Had a bizarre encounter at Cevahir Mall today—felt like we were targeted, but not sure for what?
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My partner and I were shopping at Cevahir Mall today. While I was testing a perfume, a guy came up and asked me if it was original (of course not, it's less than 500 lira for 100ml). I didn't catch what he said at first, but once I did, he suddenly became overly excited and chatty, asking where I was from.
He claimed he was from Dubai, visiting with his wife for "honeymoon," and said he wanted to visit my home country. He then pulled out his wallet, showed me a 10-dirham note, and insisted on seeing cash from my country. I told him I didn't carry cash, I usually only use the phone for payment, but he kept insisting that I look up in my bag, then he asked if I could show him a picture of the currency on my phone.
When I looked over at my partner, I noticed his "wife" was using the exact same chatty approach on him—even offering to hold his bags while he tried on clothes.
Distracted by my phone, I let the guy hold my shopping bag while I showed him the coin image. He then called his wife over, made a bit of small talk with my partner, and we both walked off.
As soon as they left, my partner and I compared notes. The whole interaction felt deeply calculated, like a setup or a distraction attempt. We checked our belongings immediately and luckily hadn't lost anything, but we're still trying to figure out what their angle was. Has anyone experienced something like this?