Have I been conned??

fletch

I used to work in a major department store....same guy used to come in on busy weekends....he'd know the new staff and the staff who knew he was so he'd target the new staff....used the exact same ploy as described by the OP....HE used to move from till to till ....one busy Sunday on the run up to Christmas, he scammed over 5 tils in the space of a few mins! Its only a few mins after that people realise what's happened.

Dave!

I don't think you should be responsible for this... If someone came in and held a gun to your head and took all the money, should you feel compelled to pay it back? Nope, you're the victim. Same with this con, you didn't do it on purpose, you were intentionally chosen and manipulated. Don't feel responsible, the guy's obviously a pro.

highlight100

Just put the whole thing down to expirence..

nobodythere

Done and done... Learned my lesson well

Cheers for all the help

Attol

Happened to me once. There was a power cut along the whole street and we had a couple of tills still running off a back up supply. There were no cameras and only a couple of lights working. A guy did this to me with a £20 and was being overly friendly when I told him I had already given him back the money he had given me. He was very persuasive and in the end I gave in as I knew the cameras weren't working so I couldn't go check for myself.

Gillo

Yeah it's a con alright, it's jsut a pity you were having a crap day, it obviously made you feel worse.

Having worked in retail for years all I can say is it happened you today, it'll happen someone else tomorrow so don't beat yourself up too much. My way of avoiding it is simply take as much time as you need when working out cash, if there is a big queue of people let them wait, simply take your time and make sure you you know what you are doing not what the customer is telling you they are doing. (yeah I knwo it's easier said than done).

As for telling you boss and offering to pay the shop back
THATS THE MOST HONEST THING I HAVE SEEN IN YEAR'S - RESPECT FOR THAT

Calibos

skyhighflyer wrote:

To the OP:

Yes you were conned.

And no you don't need to worry about it.

The same happened to me where I work (Roma gypsies - enough said :mad: )

So you boss or company is down €96. BFD.

Why should you feel bad about it - the person commiting the crime is the only person who did something morally wrong here.

Just make sure it doesn't happen again - I'm sure it won't it never did for me anyway three years on....

Ditto. With a slight variation which made it even worse. I had never served Roma before but was wary all the same as they looked dodgy coming in in such a large group. Paid me with a 100 note and then asked for it back. "Hold on a sec, this could be a con", I thought to myself. "100 back mister sir", after handing me back the change out of 100 I had given them "Yeah ,yeah, when you give me the price of the goods to bring the money in my hand back to 100. Thats when you get your hundred back." They handed over the balance and I handed them the 100 and they quickly left the shop.

"Ha, think you can try a con on me!!" Then I started to put the 100 in assorted notes and change back into the till. It then dawned on me that they had pocketed a few of the notes and doubled over the others to make it look like they were giving me all my change back. ARRGGGHHH!!:mad:

Never got done with that con or variation thereof again. Next time I had Roma in one of the guys wanted to pay me for a packet of chewing gums with 4x100 euro notes!! "Eh no.....you're a bit new at this aren't you or else you think I am a total effing eejit!!" I still take large notes from Roma btw though. When I assertain that its a con I am very careful to get the correct money back before handing their note back to them. Before I hand it back though I often right CON on it so the next shop worker they try it on will be aware straight away. For people who proclaim to you when they come in, "no speaky englishy" the narky look on their face when they see what you have written on the note gives the game away that they know they have been rumbled and also prevented from using that note for a con again.

NB. I do know you are not supposed to deface currency but I get pleasure from knowing that no matter what they try to spend the money on in the future whether con or not, they will get suspicious treatment and end up having to redeem the note in a bank where the defaced note will be taken out of circulation. This isn't a racist thing, this is a con artist Irish, Roma or otherwise thing.

Another time this Irish lad tried it. I told him I had given him the full change for the 100 euro note. He said I still owed him 50. I told him the 50 I owed him was in his back pocket. He denied it and became all indignant about me accusing him of being a conman. Well I did say, "Oh this old con!" A bit of toing and froing of You owe me 50...No I don't...yes you do. Then he played the guards card. I want you to call the guards down here because you have defamed my character and you still owe me 50. Now at this stage a new young shop assistant might cave and think this guy must be serious, I don't need this hassle etc and hand over a 50 to be rid of the guy.

I called his bluff though and reached for the phone book and handed it to a regular and asked them to look up the number of the local station. Fair play to her, she copped the scenario to a tee and took her good time looking for the number, keeping the bluff going and making him sweat. After a couple of minutes he start to crack and asked me what we needed the guards for, sure how would they know what change I had or hadn't given him. "Hey I thought you wanted me to ring the guards!" "Look you owe me 50 and thats that". He hung in there for another minute and then pretended to search his pockets and whaddya know, "Oh I just found the 50....it was in my back pocket. I smiled and he left the shop mouthing "Ya cnut" through gritted teeth.

Kind of made up for the Romas getting the better of me.

If you don't actually refuse to take the high denomination note in the first place the best thing to do when they ask for the note back is to complete the transaction of change regardless. ie don't hand their big note back straight away or end up with both the note and their change in your hands at the same time (recipe for confusion that)place the big note sitting on the till drawer, hand them the change (or place it on the counter in front of them) you were going to give them anyway. ie you now have the big note and they now have the correct change in their hand. Tell them to add money to that pile of change in their hand(or on the counter) to bring it back up to the denomination of the big note. Once they do that then take the change and count it to make sure it adds up to the big note denomination and then and only then hand them their big note back.

Remember they don't just hand you the change you gave them straight back to you to get their big note back. In that case you have still been conned. You're down the price of the goods and they've got the goods too! They have to add the price of the goods back into the change before handing it back to you to get their big note back......Oh and don't forget to write CON on the note!

scoby

These guys are really skilled at what they do. When someone tried it on me I recognised scam because I'd been warned about it. Even so I still thought I'd short changed the guy when he was asking for his money back. It was only because I'd noticed how many 50's I had in my till that I knew he already had it.
Went back and looked at the camera later and still couldn't see when or how he'd done it.

lucrative business if you can make 50 in 2 mins

JackieChan

Excellent post Calibos. Nice insight to this con