Last week while in San Luis de Sabinillas on the Costa del Sol, I came across a Scam I'd never seen before, involving a young man and girl asking for donations for a so-called centre for Deaf people.

I was near the back entrance of the Mercadona when I was approached by a girl with a clipboard.  She pointed to what looked like some kind of petition and in a rather passive agressive fashion, persuaded me to sign it. I felt like I was put on the spot.  I thought it was a bit odd and I checked around to make sure it wasn't some kind of distraction robbery, but there was no-one else in the vicinity.

I started filling in the form and noticed when I got to the last column, I had to make a donation.  I could see the other names on the form had donated 10 euros each apparently.  At this point I walked away shaking my head, much to the girl's annoyance.  But since she was pretending to be deaf and dumb, there wasn't much she could say!!  

I then walked a couple of hundred metres down the street and I was aproached by a young lad, with the same clipboard and same scam.  I told him "no thanks"
.
Maybe this was a genuine request for charity donations but somehow I doubt it.  The Spanish costas are full of these sort of scams.  From doing a quick look online, it looks like this scam has been operating in other areas such as Benidorm as well.

In hindsight, I should probably have reported this to the Policia Local.

So be careful out there guys!