Visitors to Paris, please be aware of this scam. Its simply begging in a clever form and should be discouraged. The scam goes like this:-

As you are walking or taking photographs, a person will suddenly bend down near to you and appear to "find" a gold ring. He/she will look at it and if they know that you have noticed, they will immediately point to the hallmark which says "18k" on the inside of the ring. Yhe hallmark is fake. They will then say to you in French something along the lines of "That was lucky".

After a few minutes talking they will then offer you the ring and proceed to walk away. They will then come back to you and say that they are hungry and need 5 Euros to buy a sandwich. Your train of thought will be "Hey, this person just handed over a gold ring they found, whats a few Euros?"

The result is that you end up 5 Euros lighter and only a piece of brass to show for it. Save yourself the bother and simply do not entertain these con artists. This practice is rife in Paris. The areas concerned are between the bridge near to the Eiffel Tower down to the Pont Nuef and all along the upper riversides and bridges along the way.