[Image: Google Maps]
Perhaps you have seen a couple of men giving out Panama/cowboy/wide-rimmed sun hats among the traffic lights in Cape Town’s CBD, particularly near the Buitengracht / Walter Sisulu intersection.
While it is unclear what their goals are, it seems they have a kind of modus operandi for how to wrangle a little cash out of you once they offload a hat or two through your car window.
It was a couple of years ago when I first encountered a gentleman at my open window (in the same area, mind you) telling me I could have one of his hats as a gift, only for his offer to be turned into a matter of urgency, where I suddenly needed to fork out whatever cash I had at the time in exchange for this headpiece that I frankly had no interest in.
It feels rude at the moment to throw the hat out of the window, as he had just kindly ‘gifted’ it to you, and you don’t exactly feel thrilled driving off with this thing that you’re not even sure is a freebie – so what? You pull over, you give him the only R100 note you had in your wallet, or you shove the hat back at the next stop? Or you get a new hat…
Herein, I suspect, lies the scam. If one can even call it that. Perhaps it is more like a fat chance.
These men and their hats are back again this year, and I’ve been watching them at the traffic lights along Buitengracht. They prey at open windows, feed off kindnesses and niceties, and hope for the best. But recently, they seem to also be taking even fatter chances and using even dodgier tactics.
Someone I know was recently driving up Buitengracht towards Nelson Mandela Boulevard (on the way out of town, towards the N1/N2 outbound) when they stopped at one of the many traffic lights. That is to say, I think the fact that there are so many stops makes the spot the perfect opportunity to ensure getting their way (AKA, some money for the ‘free’ hats).
While waiting at the red robot, the man shoved a relatively nice-looking Panama hat from his pile into my friend’s window (let’s call him Smith). The man apparently told Smith that it was a nice day so he could have a free hat, which the man said he had made by hand. Ha, right. He probably also told Smith it was his birthday at some point. Everyone is playing nice.
Smith tried to say ‘No no no I don’t want this hat’, seeing as he had no cash on him. This is when the man gave Smith a second hat “for his girlfriend”, which softened Smith’s heart, at which point a card machine was conveniently pulled out.
Yep, street hawkers are moving to card machines for cashless payment these days. Good for them, except for when it gets weird.
The man then gave Smith the card machine to input the amount he thought was appropriate to pay. Fair game. Except when Smith struggled to confirm R250 the man took the card machine, said it was sorted and that Smith just needed to put in his pin.
Now this is where it gets tricksy. How many of us don’t even look at the amount we’re about to pay when we tap our cards?
Luckily, Smith had noticed the amount skyrocket to R2,500 before he tapped or inputted his pin, so he was able to get out of the scam without losing an obscene amount to two hats he didn’t even want in the first place.
At this point, it was green to go, and in the rush, Smith had no choice but to drop the card machine out of the window, forgetting the two new hats on his passenger seat.
Smith won this one, but it was a close call.
The lesson? Ask to see the amount you’re about to tap for. South Africa is far from being built around a trust system so it should be customer service etiquette to be shown what a customer is paying as well as the customer’s responsibility to check before finalising a purchase.
Also, close your windows when you see the hat men approach.
The more you know…
