TERMIUM Plus®

The Government of Canada’s terminology and linguistic data bank.

QUICK-CHANGE ARTIST [1 record]

Record 1 2018-05-14

English

Subject field(s)
  • Criminology
  • Offences and crimes
CONT

A shortchange artist prefers to operate on careless or inexperienced cashiers. His goal is to confuse the cashier during a money transaction by changing his mind in the middle of a purchase. One common method used by a shortchange artist is to make a $.50 purchase and pay with a $20 bill, then suddenly changes his mind and decides to pay with a $1.00 bill. He will hand back the change from the $20 bill after pocketing $10 and produce the $1.00 bill to buy the item. An experienced cashier won't realize ten dollars is missing from the $20 change. During the exchange of money, the shortchange artist usually tries to take the cashier's mind from her work by talking about his job, family, sad story, etc. hoping the cashier won't notice the missing $10 bill.

Key term(s)
  • short-change artist
  • short-change scammer

French

Domaine(s)
  • Criminologie
  • Infractions et crimes
CONT

[...] Manœuvre frauduleuse encore, celle de l'escroc inexactement appelé «voleur au rendez-moi». Il est clair, en effet, que cet individu, en demandant la monnaie du billet de 50 F qu'il exhibe sans encore le remettre, et auquel il substitue adroitement au moment de la remise un billet de 10 F, ne commet pas un vol, mais une escroquerie.

Spanish

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