The Pigeon Drop. The Secret Shopper. The Canadian Lottery. If you are not aware of these terms, it is time to learn. These are some of the more well-used scams targeting the elderly and others in Fayette County and beyond.

Fayetteville Police Det. Mike Whitlow said the various scams, whether perpetrated in person or through the Internet, have increased in number locally and often go unreported because the victims are embarrassed to admit that they have been scammed.

He said Fayetteville has seen a three-fold increase in scam activity in the past six months.

Long-known as the Jamaican Switch or the Hankie Switch, the Pigeon Drop is a scam in which the victim is offered a sum of money but must have to put up some of her own to benefit.

A variation on that theme has shown up three times in Fayetteville since January, Whitlow said, with the victims losing a total of $46,000 in the process.

In these scams, the victims were approached in grocery store parking lots such as Food Depot or Aldi or in the parking lot of the southside Rite-Aid drugstore.

Whitlow said the scam works essentially like this. The victim, often an elderly person, is targeted by the thief. The victim is approached by the con man holding a wallet or bag containing cash. The con man shows the money to the victim and asks if it belongs to her, a way of breaking the ice to set up the scam, Whitlow said.

The con man is usually professionally dressed and well-spoken, which tends to lend believability to his presentation. The con man will often reference some type of hardship he is enduring to further ensnare the victim emotionally.

“This is their occupation and some of them are very good at it,” Whitlow said. “The lure of free money is a psychological ploy. And the victim’s desperation overcomes their common sense.”

Continuing the scam, the perpetrator may claim to be a store employee, as in the case of the woman approached in the Aldi parking lot by a man claiming to be a Lowe’s employee, though he had no identification, Whitlow said.

The man said he found a wallet and needed to talk to the store manager about it. He went inside the store, ostensibly to talk to the manager, and returned to tell the woman that the manager said that if there was no identification in the wallet that they could keep the money. The man said the manager had also called police and they said the same thing.

As the scam continued, the con man said he and the woman should verify that the money was real rather than counterfeit. The way to do that, he said, would be for the woman to go to her bank and withdraw sufficient money so they could compare the bills, including serial numbers, to verify the authenticity of the money in the wallet. They went to her bank together, where she withdrew a total of $16,500.

In a similar case in February, another Pigeon Drop scam was perpetrated at the Rite-Aid in south Fayetteville, but this time the man used a bag instead of a wallet. And again the victim was duped to the tune of $4,500, Whitlow said.

The largest cash loss also came last month, when a victim was approached outside the Food Depot and, when the scam was completed, eventually lost $25,000.

The Pigeon Drop often targets the elderly, especially in grocery store parking lots on Wednesdays or Thursdays since those days are often ones designated as senior discount days by grocery stores, Whitlow said.

Whitlow said it is likely that no more than one in five of Pigeon Drop victims ever report the crime because they are embarrassed for having been taken in.

“The elderly grew up in a time where you could trust people. That’s not the age we live in now,” he said, adding that the current day economic desperation faced by some may have created more victims willing to take a chance to obtain free money. “It’s like the old saying: if it seems too good to be true, it is.”

Once the victims secure their own funds to make the “comparison,” the scam artist creates a way to leave the area and makes off with the money, leaving the victim empty-handed.

“One way or the other, the perpetrator gets out of sight of the victim and is gone,” Whitlow said, noting that in the case of the scam at the Rite-Aid and Lowe’s, both perpetrators said they were store employees and had to go into the store to check with the manager before splitting the money.

Whitlow said the perpetrators seen locally are a mix of genders and ethnicities. He said investigators are in possession of evidence secured from the scams.

But the Pigeon Drop is far from the only game in town. Another scam seen in Fayetteville recently is the Secret Shopper. And while some secret shopper programs are run by legitimate companies, others are anything but legit, Whitlow said.

The Secret Shopper Scam is simple in its approach. The victim, whether through the Internet or mail, is given a check to be deposited in his bank account and is asked to go and spend the money, said Whitlow. The victim is asked to send a fee to the company for participating in the program.

The problem is that the check the victim deposits is counterfeit and can take a few days to discover. Meanwhile, many have already mailed the fee.

There are also a number of email scams in play in the area, Whitlow said. One of those is the Canadian Lottery. In principle, it is identical to the Nigerian Lottery Scam, the Euromillions, the Dutch or a number of others that surface over the Internet.

These scams inform the recipient that he or she has won substantial amounts of money. Prior to receiving the funds, the person must pay the taxes owed on the amount. The person, of course, never sees their alleged winnings, said Whitlow.

There is a local case, he said, where a woman paid $2,000 in supposed taxes, only to be contacted by the “lottery company” to pay an additional $2,000 after they had “incorrectly figured” her tax rate. As is often the case, this scam is perpetrated on the elderly, Whitlow said.

The bottom line, said Whitlow, is that you should never provide anyone promising free money with your own money or your Social Security number or banking information.

Whitlow will be conducting a seminar on these and other matters at the Fayette Senior Center on March 25 at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Anyone who believes they are being targeted by a scam should contact their local law enforcement agency. In Fayetteville, contact Det. Mike Whitlow or Det. Marvin Vinson at 770-461-4441.

County residents should contact Det. Anthony Rhodes at the Sheriff’s Office at 770-461-6353.

Peachtree City residents should contact the Police Department at 770-487-8866.

And Tyrone residents can contact Det. Adam Castings at 770-487-4732.