There's one thing that suggests to me that it's an organized scam: every single one of them I've seen has the exact same playlist, and they also have the same audio equipment. They have a massive advantage over regular buskers because they blast the music at much louder volumes than actual buskers can. That, in combination with the sob story, often brings in a lot of money.

I encountered one of these fake violinists in person, three times in the same parking lot. It was a man playing the violin, with two young children holding a sign and collecting donations.

The first time I saw him, I was having lunch at a restaurant where I could see him from the patio. He wasn't faking very well -- his left hand fingers were barely even moving. I watched for 45 minutes and could see a lot of people giving him money. I would be very surprised if he didn't rake in at least $100 in just those 45 minutes, and I'd guess he probably got at least double that. This annoyed me because I know there's an actual violinist who frequently busks less than half a mile away from that location, and gets a small fraction of that amount.

The second time I saw him, I happened to be stopping for lunch on the way home from an orchestra dress rehearsal, which meant I had my viola in my car. I pulled out my viola and, standing next to my car more than 50 feet away from him, started to play an improvised harmony line while looking straight at him. Within ten seconds, he stopped playing and started hastily packing up. The next thing that happened was even more absurd: he approached me holding up the bridge from his electric violin and claiming it was broken, and asked me if I could give him the bridge off my "violin." It seemed like he was trying to make excuses for his sudden inability to play. If he actually knew anything about violins he'd know that I couldn't give him my bridge even if I wanted to.

The third time I saw him, he wasn't playing. One of the children was watching his electric violin and sound system, and I saw him and the other child walking out of the grocery store with a box of Haagen-Dazs ice cream bars.