Have you ever fooled a criminal?

Several times, most are not that smart.

One guy was a burglar, which I didn’t know, and when cops came over he hid expecting me to lie for him, as we were friends. I was young and thought ok I can do that.
Once the cops told me about his crimes, I said ‘he’s in there under my bed’ and he went to jail. I don’t like liars.

I had a phone scammer on the line for an extended amount of time. He was claiming my electricity bill had not been paid and I had two hours to get it paid or the power would be turned off. I thought maybe my auto payments might have been disrupted.

When he said I had to pay with a credit card over the phone and could not pay at the office in person, I realized it was a scam. So I told him to hang on while I got the info, and put the phone down. I would “check” every five minutes until they hung up after 20 minutes.

Then I reported the number to the police, but they said there wasn’t anything they could do.

Fooled or foiled?
I never do what the bad guy asks.

I don’t understand your details, but to answer your question:

It wasn’t me, but my sister-in-law, in her 40s, had a pretty terrifying event happen in Atlanta. It was morning and her husband had just left for work moments before. Someone knocked on the door and she opened it thinking it was her husband and that he’d forgotten his keys. A man forced his way in and his intent was clear…he was going to rape her. She began talking to him about things like prison, and he didn’t really want to do this, etc. She actually talked him out of it and he left.