【海外の反応】道に落ちた20ドル札を拾いに行くな！Reddit民が語る“金を餌にした罠”の怖さ

Possibly trying to get you outside so that her accomplice could ambush you.

it was almost certainly a distraction or a bait scam. the moment you walked outside to grab the cash, either she or an accomplice waiting out of sight would have targeted you for a mugging or a quick pickpocket while your attention was on the ground.

It’s a long shot but maybe it’s a theft scam. You take her $20, she wrote her name on the bill or it has some sort of marker, they phone the police and say you stole $200 from them, say please see if she took it, all I remember in my cash stack is one bill said happy b day rob written on it, they find that bill in your wallet, and you are asked to return their $200.

IIRC it's either a theft scam where as soon as you touch those money, some other guy is coming over and forcing you to "pay it back" whatever amount they claim (because they saw you picking up the money). Or it's just one note, but they try to imply there were many more notes or something even simpler, like if they dropped $20 and then come back and said they were $100.

I see it done in the EU back when €10 and €50 had similar colors (one is pink and the other is orange, still with the newer notes is even worse, they look both orange). When I see it done at the store, they try to do the trick where they try to change a big banknote into smaller one and when they test the note and they count the smaller change, they switch it with a fake or smaller note.

They usually aim at small stores where there's only one person working at a time, or if they do supermarkets they try to get into busy hours, with a lot of customers in queue and they're like two or three people in a row, and maybe the person changing the money comes from the side while the other is paying at the front, but is not buying anything.

Honestly no telling, but my general assumption (as someone with friends who have stuff like schizoaffective disorders and OCD) is that she may have been experiencing a logistical misfire (e.g. "if i give this man $20, then it will help the sun come out tomorrow"), attempting a well-intentioned but socially odd "good deed" (common in states of mania/euphoria), or had an impulse with no rationality of "I need to give this man $20 *right now*" (kind of like reverse kleptomania lol)

Overall most likely she wasn't harmful, just some sort of confused. It's not uncommon, but if you're not used to handling people in a confused state then it does come off as weird and scary since they're not following social norms and can be hard to predict. If she doesn't pop up again, I think you're safe to write it off as a one-off encounter. (If she does pop up again acting the same, she might be in some kind of manic state, and if she seems particularly distressed she might need some kind of help. Your options then would depend on the local services around you + if you're willing to call in on her behalf. Just don't call the cops on her, they tend to not handle mental health crises very well)

That sounds like some kind of scam, with the money as bait.

You made the right call. There's no telling what she was thinking, but you're better off safe than sorry.

Your friend is a smart friend to have around. Never know what could of happened.

A scam of some sort probably. 

You’re the fish, $20 is the worm, she’s the fisher.