When Cashtomato, a fledgling video-sharing site, dispatched three of its employees to crowded Union Square yesterday dressed in bright-red tomato costumes, it might as well have put bull’s-eyes on them:

“Make it rain!” and “Give me my money!” passersby shouted as the clock ticked down to the scheduled 2:29 p.m. publicity stunt, timed to mark Leap Day.

With five minutes to go, the antsy mob of 100 surged toward three workers dressed to resemble tomatoes and holding sacks and boxes of prizes up to $29.

“People grabbed and pulled on the bag,” said Jason Buzi, an executive at the fledgling video-sharing Internet company.

“I didn’t feel safe, so I let it go.”

As he fled across the street, his colleagues dropped their sacks and scattered across the park - and a wild grab for the booty ensued.

Scavengers dove to the ground and elbowed each other out of the way to get at cash-stuffed envelopes and balloons and flyers and fresh tomatoes with bills attached.

The ultimate irony here? There’s no sign of any video from this Leap Year melee on Cashtomato.com, but one did make it onto YouTube. So much for competition!