Drive by begging scam
On the way home from the office last night I stopped at our favorite Chinese restaurant to pick up dinner.
They like you to order on line, and I had, so I pulled up in the waiting position in front of the restaurant.
A man came out and with a fairly strong Chinese accent asked for the last 4 digits of my phone number to confirm my order.
As he went in to get it, a pick up truck pulled into the lot, hovered for a second by me and then pulled up along the side in front of my car.
A man got out (despite many “stay in your car, we’ll come to you!” signs) and walked over to my car. He stood about 3 meters away and looked at me. I did not recognize him.
It was a rainy Monday night and I was the only car in the lot. Most of the other places nearby were closed.
I rolled my window down a crack.
“Do I know you?” I asked.
He looked like he was about to say something when the man from the restaurant came out.
Pickup truck guy approached him and launched into a tale of woe about how he had lost his wallet, phone, watch and transportation. The man in the pickup truck offered to drive him to the bus station so he could get home, but he needed $32 more in order to be able to afford the bus ticket home.
It was almost word for word the standard “person in distress” scam folks used to pull at the supermarket parking lot near us. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/distress-cull/
The man from the Chinese restaurant said in an even heavier Chinese accent than before “Very sorry. Credit card only. No cash.”
He walked away and the man tried to follow him inside the restaurant that has very large bold signs saying no one allowed in, take out only.
“NO!” The restaurant man shouted. “You no come in!”
This was repeated twice, louder each time.
The pickup truck man nodded, got back in the truck and the truck drove off into the rainy night.
The restaurant man went inside and came back out with my food almost immediately.
As he handed my food in through my window he said in a very local accent “I think that man way lying to me.”
“I know he was,” I replied.
“Have good one, dude,” he said turning to get out of the rain.
“You too!”
This is an old scam. I’ve seen people give it for years.
There have been a few times I have helped folks that didn’t seem to be doing the scam. Sometimes I was right and they weren’t. Some times I was scammed.
But, I’ve never seen it as brazen as going to a restaurant and trying to get them to give you money.
It’s usually done in parking lots, or other places where people could be legitimately looking for help.
This seems like a major escalation of that scam.
If that guy had gotten in the door, what would have happened?
Would the pick up man have robbed him if there weren’t other folks around?
I did take photos of the pickup truck...