Folks find all kinds of unique, and sometimes bizarre, ways to make money these days.

For this guy, he came into contact with one of the most out of the box schemes he’s ever seen! He had to share it with Reddit.

While they almost let the guy get away with his scam, things did not work out in his favor.

There’s more to the story, so let’s get into it!

*You* don’t work here dude.

I’ve had “I don’t work here” experiences, but never a “You don’t work here”.

I was helping out during a large festival a few towns over from me, basically just filling in where I was needed.

Employees came from various places, but we all had on the same neon green staff shirt, so it was easy to find us.

A few people approached me asking why they started charging for parking… weird because they hadn’t and I knew that because I had just been parking people a few hours before hand.

Things get weird…

The group told me a guy in a neon shirt told them it was $5, gave them change and everything, handed them a parking tag, and then directed them to another neon shirt.

I grabbed a security guy and we went over to see if we could figure out what was going on.

This guy, I don’t know if I should be mad or impressed, got a neon green shirt and spray painted “staff” on the back.

From far away, it looked totally legitimate to the point we glanced around and didn’t notice him.

We approached him originally to ask him if he had seen anyone fishy around. When he looked up, I noticed a small face tattoo.

Not that they wouldn’t employ someone with a face tattoo, but I probably would have noticed at the staff meeting we had the day before.

After that we notice his home made shirt and lack of radio or badge.

He’s been caught red-handed!

Security guy (S) talked to him (F for fake), later we’ll meet B for boss.

S- Hey bud, you can’t just make a shirt and start charging people to park. If you give the money back and trash the shirt, just get out of here and we won’t call the cops.

F- Oh no uh John said we ran out of shirts and had me make this one.

S- John who?

F- John uh, you know, big guy, he’s around here somewhere…

Spoiler, there is no John.

It’s funny he picked that name because we had 4 Johns the year before, and had made a huge joke out of not having to figure out which John was which since we didn’t have a single one.

We also way over ordered staff shirts so we had like 30 left over.

His story is busted…

S- I know all the staff, there is no John. There are also plenty of staff shirts. One more time. Give the money back, and trash the shirt.

F- Hey man I don’t tell you how to do your job, why tell me how to do mine?

S- This isn’t your job, that’s why. I tried the easy way, it’s on you now.

S calls the cops and we stay by him making sure he doesn’t try to charge anyone else.

Made for a few amusing interactions when F tried to tell at passing cars to pay and we immediately yell over him saying there’s no charge for parking.

Cops come, and Boss.

B- Who in their right mind is charging to park? (Sees F) You? Who are you? (Cops walk up) Officers, this man is not on my staff, yet is charging to park in my free lot.

F- Woah hey John calm down! (B gives a weird look like, who’s John?) You can’t just call the cops every time we have a disagreement! If you’re that mad I didn’t order enough shirts just fire me damn.

Me, S, and B almost at the same time “You’re not staff!”

This guy was kind of hilarious. Cops took him aside and he tried so hard to convince them he was staff.

Finally, justice is served…

They asked him various questions like how he applied, how much they paid, when we started or ended, and of course he couldn’t answer any of them.

Luckily since he handed out parking tags (printed at home and stuck on cardboard), it was very easy to find how many cars he charged and who.

About 20 cars in the half a hour or so he was there before we came.

Had he just given up when we caught him, he wouldn’t have been arrested for (there’s a term for stuff like this, something like unauthorised sales, it’s basically a fancy way of saying theft but since they handed it to him under false pretenses it’s called something else).

Let’s see what Reddit users think.

This commenter thinks the scheme could have been improved.

Others pointed out how they avoid con-artists like this.

Most users got a good kick out of the scheme.

While some pointed out that it felt unnecessary.

There are a lot of scary schemes out there, and while I’m glad everyone got their money back, the guy was pretty funny!

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.