California E&S Insurance

A couple tried to scam me at the Costa Mesa Arco near the OC Fair this morning I park at the Costa Mesa Arco near the OC Fair (Newport Blvd/Fair Dr) this morning to take a break from driving and was planning to get a drink when a woman started staring at me outside my car. I didn't think too much of it because she looked like a transient. When she wouldn't leave, she asked me "Are you OK?" I didn't want to say anything because I assumed she wanted money or something. Then she started accusing me of hitting her car and making her baby cry. A man comes from behind and says that I caused an "accident" and had witnesses (a woman in a blue Ford Mustang-type car). They said that it was all on camera and they were ready to call the cops on me and had all my info. I told them that I didn't see anything and was just minding my own business. Then the guy said that he honked and screamed at me, but I didn't hear any of that sort. I told them I have dashcam, but he retorted and said that I apparently hit him in the back. So I saw the alleged damage and it was a few scratches and a bit of bumper damage. I looked at my car and saw no damages of that sort even though they insisted it was there. The man pulled me aside and said he was a "good Christian man" and wanted to settle this without insurance. He looked on his phone and said that the damages would cost $1,000 and wanted me to pay him via Cashapp. I told him I didn't have that money. Then after a back and forth about payment and his partner threatening to call the cops on me, he mentioned he was visiting from Las Vegas. I went to his car and checked the license plate, and it was from California. He said the car (which was beaten up and an old Prius) was a rental and showed me some flimsy paper that looked like a rental agreement. He didn't show registration or anything else. After that, I asked if we can exchange insurance information since he claimed it was a rental, and he strongly hesitated. Then I went to the back of his car and took a picture of his license plate, which had 2022 tags (pretty sus for a "rental car") and the guy and his partner got furious. The partner called me a "scammer" and threatened to call the cops once again. I didn't say anything else and proceeded to film the vehicle with my phone and they drove off. I went inside the am/pm and they almost hit me with their jalopy car. When I called Costa Mesa Police this afternoon about it and told my story, the officer who took down my report said it was a pretty common type of scam. He said it's not surprising it happened this late at night because he knows these scammers would try to target vulnerable people for money. So hopefully this couple doesn't try to pull some more bs on others near the fair. TL;DR: Couple tries to accuse me of hitting their car, but wanted me to pay the damages via CashApp wouldn't give their insurance info after threatening to call the cops. Methinks I was about to be scammed. ​ EDIT: Added the pic of the scammer's vehicle after getting the blessing of admins in this subreddit. https://preview.redd.it/dxu12wqh7mdb1.jpg?width=1816&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03257bd4d05276089dc237b10db20853626d0c9d

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  "score": 0,
  "title": "A couple tried to scam me at the Costa Mesa Arco near the OC Fair this morning",
  "subreddit": "orangecounty",
  "num_comments": 141,
  "scrape_method": "apify_targeted"
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