How to Get Scammed Out of $19 at Starbucks

Wh-wh-what happened?!?

“Do you have a twenty for two tens?”

That’s what he asked me. “He” was a sixty-plus-year-old disabled man with good shoes. You know what I mean about the shoes, especially if you have a face like mine that invites direct panhandling requests or shaggy-dog stories with the same aim. You live in a city. The first thing you do is check out what someone’s shoes look like so you know if they’re likely to ask you for money. Untroubled shoes suggest (but do not guarantee!) that the shoes-wearer will not seek money from me. Or such has been my experience until that point.

Actually, I’d already checked out more than this man’s shoes. He’d been hanging out near the Starbuck pick-up counter. The walker he used was the kind a person could sit on, and it was in good shape – none of the array of bags that often hang off a panhandler’s walker. The man was also quite hunched over and seemed to bend in the wrong places. He wasn’t going to ask me for money. In fact, he was just having a coffee like everyone else in the place.

I felt a little bad about thinking he might be about to ask me for money. I wondered about his difficult life and how he makes it work. I wondered what kind of challenges he faces every day in situations that are simple for me and that I take for granted.

Suffice it to say, he had me hook, line and sinker.

Okay, there were a few minor strangenesses. He did seem to be spending a little too long sorting out his coffee, which is usually a sign of chaos that can extend to innocent bystanders. And after I sat down with my own beverage, I briefly thought I saw him  drinking directly from one of the milk carafes. I generally try not to stare, but that’s a situation that deserves full investigation because I HAD ALREADY USED THE MILK AND BEGUN TO DRINK MY BEVERAGE.

He wasn’t drinking from one of the milk carafes. His to-go mug just looked like a carafe. Thank the Maker. I put my head back into my computer.

“Do you have a twenty for two tens?” he asked me, and he was suddenly nearby.

I immediately thought of two good reasons he might need a twenty for two tens. Plus, I’d already surveyed his situation for panhandling potential, and I’d doubted him about the milk carafe, so I was inclined to be a little more inclusive than five minutes before. But my lizard brain was still trying to determine if I had missed something about the man – I’m not a big fan of reaching for my wallet around strangers.

Good thing I didn’t lose this fake beauty.

Then he did the thing that convinced me he wasn’t about to try to scam me: he produced the two tens and set them on my table.

I reached for my wallet and got out a twenty-dollar bill that I handed to him. That actually took a good thirty seconds. I had to find the twenty. My wallet contained mostly ones, which was not a good financial sign! I had a thought about that, but I decided to move on cuz the nice man was waiting for me.

Do you know where this is going? If so, you are smarter than I was!

I handed the man a twenty. I reached for the two tens from the table and put them in my wallet.

The man seemed to be standing nearby still, and he hadn’t said anything even to thank me for the twenty. That was weird. I looked at him. He was holding a one-dollar bill. He sputtered something about how I had given him a one instead of a twenty. I stammered an apology. But my hind brain was having its doubts.

I looked at the one-dollar bill he was holding – it was folded as if it had been in my wallet. I reached for a twenty. There seemed to be only one twenty-dollar bill in my wallet. I was fifty percent sure there had been two twenties before. I handed him the new twenty.

But wait. There HAD been two twenties in my wallet. I was eighty percent sure.

“Did you switch those?” I said to him.

The lie was on his face. I was one hundred percent sure he had switched them.

“I would never do that,” he said and put my new twenty in his wallet.

He had switched them when I picked up the two tens he placed on my table. I narrowed my eyes at him. I pursed my lips. But I remembered my five weeks as a D.C. Grand Juror and how things go when they go bad.

Pez Presidents sit in judgment of me.

However, I did NOT remember that a few years ago, the same thing happened on the Metro to Cake Man, who offered to call a cop over to sort out the situation. Cake Man is smarter than me. His scammer high-tailed it. Cake Man, who stopped using cash, has been suggesting for years that I also stop.

Mr. Coffee-and-Con was hanging out at the pickup counter waiting for someone who was using cash. CREEPY! He offered to buy me a beverage after he stole $19 from me. I should have ordered a triple-venti-something-crazy-with-extra-judgment. Instead, I glared a little more. Mr. Scammer-in-the-Nice-Shoes hastily departed the establishment.

My understanding is the swindle only works the first time on the victim because they don’t recognize it. So, now you know. If just one person who reads this post doesn’t get scammed, that’s good enough for me! Also, to Cake Man’s delight, I’ve switched to credit.