It's common in white collar crime/social engineering schemes to use female names regardless of the criminal's gender as socially people are less suspicious of women, for whatever reason.

That's probably true, though I'm not sure that's enough to assume the gender of the offending party.

Tangentially related, and not white collar, I once had a car stolen by a female. No damage was done and, being a silly old man, I didn't press charges. I was kinda surprised that it was done by a female.

Sorry, I never meant to imply the offender was male or female. On the contrary, due to the value of using a female name, it should not be regarded as evidence of the offender's actual sex or gender at all.

It's all good. It just seemed a bit odd as we're usually pretty good about not assuming gender at HN. I'm not sure why someone would vote me down, but what good is karma if you don't spend it? ;-)

Perhaps because talking about "assuming gender" is nonsense and a complete waste of time? I'm sure you have other things to do aside from looking for ways to be offended.