Can You Give me Change Scam Alert

dvdfan

Hi,

Im pretty sure ive been scammed. I was working today and a foreign man asked to change 20 x €10 notes for €20's and/or €50. A small bit unusual so i was on guard as its usually the other way around. The notes were good so i counted them out, there was only €190. I recounted and told him there was only €190. He took the notes back and counted them out in front of me, apologised and handed them back. At this stage i taught he was trying to scam me out of €10 and got caught. I took the €190 back and put it in the till and he handed me the other €10. I then gave him the €200 in change.

The scam was that when he handed me back the bunch of €10's there was only 10 not 20. After counting it twice myself and seeing him count it out in front of me i presumed they were all there and to be honest i was concentrating more on waiting for the last tenner he was short and i was off gaurd because i taught hes scam was to get €200 for €190 which i taught i caught him at (which was obviously how the scam is pulled off, to take my mind off the bunch of tenners)

Anyway i feel like a dope so feel free to call me an idiot but although it sounds like i was stupid, it actually was done quite cleverly. Youd think youd notice the difference between 10 and 19 tenners but when your convinced theres 19 after it being counted 3 times and your no longer concentrating on the bunch of tenners its actually easily done.

So i just taught id spread the word in case someone tries it on you some day. Not much you can do though because hes going to apologise and hand you the other tenners and thus it would be very hard to convict him of a crime. I still cant be 100% sure but the till was down 100 on a very quiet day (very very unusual, all the staff are very honest and working here a long time) so i can only presume replaying it in my head that i was scammed.

Anyone ever came across anything similar. What could be done within the law if this situation arose again, could you prove anything. Wont be doing anyone any favours again in a hurry:o :mad:

This was in Athlone B.T.W

cornbb

Thanks for the heads up. Gotta say, that was a pretty sneaky and clever trick he pulled on ya, could have happened to anyone. I used to work in a shop and some regular "undesirable" customers would try to pull similar stunts late at night, mostly involving small change. Nothing involving as much sleight-of-hand as that though!

Ruu_Old

Bumped over to Consumer Issues, redirect still in After Hours. Thanks OP.

cast_iron

How did he go from counting out 19 €10 notes in front of you to handing you just 10 of them without you noticing?

dvdfan

Well you see i didnt notice this at the time. I think he probably distracted me for a split second when he finished counting the notes he apologised to me and i obviously made eye contact with him but only for a split second but enough time for him to pull the con off. These con artists make a living doing this and are very skilled. I say this because last year we had someone pull a con.

She was well dressed, sat down with a latte for about 20 mins. Then when she paid she handed in a €50, when the cashier handed her the change the well dressed woman went to turn away but turned back immediately and told the cashier she left her €20 short. There was no manager around and the girl gave her back €20 even though she was sure she gave her the right change.

When i came back i checked the till and it was €20 short so i checked the camera. I watched the incident a few times before noticing her hand moving quickly towards her handbag which was on her shoulers. On watching it in slo-mo i could she as soon as the cashier looked down at the till to put the money in she snapped the 20 from her hand into the purse in a split second and called the cashier immediately to show her the wrong change.

The moral of the story is these people are very quick and have done this many many times so they know how and who to try and con

rgfuller

See "Change Raising" here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick for a writeup on it and other tricks, I think I've seen it performed on "Hustle" a bbc tv series too.

bmaxi

Try and catch "The Real Hustle" BBC Three Weds. 7p.m. some real beauties there.

miju

saw them carry out the exact same thing on the Real Hustle before its a very slick move how they do it

dvdfan

Yeah, i went throught the video footage today and have a better idea now.

He counted out the money into his hand and then looked at me and apologised. At this moment he quickly dropped one of his hands to his pocket presumably with half the notes( i didnt notice this at the time because i was looking at him) and immediately handed me the rest of the notes. But he didnt hand me the remaining €10 until after i put the notes in the till. Had i decided to count them, im pretty sure he would have handed me the remaining notes but as soon as they were in the till he just gave me 1 €10 note. Thus you couldnt really prove anything either way.

Im sure many people have been caught by this without noticing and even if they did suspect it was him they probably just taught they gave the wrong change. Brave to do this with €100, im sure it could easily be pulled of with less, say €50 but i suppose if it works theyll try and get as much as possible.

I have a good few cameras so i got a nice few pictures of him, unfortunately he counted out the money on the counter and the camera view is blocked as he counted so i cant see the act in motion only that he quickly withdraws one hand into his pocket and hands me the bunch of 10's with the other hand.

I did however print off several copies and brought them to the cops station but wheter or not they can do anything i dont know, i certainly dont expect to get the money back. They just said they'd look into it and i left it at that. Im sure hes probably moved onto another town by now.

I also noticed he walked past the shop first, slowed down and looked in and then walked past and walked back to the shop and came in.

Question for the mods, would it be wise to post a photo of him. Im very sure ive be scammed but i cant be 100% sure because of the camera been slightly obstructed. Can i post a photo with the comments beware if this man tries to change notes or something similar without actually accusing him? Im sure if this man does this for a living he wont stay around the same town too long so it would be helpful to post it so other people might spot him and the Gardai could be contacted.

p.s this man is East European with Reasonable english, most likely Romanian.

catch--22

Don't see what not...sure they always post pics on crimewatch etc....just don't say that this is the guy who robbed you....just that he's needed to help you with your enquiries etc etc!

maireadmarie

We may have seen this approximately two years ago in our local shop, the person looking for change was a woman who appeared to be Romanian - a man with her was rooting around the shelves - her English was so poor that our local shop assistant couldn't understand her - she pushed notes on him and I realised she was asking for change, but he just gave it back saying he didn't understand. I recall she was quite annoyed, changing from her demure personality in two seconds and glaring, but they then left!

haz

dvdfan wrote:

Anyway i feel like a dope so feel free to call me an idiot but although it sounds like i was stupid, it actually was done quite cleverly.

I agree with you, that was a very neat use of psychology and distraction, and if it works so well then I am sure there are a lot more people taken by it.

TequilaMockingBird

Thanks alot for the tip. (Some poor soul will ask for change and I'll be glaring at them!) Lousy losing e100.