PORTLAND, Maine (AP) Portland police have caught up with the alleged scam artist they call ''The Pretender.'' Family members say Robert Steiner, 32, is a pathological liar who often ends up believing the stories he makes up.

Steiner recently talked his way into at least two new vehicles without paying a dime, police said. He claimed that he holds an MBA and inherited his family business.

''He's articulate and he's very intelligent,'' said Portland Detective Barry Cushman. ''He's much smarter than your average criminal.'' Steiner, who faces three charges of theft and two counts of aggravated forgery, started the most recent scam while still in the Maine Correctional Center where he was doing time for a similar theft in Westbrook in 1998, police said.

Steiner got an ex-convict friend to forward letters to Forest City Chevrolet expressing his interest in buying cars for his company.

The dealership responded to the correspondence, not realizing that P.O. Box 250 S. Windham, Maine, was the prison's address.

Steiner arrived at the dealership in January. He was smartly dressed and talked fast, going on about Michigan football while ordering the extended warranty on a Tahoe SUV and an Impala sedan. He even said he was somewhat ambivalent at inheriting Steiner and Associates, not sure it was his preferred line of work.

Even former inmates at the Windham prison bought into his business plan, one woman agreeing to be an office manager in a car dealership he planned to open in Saco.

His stories had paperwork or people to back them up. Real estate brokers had received a $325,000 offer from him on a piece of land in Saco. He got insurance for the vehicles even as the dealership waited for the wire transfers to come through.

When asked about delays, he discovered account number errors.

Police said the scheme began to unravel when a former inmate planning to work for Steiner discovered some money missing and called Forest City Chevrolet.

When the dealership found that a Falmouth address used by Steiner was a vacant lot, police were called.

By that time, Steiner had left the state and was in Massachusetts, seeking a job as a teacher at a school for troubled boys he once attended. He was arrested and extradited to Maine.

Meanwhile, police learned that Steiner had used a canceled credit card that had belonged to his brother.

Despite Steiner's story of an inheritance, police learned that his family was alive and well. His father is a corporate attorney in Michigan, his mother a businesswoman.

Cushman quoted family members as saying Steiner had been fabricating stories for years, even before he dropped out of college his freshman year a decade ago. The family had to cancel credit cards and get new forms of identification to shield themselves from his scams. Steiner can remember credit card numbers with a glance, they said.

The detective said he was told that Steiner often believes the ruses he makes up. And he is very personable.

In the Westbrook case, where he was convicted of illegally obtaining a new Ford Explorer in 1998, the salesman even bought him a case of beer and let him stay at his house for a few days. He has faced similar charges in Florida.

''I told him ''If you used your powers for good instead of evil, you could go somewhere in life,''' Cushman said.

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