I worked for a time at a DUI school in downtown Miami, where all the parking is metered. The homeless folk figured out that coke can tops could be used in the meters to get 2 hours on them. Their scam would be to find a person trying to find a parking spot, direct them into an empty space, pop a coke can top in the meter, then ask the person for the "two dollars" that they just put in the meter for them (25 cents for 15 minutes, 2 hours = $2.00). It worked like a champ for the most part..
One funny story was when one of our instructors, an off duty undercover police officer was arriving to work. One of the homeless guys directed him into a spot and did the coke can top thing. Upon asking the officer for his two dollars, the officer replied "Thank you, but I didn't ask for you to put anything in the meter for me" and continued to walk into the building. The homeless guy (completely unaware that his mark was an undercover police officer), upset that this guy was stiffing him yelled out "Hey, you know that lots of stuff happens to cars down here, and nobody knows who does it!". The officer stopped and paused for a moment, turned around and yelled back "Yeah, and I'm an undercover Police officer, and did you know that a lot of homeless people are found dead down here and nobody knows who did it". The homeless guy threw up his arms, yelled "It's cool, It's cool, no problems here man!" and walked away rather quickly.
PS: Several years later, they changed the meters to the new digital ones which put an end to this particular scam.
Cheers,
Brad
