"You have a lucky face" / "You are lucky" scam.

Re-posting this from my status update on Facebook which I shared the other day on a rather unique encounter. 

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On my way to my car after work today (while doing my Pokestop runs) an Indian fella stopped me on my track and said "You're very lucky. You have 3 lines on your forehead I can see that is luck". 

That obviously stopped me for a bit as he approached me and said "You wanna know how I know? I can tell people's fortune. You wanna know your fortune?" Curious me nodded yes while my brain let out a big sigh and told me "That's it, you're gonna fall for this somehow."

This "fortune teller" proceeds to make small talks about how I'm happy but I'm only 40% happy while scribbling on his notepad discreetly. He then crumpled up the paper and made me hold it in my first and said "What I wrote in there, you don't know right?" (cues my no shit, Sherlock! moment)

Then he started asking me to pick a number between 1 to 10, my favourite flower, my dad's name, mom's name, wife's name, no of siblings & no. of kids. As I told him those details (Yeah, gullible me decide to give a stranger all my personal details thinking maybe he could be a real fortune teller) he started writing them down while still holding on to the crumpled paper in my fist. After giving him those details, he brought my attention back to my fist and asks again "You know what I wrote in there?" I shook my head with a polite smile. He then asked me to give him back the paper and did some mumbo jumbo with it, gave it back to me and asked me to "blow" on it. 

And then he showed me on his notepad he has written down all the details I've told him previously but to prove that he was a fortune teller, he would've known it already. And it's written in that crumpled paper which he supposedly "predicted". Then he continued saying I have 3 good news coming next month and whatever he's about to tell me I need to keep it to myself because there are people right now that are jealous of me (yay I've got haters!).

His 'prediction' on what I told him. 

Of course for such sorcery, it comes with a price. He then wrote down again saying "Usually poor people will give $50, rich people $100. But money will go to this yoga group *flashes a group photo of a bunch of Indian fellas at some temple* to help them. And then the golden question..."How much you want to give them?"

I told him I don't have any money on me while looking at his offer of 'Poor people = $50' whilst thinking to myself, I must be really poor in his category if I don't have $50 on me right now which is true. He then negotiated and said "It's okay, any amount will do." Here, I would usually just opt to give $10 or possibly more but the problem is - I wasn't impressed with his "prediction" because I knew how it was done. (Hooray for owning a magic store before!) 

Again, he was persistent and said "Any amount can help!" So I just did my 'pretend tap on my pocket move' and said "I don't have my wallet. Got wallet also no money. Sorry!"

Fella then said "God Bless You!" and walked away.  My brain did a victory dance.

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Upon posting that, quite a number of my friends commented and said they've also experienced this scam from different parts of the world. A quick Google search shows this scam has been going on for quite  a while. 

Just Google 'Indian Fortune Prediction Scam'. 

The next time anyone stops you and say you're lucky or have a lucky face, just say thank you and walk away.