A warning for Metro riders: groups of kids might be trying to scam you as you wait for your train.

Outside the Tenleytown Metro station, students from Wilson High School say they're solicited all the time, both in the Metro system and outside it, by other teens saying it's for the Boys and Girls clubs.

"They wanted donations, I was about to give one, but I was like I don't know where this money is going do so" said one student.

"I didn't give money because people are constantly doing it on the train every day," added another student, Alonzo Brockett.

It's the same story at the Foggy Bottom Metro station. A book vendor says teen males show up regularly with sheets of paper to take donations purportedly for the Boys and Girls Club.

"I don't know how they came up with that scheme, but it's a scheme. I've seen people give them money," said vendor Carvelas Sellers.

Metro riders say it's a common thing. They believe the same group is going around the system taking advantage of gullible givers.

"I said do you have some kind of card or something so I can call the office and donate that way and he didn't give me any information," said rider Odessa Brown.

When Samantha Nolan, a member of the police department's Citizen Advisory Council, learned about the teens soliciting in her neighborhood last week, she's launched a listserv and police effort to catch them.

"And we're expending the manpower because it's important to stop crime at this level," she said.

Nolan said the teens told people they were soliciting funds from the eastern branch Boys and Girls club in Southeast, which has been closed down for months. Metro Transit Police say such solicitations are illegal in the system, and officers have been cracking down.

"There have been a couple of cases where we have made arrests for these cases for juveniles who didn't heed the warning and we charged them with theft by deception and panhandling," said Deputy Chief Jeff Delinski of the Metro Transit Police.