Something Happened to me that reminded me of a Scam

So I drive an express coach a three hour journey between two cities. The other day I heard the ticket assistant talking to a middle eastern guy outside the bus, and she was saying "you'll have to ask the driver, you'll have to ask the driver". Thinking he was a paying customer I stepped out to see what he wanted. He said his brother would be at the first stop in the city centre (other end of route). I presumed it was that he was wondering if his brother could go from that stop on to the airport.

I declined saying "it's not my job". He then continued politely explaining the urgency of the matter. He said something the police had posted him about a fine that was overdue and had been increased. I forget what else he said but I got the impression that maybe if it wasn't delivered within the next couple of hours, that there'd be some consequence... hence the urgency. In the back of my mind I was thinking that I'd actually recently regretted NOT changing my mind with a previous person I was dealing with, and that maybe I was too hard on them. So I didn't have to stick with declining this time just because it was the first thing I'd said. I considered saying "do you think I'm the postal service or something?", but what was the point if the guy was really stuck and I'd decided I was going to help him? He said "you can look inside if you want". I didn't look but I felt the see-through plastic to confirm that it was only paper inside. I thought "well there's no bomb in there, and no matter how badly this goes, it isn't a scam".

I said "okay, if he's not there I'll hand this into..." and the ticket assistant then interrupted saying "they won't want it". He insisted that his brother would definitely be there. The assistant then said "okay, if your brother's not there, the driver can bin this, are you ok with that"? He said "oh yes, that's fine". That's the thing though... most ppl wouldn't be comfortable throwing important documents into a bin. The assistant then said to me "if you don't want to do it, don't do it". At that point I was thinking that I'd only show how indecisive I'd appear if I changed my mind again, so I said it's fine. The man expressed gratitude. Of course I wouldn't expect tips from their culture, but if it were me (out of embarrassment), I'd be offering a tip for more than the value of what an express postal service would charge.

As I was driving I was thinking "I'll probably completely forget about the documents by the time I get there", and what if I arrived ahead of the scheduled time, that I might miss the guy. When I arrived he wasn't there, ha! Then when I took off a lady further down the street, who appeared in a panic, was trying to wave me down to stop. I didn't stop, but I was thinking she definitely didn't look like an associate of those guys.

What annoyed me about it is that if I requested that myself, I'd feel like I was making a fool out of the driver, and that the request would indeed be yet another thing that the driver has to remember when getting out of the bus. If I'd known from the outset that he wasn't a customer I'd have been a lot less likely to do it. I told another driver about this on break break, and he said "I wouldn't even do that for an Irish person". He also said "it's a good thing he didn't get to end up paying that fine, so maybe now he''ll get kicked out of the country".

Can't be careful enough these days. Has anything like this happened to you? For all I knew there could have been something illegal in the package!

 

Listen to your intuition.
I wouldn’t have done it.