Summer is a time of sun, beach, swimming pool, summer and being hot. The high temperatures are preventing people from moving a lot from their homes, following the recommendations to use sunscreen, constantly hydrate, avoid the hours of greatest sun exposure and keep buildings well ventilated. However, summer is also a time for scams, to deceive ordinary citizens or tourists in different ways. Something that Sandra Barneda experienced in her flesh when she was young.
The presenter of Así es la vida explained, between laughs and indignation, how she was scammed more than 20 years ago in Lisbon. The program team was discussing a segment dedicated to the “tocomocho” scam, when Barneda explained an occasion in which she too was the victim of a hoax. When buying an object in an old material market, the television company was given the change and she had to chase the scammer with a friend, without being able to reach him.
The “tocomocho” scam is possibly one of the best known and most popular during the summer months. The explanation came from the arrest, this Monday in Benidorm, of a group of five fraudsters who stole 30,000 euros from an elderly woman. The technique, according to Borja Méndez, consists of pretending that a lottery ticket cannot be cashed for unknown reasons, before trying to sell the fake ticket for a relatively smaller amount than the prize.
Within the debate generated among the collaborators, Sandra Barneda contributed a reflection of her grandfather: the deception occurs because the scammer makes you believe that he is offering you a “bargain”. From there, the presenter went on to tell the anecdote of youth suffered in Portugal. During her walk through a furniture and antique objects market in Lisbon, a vendor offered her a private mobile phone, hexagonal in shape, for a very low price.
Barneda initially refused, but she was curious about that object, something that led her to finally accept the offer. However, the problem came when the transaction was made: “He gave me his mobile and it was a bar of soap. A bar of soap, that is, it had the keyboard stuck to it”. A confession that contrasted with the first contact. According to her words, the first object she held was real, before they gave her the “big change” during the purchase.
“When you pay, and they give it to you, they give you the change. And I kept the bar of soap, we tried to run, and I was young, we tried to run and we didn’t catch them,” the television personality concluded. The reflection of her friend who accompanied her after what happened was the same as that of her grandfather: she thought she had a bargain on her hands and fell into the trap. A reflection with which she warned the viewers, and the rest of the collaborators, to be careful this summer.
