usually someone you know already like a crazy ex) seem to be more common users, but there are absolutely reports of criminals dropping them into people's stuff and attaching them to people's cars, in order to later steal the cars track the people to their homes.

https://www.npr.org/2022/02/18/1080944193/apple-airtags-theft-stalking-privacy-tech

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/criminals-using-airtags-other-tracking-devices-to-stalk-and-steal

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/apple-airtag-stalking-tracking-criminals-problem-heres-how-stop

Note that everyone from Fox News to NPR has covered this. Mostly it's been found to be done in stalking and car theft. But Air Tags are relatively cheap (and likely, the ones a thief would use are stolen anyway, so...free for the thief to use). So yeah, it would be an easy way to track a person. Do you not understand that they won't pick a random Target shopper, PP? They'll pick women who look well-off, maybe carrying expensive purses or wearing pricier types of "athleisure" or wearing expensive jewelry (I've seen plenty of women at Target in workout gear with big diamonds on their fingers too). They'll pick women they saw arrive iat Target, or wherever, n a luxury car or expensive SUV. With a Air Tag they can find where the women live, check if the address is in a pricey high-end neighborhood, drive by and check the house out as a potential target.

The fact you think this kind of thing is so very unlikely does mean you're naive. It also means you must not be familiar with the Target the OP and others have mentioned, at Mosaic District. Mosaic draws some well-off people in big-name cars. These women do indeed shop at Target stores. I'm not at all surprised that either scammers or serious thieves would be operating at the one in Mosaic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still don’t understand how or why an air tag is used.

it's a tracking device, about the size of a quarter. Most "normal" people use them to keep track of their luggage, handbag - those types of items. But now criminals are using them to track YOU. They put them on your car so they can find out where you live, for example. And they're small enough that you wouldn't necessarily know you have one on you.

What benefit does tracking you give them? They can follow you and discover that you live in a house? And this makes you a better target for crime why?

Why would breaking into the house of someone who they saw at Target be better than breaking into the house of someone they didn't see at Target?

Are you really this naive?

I'm just confused, I guess. Can you explain why the criminals want to talk to people shopping in Target before they break into their houses? Why don't they just break in to houses based on how expensive the houses look? Or follow people home who have nice cars? Do they really want to know what kind of Swiffers I like?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still don’t understand how or why an air tag is used.

it's a tracking device, about the size of a quarter. Most "normal" people use them to keep track of their luggage, handbag - those types of items. But now criminals are using them to track YOU. They put them on your car so they can find out where you live, for example. And they're small enough that you wouldn't necessarily know you have one on you.

What benefit does tracking you give them? They can follow you and discover that you live in a house? And this makes you a better target for crime why?

Why would breaking into the house of someone who they saw at Target be better than breaking into the house of someone they didn't see at Target?

Are you really this naive?

I'm not the PP but yes, I am naive I guess. What is it about someone at Target vs just walking around a neighborhood that makes them a better crime victim? What do they plan to do with the info from the air tag?