It’s a 21st century Oliver Twist scam.
An Upper East Side woman was scammed out of $1,000 by two angel-faced kids who looked no older than 10.
Laura Grasso was strolling through Central Park late last month when the young swindlers approached her, said they were lost and asked to borrow her phone to call their mom.
Instead of calling home, they used her Venmo app to send $1,000 to a business account with no phone number attached to it labeled “Black Lives Matter.”
“These thieves are getting really f—ing savvy.” Grasso, 29, told The Post.
The account used the name “@BLM201” — and identified itself on the money transfer app as a “fun raising business” — has since been removed.
It had made 14 private transactions as of Friday, and the account holder was located somewhere in Jersey City, according to the address button on its Venmo page.
The account does not appear affiliated with the Black Lives Matter organization, which didn’t immediately respond to inquiries from The Post.
The boys left after two minutes, said Grasso, who got an email only moments later notifying her of the expensive transaction. By then grade school cons were long gone.
“I was in complete shock – utter disbelief,” Grasso said. “Then I got scared because what if it wasn’t just Venmo? What else could they have done on my phone?”
She first went to the 19th Precinct on East 67th Street, where police told her she was the third person that day July 30th, who said they were swindled by a pair of minors who conned their way into victims’ Venmo accounts.
They didn’t confirm whether it was the same business account that took Grasso’s $1,000.
Police there wouldn’t take her complaint because it wasn’t in their jurisdiction, they told her.
Next she went to the Central Park Precinct, where police initially blamed Grasso and refused to file a report.
“They told me, ‘You gave them your phone. It’s your fault. Why would you let a stranger use your phone?’” she said. “I definitely felt very unseen.”
Cops eventually took her complaint and categorized it as petty larceny, according to a police report. If the kids had taken one cent more, it would’ve been grand larceny, a felony that could constitute jail time. An investigation is ongoing.
Venmo, who said the phone number belonged to a person named “Lache,” canceled the transaction and refunded Grasso a few days later.
“Thank God I got it back. It sucks to have that much taken from you,” she said. “It’s not like I splurged and went out shopping or bought a round of drinks for everyone in the bar. It was stolen from me.”
After being flimflammed by who she thought were innocent children, Grasso said she’s hesitant to trust anyone with a sob story in the future.
“One hundred percent – there are no more sacred cows,” she said.
The Venmo hustle has popped up elsewhere in the country.
In February, a woman in Florida fell victim to the same grift when a preteen boy gave her a similar spiel about losing his family. He then sent $4,000 from her Venmo to an account labeled BLM.
“We take the security and privacy of all Venmo users and their information very seriously,” a spokesperson said.
The app has additional layers of security users can activate such as extra passwords, face and touch recognition to keep accounts locked even if someone steals their phone.
