There's (possibly) a new MO of car thieves. A friend of my wife recently fell victim to this. The MO went like this:

My wife's friend parked her vehicle at one of the big open parking lots at a major mall. After parking, a woman (selling car perfume) approached "friend" to sell her wares. Seeing that the woman was aptly dressed (as a sales person, I presume) she proceeded to engage the woman in a discussion as the perfume the woman was selling looked, well, fragrant. To really entice her from buying, the woman called out to a male colleague who also happens to be selling the same perfume. After a "convincing" sales talk she gave in to the woman's enticement to smell the perfume.

That's the last thing she remembered.

"Friend" was waken up a few minutes later by bystanders and security (thinking that she had fainted). After getting back to her wits, she saw that her car was gone. As usual, nobody saw who took the car and head of security didn't remember allowing anybody to sell perfumes on the car lot. When asked, the (roaming) security guard on duty at the car park thought that the culprits were either promo persons or car wash persons. This, the guard didn't think much about two people roaming about the carpark.

Story true? Most probably as my wife ain't a person to believe and to tell tall tales. She told me this story because I have a penchant for parking in open spaces.

Anyway, just wanted to give everybody here a heads-up.