Londoners are warning of a new scam appearing in the streets of the city. Taking to popular online forum Reddit, one person shared their first hand account.
“I was driving around Bow late at night when I saw a young ish man in the distance laying on the pavement with a moped on his legs,” they wrote, “indicating he fell, he was laying perfectly still until he noticed my car coming.
“I stopped and put my windows down to see what he was saying then started panicking in pain asking me to come out of the car to help him but there was two lads and a girl not too far from him just standing around keeping their eyes on me.
“I quickly drove off out of instinct because my initial thought process was ‘why did these guys not help him and why was he so still before he noticed my car’ but now I feel like an a*****e if he genuinely needed help.”
RED MORE:Trio that staged car crash to claim £50,000 compensation jailed
The scam involves a fake motorcycle accident
(Image: Askolds/Getty Images)
People were quick to reply with everyone convinced it was a scam. Some were convinced the scammers were intending to steal a kind person’s car when they got out to help: “Sounds like if you’d have got out of the car to help him, they’d have had your car away.”
Others thought it more likely that they would have stolen the person’s valuables: “Everyone has a phone in their pocket these days. He could have called for help. If he’s just laying there all calm until he realises you have slowed and rolled your window down, yeah I bet as soon as you put your car in park and got out that crew would have tried to steal something from you. This kind of scam is thousands of years old, smart on you for not falling for it.”
A dash cam could save you from being falsely accused of an accident
(Image: Bebenjy/Getty Images)
But the most common consensus in the replies was that the scam would involve insurance fraud. One person wrote “Guy claims you hit him, the others are ‘witnesses’ to the ‘accident’ and claim insurance,” and another said “Sounds to me like they would have snapped a photo of you, your open car door and a guy lying on the ground. It would appear in the photo that you had hit him.”
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And the forum had several suggestions on what to do if you come across the situation. If you encounter someone laying on the ground under a moped or motorcycle and see a group of people nearby not helping, they said driving on is the smartest thing to do. If you really are concerned for the person’s wellbeing, you can phone an ambulance or the police when you’re a safe distance away.
Alternatively, the forum said you could cautiously roll your window down and let them know you’re phoning the police, but the best thing to do would be to file a police report after the fact: “Make sure you report this to the police, even if it’s just the online form. They might not investigate if it’s a one off, but it ought be useful if they have several reports of the same thing.”
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