Remember how your parents told you never to talk to strangers and to definitely, definitely not let them hug you? One Good Samaritan re-learned that lesson recently, when she says a couple managed to scam her out of $3,000 with just a quick embrace of fake gratitude.

A woman in the Atlanta area is warning her fellow good-hearted folk to avoid the arms of a stranger, after she says her bank card was scanned during a hug.

She tells WXIA (warning: link has video that autoplays) that she was pumping gas when a woman walked up and asked her for some money to put gas in the tank. And because she’s a nice person, she felt obliged to help.

“So I gave her my last $20 in my pocket,” she said. “She was ecstatic,” she said. “She said , ‘Thank you so much, I really appreciate it..can I please have a hug?’ ”

Sounds like a normal reaction to such kindness, right? A man who was with the woman got out of the car and repeated the thanks, as well as the request for a hug, which she granted and told them to just pay it forward.

“But the hug was different,” our Good Samaritan adds.

The next day she noticed that her bank account was leaking money, all because of that hug — she was missing about $3,000, with the first charge showing up a mere two hours after she left the gas station.

It seems that her debit card and other credit cards were scanned through her front pocket, where she had them tucked into her cellphone case.

Even after getting scammed in such a personal manner, the woman says she’s not going to quit helping out those in ened.

“Everyone’s not a bad person,” she said. “You take the lesson from the setback, but I’ll never stop helping people.”

Good Samaritan scammed by couple she helped [WXIA]

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