(I am working the cash register when an unknown customer walks up to me.)
Customer: “Hello. I have lots of 10€ notes I’d like to exchange for bigger notes.”
Me: “Sure. We are actually low on 10€ notes today, so that is great! How many did you have?”
(The customer then proceeds to pull a big stack of 10s out of his pocket.)
Me: “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. We don’t actually keep that many big bills in the till. Looks like most I can do for you today is 250€.”
Customer: “Okay, fine.”
(I don’t hand him the money yet. I decide it’s best to keep it safely in the till until I’ve checked his notes. Then he starts to count 25 bills from the stack really fast. After he hands me the bills, I check and count them, and notice he actually gave me 24 bills. When I tell him this, he takes the 24 bills back and starts counting them again, lightning fast.)
Customer: “Oh, I’m sorry, looks like you’re right. Here’s one more.”
(He hands me back the stack of bills, plus one more from his pocket. I’m beyond suspicious at this point, so I start counting them again.)
Customer: *slightly panicked* “No, no, you don’t have to do that. You just counted them already!”
Me: “Errm, I’m kind of glad I did. Instead of 24 or 25 bills, there’s 16 now…”
(At this, he snatched the stack of 10s from my hands and ran out of the store. I closed my lane and went to tell the manager. My manager and a few department supervisors checked the surveillance footage of the camera pointed at my till after that. They actually had to play it at a three-times lower speed before they could see at what point he had taken part of the stack and hidden it up his sleeve. Turned out he had done this at lots of other supermarkets in the area, too, and had succeeded most of the time! They gave me a gift card for not falling for it!)
