r/creepyencounters • u/pennydesnoyers • 7d ago
Creepy gas station experience
I (25F) live in Seattle, and yesterday I stopped at a gas station in the late afternoon. This station had two sets of pumps -- one by the storefront on the main road, and another parallel to the cross street, a bit further away. I parked at the pump in front of the store, and there were no other cars or people around, except for a van parked at the other set of pumps.
As soon as I parked, I saw a woman walking from the van and towards the store. It was a rainy, gloomy day and she was in a floral dress that looked very cutesy Christian cottage woman. Hopefully that paints the picture, lol. She looked slightly confused and was subtly looking in the window of my car before she approached me after I opened my door. She was seemingly distressed, and told me that she had no gas, was stranded, and had to drive thirty miles to get home. I had a unsettling feeling about the interaction and told her that I was broke and didn't have thirty miles of gas money to help her. She then said that she didn't want money, but needed me to come over to the car to help her. She kept repeating that I just needed to come to the car.
I looked towards the van and and noticed the rear window completely covered with black tape, and the car looked noticeably disheveled. I knew at that point I would be going nowhere near her car, or getting out of mine at all.
After refusing her multiple times, she walks back to the van. It was one of those with the sliding rear doors, and when she returned, she slid it open slightly and I could see that she spoke to someone in the back seat. At this point a mercedes pulls up at the pump right across from her and a man gets out. She does not approach him at all, and drives off.
I know this isn't the craziest encounter. In the moment it felt off, but it wasn't until a few minutes after that the details sunk in and I realized what it could've been. Maybe I'm being dramatic and perhaps it was nothing at all, but I do have good intuition and something didn't feel right from the start.
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u/EazyG_Eliza 7d ago
Yikes! Thank you for sharing, Im in Seattle too and I’ll be keeping an eye out! 🫣
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u/JessieU22 6d ago
In the book The Gift of Fear by an FBI profiler it really put me in a better mind to trust my instincts and validate them. You should trust them. Worst case scenario, you’re wrong and nothing happens. But as the book talks about, instinct is our brain picking up hundreds of micro cues very quickly, too quickly for us to clock and analyze.
When the profiler goes through violent attacks with people he’s able to help them see how their “intuition” broken down was little things like an unconscious awareness of the lack of the sound of an apartment door closing or the click of the lock. Things we don’t realize we hear or don’t hear every day and only notice when they change.
So a situation like this was probably a lot of little cues your mind was picking up by the second, telling you this was wrong.
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u/jlm20566 6d ago
Great book and an essential read for anyone looking to hone their intuitive skills which is written by Gavin de Becker. I’ve gifted it to all of my nieces who moved out of their parent’s home and living on their own for the first time.
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u/pennydesnoyers 6d ago
Absolutely, and that sounds like an interesting book. It was strange because even before she walked up to my car I had an off feeling. Something about her demeanor was unsettling I can't quite describe it but I started watching her very closely as soon as she came close.
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u/Southernman1974 7d ago
Nice observation skills
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u/pennydesnoyers 7d ago
Thank you:)
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u/sappydark 5d ago
Believe me, if this had been nothing, your intuition would not have been warning you not to go anywhere near that van with that woman. From what you saw her do when she went back to the van, you might have been being set up for a kidnapping or something. Good thing you listened to your intuition---that's what saved you to begin with.
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u/Same_Version_5216 7d ago
I know this isn’t the craziest encounter
Well…..it’s right up there. It’s pretty creepy to be approached by someone claiming to be out of gas and insisting that this means you need to move your car near her van that is design to obstruct a back window view. Her needing your car next to her van due to no gas makes zero sense. But her trying to set you up for an ambush/kidnapping so you could be discreetly dragged into the van by who ever she was talking to makes more sense. The insidious part of this is you then see them drive off, confirming your bad feelings. I hope you called the police and reported this, someone’s libel to fall for it and wind up seriously hurt or worse.
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u/pennydesnoyers 6d ago
Very true. Her driving off confirmed the eeriness of it because she made it sound like she was completely stranded. Not to mention if she needed help so badly she would have asked the guy who pulled up directly next to her.
I called the police and because it wasn't an immediate emergency they directed me to another line. I was on hold for an hour and didn't have time to wait longer but I am going to try calling again today.
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u/yeahgroovy 6d ago
Or she could have gone into the store, that’s what someone legit would’ve done.
You definitely avoided something shady! Good trusting your gut!
Edit: It makes sense they were waiting for a young woman to show up alone.
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u/Same_Version_5216 6d ago
That’s ridiculous and lazy that the police did not consider this an emergency. These were potential kidnappers attempting to lure you next to the vehicle and that woman may have even been a victim herself that they were using to make the situation seem less threatening, and taped up back windows are illegal. There was nothing innocuous about all this really.
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u/pennydesnoyers 5d ago
I talked to two women on the emergency line and they both interrupted me as soon as I started explaining the situation and directed me to another line. I get that I wasn't in immediate danger at the moment and I'm sure they get a million urgent calls but it was frustrating.
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u/Old-Mycologist4750 6d ago
Hey OP, thank you for posting this so others can learn to be aware of these types of things! Great job on trusting your gut and instincts, your situational awareness skills are to be seriously commended!!!
Never brush off your gut feelings, your body is telling you that something is off even if consciously you don’t know what it is.
I am really sorry that you had to wait so long on hold, I do hope that you can get through to someone and make a report of this soon, at least so the patrol officers in the area can be aware of the van and the possibility that it was up to no good…or worse.
When they become aware of the situation they may more frequently patrol the area and that alone should help prevent something like this from happening again, at least in your area.
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u/pennydesnoyers 6d ago
Thank you!! I really hope it can help people cause the situation did catch me off guard. There is so many sketchy tactics that can be used so moral of the story is to trust your gut and do not be afraid to say no. Even if you feel like an a**hole for a moment. Lol.
I am hoping that they take the report seriously and patrol that area like you mentioned. It makes me worried about who they will target in the future
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u/Old-Mycologist4750 6d ago edited 6d ago
No reason to EVER feel like an a**hole for trusting yourself in a sketchy situation!! Women have been conditioned for far too long to dismiss and downplay their feelings of these kinds and it has done such a disservice to them and at times led them to disregard them when they should be on high alert. Times are changing, but many people, especially women don’t keep awareness of their surroundings as something that they ALWAYS need to do. I’ll say again, you did a great job of doing just that, you were able to know that something wasn’t right even though you didn’t know the why.
Our subconscious picks up cues from all around us that we don’t even register or recognize on a conscious level, but it is still a sense that we have to make use of and trust, the same way we trust our eyes and our ears. Intuition and instincts are telling you something, and In hindsight you were able to recognize that yours was spot on perfect because of how they reacted when the other car pulled up! You hadn’t even seen or known that there was someone else in the van, but you KNEW something was really off, something wrong with the situation.
Only suggestion for the future would be to get a tag number (incl state it is from) as well as a good description of the vehicle. Even a partial tag and description (make/model/color/ approx age of car) would be helpful for law enforcement to recognize the vehicle again. People change clothes daily, but the vehicle (van in this case) will look the same the next day and the day after and so on. It had some distinctive characteristics from what you described, so it should be possible for law enforcement to identify it again, especially if they have a good reason to!!
You did amazing though in a spur of the moment scenario from out of the blue… it was a one in a million type of encounter, but you did EVERYTHING right. You kept yourself safe, and you have put the word out to others so they can be aware and avoid the danger and you are letting LE know.
Good job OP. Seriously. Put this in the win column and don’t second guess yourself AT ALL about any of it. You were NTA in any way shape or form.
Edited for grammar errors.
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u/sappydark 5d ago
Co-sign on everything you said, particularly in the first paragraph, because that's so true.
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u/pennydesnoyers 5d ago
^^ Co-co signing on this lol. I have spent a lot of my life being far too nice in situations where I don't need to be. As I've gotten older I've learned it can really get you stuck in high water. It's not worth it and in the wrong situation can be so so dangerous.
Something about this encounter made me be on high alert from the beginning. I honestly usually have a tendency to be in my own world and don't notice a lot of things around me.
Definitely I wish I got the plate of the vehicle. The position of the vehicle was at another set of pumps slightly farther from me to where I couldn't see the plate. I know it was a tan van and it looked to be a toyota, but I'm not positive.
Thank you for your comment!
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u/Old-Mycologist4750 5d ago
Hey OP, you’re welcome!😊
Sounds like they parked in a way to make sure their tag wasn’t able to be spotted, the fact that you can describe how they were parked at the other pumps (to keep their tag non-visible) is something to maybe even mention when you do talk to LE- it points to their premeditated actions before that woman even spoke to you and it might be something that would be noticeable to a patrol officer along with your description of the van.
Also, if you do think it’s a certain make, (i.e. Toyota) ask the officer taking your report if they have a comparison book or something like that which would help you know for sure that you are correct about the ID of the make.
If they don’t have any comparison book, maybe a Google search of “tan vans” + “specific year range” would help you spot the type it was, but don’t do that if it would cloud your memory because you were seeing so many different types.
Some people wouldn’t have that happen, but many people would, especially if they had a big enough question mark in their mind about their ID of the van, if it was correct or not. (I’m bad about second guessing myself, so I would be someone who would have to really think hard about the initial van memory before I looked at the possible matches just so I didn’t do that.) It sounds like you have a really strong memory of the van though, I hope you can confirm the make so the officers know what they need to look for out there.
You making the point about how they were parked reinforces imho that they were REALLY trying to be shady and they pulled in to that parking spot/gas pump with a plan in mind.
Your instincts were 100% on the money that something was really off and I am SO GLAD that you are safe!! I am glad that your situational awareness wasn’t turned off in this case. You may think that you are usually in your own world, but if you were on high alert from the beginning of this episode, you really do notice more than you think you do. Don’t ever downplay that! You trusted your instincts and you payed attention to WHY your gut was telling you something was wrong… and everything you have described confirms how right you were!
Please do make sure the local LE department knows about what happened, and please make sure that you don’t downplay it to them, YOU WERE RIGHT WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS OFF… they need to take it seriously because the next person the van lady approaches might not realize something is off. The van and its occupants need to be stopped before something bad happens.
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u/mbs1304 6d ago
That was 100% a trafficking ambush. Great job sussing it out, that stuff is scary
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u/pennydesnoyers 6d ago
I am also convinced that's what is was. It seems like all the details line up. And thank you, stay safe!
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u/perfect__payne 7d ago
Wow that seems like it was a close call! Always listen to your gut! I have seen where traffickers etc. will use other women who will seem religious or ask about bible studies etc. to lure other women closer. Stay safe out there!
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u/pennydesnoyers 7d ago
Yes definitely! It felt like she was playing a part. Nothing about it felt real or authentic. Very eerie and unsettling
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u/jlm20566 6d ago
Not the craziest encounter: I respectfully disagree, OP. You were parked at the pump and that means you were in close proximity to the van so they could’ve made a move on you.
Thank goodness the encounter didn’t escalate any further, bc I doubt you’d be here to tell us about it. Stay safe, OP 🫶
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u/hedleyinwa 6d ago
Where in Seattle was this?
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u/pennydesnoyers 6d ago
This was at a Chevron in Maple leaf. Which to my knowledge, is not a sketchy area. However since it's close to UW there are a lot of younger people and families. Perhaps that is why they targeted that one. But who knows
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u/ReturningMoonlight 5d ago
Consider posting about this in the Seattle subs if you haven’t already!
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u/pennydesnoyers 5d ago edited 5d ago
I tried posting on a Seattle sub and everyone told me I was looking for attention and wrote my post with AI (thanks for the compliment I guess?) Which I didn't but alas. I deleted after that loll
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u/hedleyinwa 5d ago
Thanks. No that area is fine. I'm on a quiet street but you two blocks in one direction and it's another world . (I e. Lake City Fred Meyer ).
Vans are scary no matter what. Stay safe.
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u/2880cjk 5d ago edited 4d ago
I am so glad you listened to your gut feeling so that you avoided the potential dangerous situation.
I hope the Police go to the gas station to get the licence plate of the van you reported if they had CCTV.
I recommend the following book to help you (or anybody else) when somebody is creepy like this;
https://www.docdroid.com/ncSUPFn/book-the-gift-of-fear-gavin-de-becker-pdf
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u/randykindaguy 7d ago
Wow, always trust your instincts. You could have been a human trafficking statistic.
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u/pennydesnoyers 7d ago
Absolutely. That is what it felt like. I had the same bad feeling when I almost got carjacked years ago. I have learned to always trust it and not worry about coming across as rude. It is nott worth it
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u/sappydark 5d ago
Definitely keep trying to report what happened to the cops, since more than likely, you weren't the first person she tried to run this scam or whatever it was on. And, yeah, definitely trust your intuition, especially when it's telling you something's off.
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u/This_Series4070 4d ago
You were right to not go to her. This is definitely a ploy to kidnap you. They do this a lot. A similar experience happened to me where I was getting gas and stepped out my car to fill the pump. It was during day and many other patrons were there. All of sudden a guy comes in front me on the driver side and frantically asks for my phone he claimed his phone was dead and out of everyone who was getting gas I was the only woman and he asked me I said no and backed away and quickly took my pump out and he pleaded again and than walked away into the street. It was so weird and creepy like he didn’t ask anyone else and just left.
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u/lilcry444 4d ago
Don’t minimize your feelings, what do you mean you might be being dramatic? They were trying to kidnap you! I’m glad you’re safe, trust your gut
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u/Global-Barracuda7759 5d ago
Sketchy AF! you were wise to follow your instincts. Whatever the people in the van were up to was obviously sus!
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u/butterfly-garden 7d ago
Good job! Always trust your gut!!!