Why it's easy to scam good guys

Ever since our hunter-gatherer days, most of us have striven to get along, to play well with others -- at least with our immediate neighbors -- and to be decent and caring people.

Then there are the jerks, crooks and scam artists of the world.

"You can think about it as cooperators and cheaters," said David M. Buss, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas and author of the textbook "Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind" (Allyn & Bacon, 2004).

As long as the cooperators are in the majority, the cheaters can exploit them. But, if the cheaters get too numerous, the cooperators evolve defenses against them. The cheaters, in turn, must develop new ploys. Buss calls it "a co-evolutionary arms race."

Not long ago, I came out on the short end of that arms race. To be more blunt, I got flimflammed in a Hollywood parking lot, and I've been suffering -- psychically -- ever since.

Here's how the swindle came down:

The woman was dressed for a night on the town, her salt-and-pepper hair swept into a tidy bun. She swooped down on me and my 10-year-old daughter, Nora, late one Friday night as we made our way through the throngs of theatergoers to our station wagon across from the Pantages. She had picked us out of the crowd.

"Do you belong to AAA?" she asked. My stomach sinking, I responded before I could stop myself: "Yes."

"Oh, thank goodness. I need a tow, and I didn't bring my credit cards, and I don't belong to AAA." She gestured vaguely down Hollywood Boulevard.

I told her that I'd been scammed before and didn't particularly trust the situation.

She looked hurt. "Do I look like a scam artist?" she said. No, I allowed, she didn't. And just like that, she had her black patent-leather pump in the door. She lived in Park La Brea. She was a teacher in Inglewood. If I couldn't help with a tow, how about a loan? All she needed -- she held up the wad of bills she was clutching -- was $38 more to cover the towing fee. My brain and my gut were waging all-out combat. I wanted to be a Good Samaritan -- if one were called for -- but I didn't want to be a sap. "I have to get my daughter home to bed," I said. "I can't wait for AAA." She smiled. Still waffling mightily, I opened my wallet, fingering first an Abraham Lincoln and then an Andrew Jackson, then Abe, then Andy, then Abe, then Andy. If I gave her a fiver, I figured, I hadn't lost that much. But I hadn't helped her much, either.