They tried to scam me a lot back when I lived in Jersey. My car is dented and there’s this scam where they drive up and say they just got off a mechanic job for X Company and have their tools in their car and will fix the dent for $200 or so. Then the scam is they put a bunch of Bondo on the dent and cover it with white tape and tell you not to remove it for a week. They often get rude and threatening when I refuse and tell them I am reporting them to the police.
How do I know they were Roma, you ask? A good friend in the area hustles pool and plays with them a lot. One day I mentioned all the scammers in the A&P parking lot and he laughed, told me who they were, and had me use his name in the future to get them to leave me alone. He even taught me this phrase in another language to use, but I can’t remember it now.
My friend also told me that most Roma are very religious, and you can be sure they are telling the truth if you ask them to swear to God.
Edit: whoops, forgot to answer the question. My views on the Roma that I have knowingly interacted with are not positive. I don’t like that they are probably successfully scamming old folks, in particular. But I would not expand my judgment about those individuals to cover an entire group of people.