An old scam is a good scam. Evidently. I recently overhead a cashier at a convenience store lamenting about being taken by what we called “Quick Change Artist”, or a variety thereof. These scams are as old as prostitution but are, like that ancient evil, still alive and kicking.
These particular slick tricksters would hand a clerk a bill--say a twenty--or receive it in change and ask the clerk to break it down as the con artist needed smaller bills. He might say “make it two tens.” Then, as the clerk is getting the two tens, the request changes. “Go ahead and make that one ten and ten ones.”
This isn’t the exact language or “patter” but the intent is always the same: make the requests and changes so fast and often the confused clerk ends up giving the con artist more than he started out with. This is usually half, but sometimes is the whole twenty.
Sound impossible? Can’t happen to you? If you encounter one of these fast taking dudes you’d better walk away or you could be next.
The quick change that required the most patience was the “dollar-splitter.” We’d catch inmates doing this in jail cause they had a lotta time to waste. The required materials are a one dollar bill and a twenty-- or ten if that’s the best you can do—some glue, and a very sharp razor blade.
The carver will start splitting the bills into halves, the front from the back on both. When the separation is completed, a hybrid is glued together, a twenty on one side and a one on the other. The bills are passed, of course, with the twenty side facing up. That’s a potential of forty dollars.
Some splitters, who don’t have the patience to do the entire bill, just take the corners that show the denomination. Then the bills are fanned like cards when passed, showing only the higher denomination number.
The things people will do to make a buck—literally.
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