Finding Cash With Someone Else Is Never Good News
There is a very dangerous scam going around these days known as the Money Drop Trap. It is very prevalent now in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. It could happen to you in busy places, whether you're in a mall, parking lot, or just on a downtown sidewalk. What's also interesting about this scam is that the female victims are being scammed by women, while men trick the male victims.
What would you do if you find a bunch of cash? The Money Drop scam comes in two variations. Here is the first one:
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As you walk through a busy place, somebody runs between you and another person and "accidentally" drops some cash – typically a few hundred dollar bills. The person beside you sees it, as well.
He begins to pick up the banknotes, but because he knows you noticed, offers to share it 50-50. As a good person you are, you look after the owner of the money, but he is long gone. You fall into temptation, take your share of $200, and walk away.
Three minutes later, the owner of the money – along with a couple of big guys – taps your shoulder and asks for the money back – the full amount. As you only have half, you need to see the closest ATM in order to get away without being hurt. As foolish as it seems, the scam happens a lot.
What Would You Do If You Find a Larger Sum of Money?
The second variation of the Money Drop Scam is even crazier – and we do have a video for it. How does it work?
Watch the video below to see the Money Drop Scam exposed in the news:
This scheme is a very strategized scam, based on the right location corroborated with the perfect timing for the victim to bite. As you could see in the video above, the victim walks through a busy lot. Two scammers who are pretending not to know each other happen to be very close, walking in different directions.
One of them 'accidentally' finds a wallet/bag with a large amount of visible cash in it (or just a cash wad of a few thousand dollars) planted a few seconds earlier. She makes sure she's seen by the mark (the victim) when she finds the money.
The second scammer also notices the cash at the same time. At this point, all three people could claim the finding – including the victim – since there is no one to demand the money back. The two accomplices start talking about how to share the banknotes. By law, large amounts of found cash cannot be kept legally by anyone, so one of the scammers suggests to make it legal. How?
She says she works in a financial institution/bank right across the street and knows how it works. The suggestion is to get her supervisor to draw some quick paperwork. This way, all three could get the cash and carry on with their day. As the two other finders of the money – the victim and the accomplice – agree, the first scammer walks into 'her workplace' to set up the agreement.
However, she comes back out saying that in order to get approval for the paperwork, all three finders need to show financial backing – to avoid being flagged as if they would have stolen the money. To make this quick, they are recommended to withdraw an amount of money from an ATM rather than providing bank statements. As you could see in the video above, the victim withdrew $2,000!
After the cash is out, the 'bank employee' walks back into the institution to show the proof – for all three finders – to her 'supervisor'. Meanwhile, the other two – victim and accomplice – need to wait outside, she says.
She comes back happy, with her share of the money, then she suggests they should take turns into walking in the bank to get their shares. The second to step in is the accomplice, who also comes out with her share.
When the victim walks in as the third, nobody in the bank knows what she is talking about, since the two scammers never went to the till. They picked a place where they could hide from the closed-circuit cameras and waited a while to make it look like they've been dealing with the situation. When the victim comes out, the two scammers are not to be found.
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A fellow tried a variation of this with me just this past Sunday as he saw me bend over to pick up something off our building’s lawn. He rushed over demanding I take out my earbuds. He asked me if I just found some money because he “was over there talking on the phone and lost some money”. When I held up the lovely white feather I’d found in the grass I KNOW he felt like a fool. The situation felt off to me, especially as he claimed to have just moved into my building – we only rent to disabled, elderly or retired folks, and he was in no way disabled or anything else. I pretended to scan our property and as I passed where he and his other 2 cohorts were hanging about, I shrugged and told him I didn’t see anything. He suddenly claimed he found it. Not 15 later, when I was in the grocery store, the female of the group gathered various items from the store, put them in her bag and as she walked to the bakery display at the front doors of the store, grabbed a container of cookies, and bold as brass, walked right out without paying. I rushed to a cashier to report it but no one seemed to care.
Thank you. That happened to me. I just told them to call the police " you lowlife Gypsies." They just cursed me and went away.