Lauren Muzz (@laurenmuzz), a woman from Fishers, Indiana, was having a normal day shopping at Target. That is, until she walked back to her car. In the parking lot, she noticed something suspicious about her car’s door handle. A bunch of coins fell out of it. Then, she noticed one coin jammed sideways to keep her door handle ajar.
“ I instantly knew like something was wrong and I needed to get the heck out of there,” Muzz said in a video that she posted to TikTok. Since then, her clip describing the encounter has gotten 115,000 views.
Muzz’s story—a chance encounter?
Muzz spent about 20 minutes in Target before heading back to her car. It was around 7:00 p.m. when she tried to open her car door and noticed something off about it.
“ As I’m going to open the door, a bunch of coins fall out of my door handle and it’s dark. I’m confused. I don’t really know what’s going on. But, I keep trying to open my door. And that’s when a quarter gets lodged sideways in between my door handle,” she said.
Then, she noticed two people quietly sitting inside their car with no light. They weren’t using their phones or getting out of the car, something that made Muzz want to bolt back into Target. She went back inside the store and dialed 9-1-1. As she waited for an officer, she noticed that not even five minutes after she went inside, the car next to her had left.
A police officer arrived, and Muzz explained the situation to him. He examined her car and noticed that the coin keeping her car open was now flat.
“ I can only assume that somebody was trying to get into my car when I went back into Target,” she said.
@laurenmuzz @target #storytime #FYP #psa ♬ original sound – Lauren Muzz
Muzz recounts her unanswered questions
The police officer said it was unlikely Target’s security cameras captured the encounter. He cited the positioning of the camera as his reasoning for not asking to check the footage.
“ I was so like disoriented and frazzled that I did not question it, and I just wanted to get the [expletive] out of there,” Muzz said. But later, Muzz said she thought about following up with the police department and seeing if they’d be willing to check the cameras.
He also let her know that if a person placed a tracker in her car, it would most likely ping in a few days.
Muzz is grateful that she didn’t pick up the coins and that a man happened to walk by around the time she discovered them.
“ There was a guy that walked out of Target… 10 to 15 seconds behind me, and his car was parked adjacent to mine… He was getting in his car as I was like fumbling with my door handle,” she said. She wondered if his presence stopped anything from happening to her.
Overall, the situation frightened Muzz, who feels grateful to be safe now: “ I’ve never felt such raw fear kick in, and I never wanna feel that again… Stay safe everybody,” she said.
Where does wedging a coin in a door handle even come from?
There’s a long-standing urban myth that wedging a coin into a car’s door handle makes it easier to break into them. Snopes wrote an article about the rumor, which started in 2015, and debunked it. There’s little evidence to conclude that wedging a coin in a car’s door handle can actually disable a remote locking system or grant access into the vehicle.
But thieves sometimes try to use this method to try and get a vehicle to not lock properly. According to another article from Trash Rite, the obstruction may limit a car’s ability to lock when the owner drives to another location. Once they leave their car unattended, they can swoop in and steal it.
There’s another separate idea that traffickers use coins, sunglasses, zip ties, and other calling cards to “tag” victims. Those incidents have all largely been debunked, or in the very least, haven’t had any tangible connection to trafficking incidents. They’re not backed by any sort of data from law enforcement officials. Sites such as Politifact and Snopes have both debunked various claims regarding general car tagging from trafficking organizations.
Comments questioning—Is Fishers a safe place?
While many people expressed general fear at the thought of theft, trafficking, and other scary encounters, others expressed dismay that this incident happened in Fishers, Indiana. The city has little to no crime, scoring an A- according to crimegrade.org.
“[Indiana] girl here,” said one commenter. “Thanks for sharing. Fishers is supposed to be safe!”
“So wild I was just at Fishers target yesterday. I do know Fishers police have been patrolling the area more. Glad you’re safe,” another added.
The Mary Sue has reached out to Target and Muzz for comment.
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