Sometimes, a simple theft is the best theft, as a grifter posing as a Brooklyn Avis car rental employee proved this week.
Returning her rented Kia Forte to the company's Downtown Brooklyn location on Monday morning began as business as usual for Elisabeth Vincentelli, theater critic for the NY Post: The place was busy at 9:30 a.m., but she didn't have to wait long before an Avis employee, dressed in a gray polo shirt and black slacks, slipped behind the wheel of the still-running car and drove it from the garage.
Trouble was, the man who took the wheel wasn't, it turns out, an Avis employee, a fact which no one discovered until he'd proceeded the wrong way up an entrance ramp and vanished onto Atlantic Avenue. Vincentelli had no idea anything was amiss until an actual employee ran up and said “Are you the lady with the blue Kia?! That guy just drove off in it!”
“He got in the car very confidently, like he belonged there and had done this a million times before,” she told her paper. “He totally could have passed for an employee because he was dressed like everyone working there.”
Interestingly, this isn't the first time such a heist has happened at this location: There have been four other instances of cars being lifted from the same garage since July 12, including a BMW. Which does make you wonder: Why would anyone choose to steal a Kia Forte?
