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Thread: Beggars can be choosers
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07-13-2021, 12:22 PM #1
Beggars can be choosers
Forgive the the poor title.
While I am no stranger to the poor, downtrodden, scamming and needy type asking me for help and I have come across at least a few very creative people asking me for money, what happened to me just now was a first for me. It kind of blew my mind. So, I will share and ask for thoughts, and maybe a short story involving you and begging.
I pull into my local gas station for ice, gas and motor oil. I am a cash paying customer, so I had to walk inside while my car was parked at a pump. After paying, I walked to my car and started to fill it up. As I was filling, a young-ish (30) woman with sandy hair stopped her car right behind me and perpendicular to my car. In the back seat of the aging suburb wagon were seated a young child with scraggly blond hair and a Healer mix. I looked at her; she looked back and waived me over. I asked her what she wanted. She began to tell me this story about how she was on her way home to MN. I asked her whether she needed some money. She said, "No, gas". I offered her some gas, if there was money left after I filled my tank. She backed up behind me, praising the Lord and calling me blessed. I poured $6 of gas into her car. She was thankful. I asked her whether this was a new thing, and why did she want gas rather than money. She said that she had food money, but that was it.
First, as a skeptical guy who has been taken for $20 in the past, I have to be skeptical. Did she scam me? If so, the kid and dog were effective.
If she was truly in need, how does this happen, and what it she thinking. Even in a Suburu, it will take a lot of begging to get to MN.“How does it feel to be the greatest guitarist in the world? I don’t know, go ask Rory Gallagher”. — Jimi Hendrix
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07-13-2021, 12:42 PM #2
I've never been scammed because of the good feeling I get from giving is worth the price.
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07-13-2021, 12:42 PM #3
interesting. I wouldn't say you got scammed but perhaps the story seems off. Anything missing from your car during the distraction? If not, I wouldn't dwell on it too much, she obviously needed the fuel.
+1 on Wooley's sentiment
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07-13-2021, 01:05 PM #4
My "I got scammed" story.
It was about 1986. My friend and I parked on W. Houston St. in NYC and were walking to a bar. It was about 10:30pm. We were approached by a disheveled preppy white person, who was good-looking, and who was wearing a cast that started just below his shoulder and continued all the way down his arm. He was seemingly distraught, whimpering and very scared. He said, "excuse me, sir (I was in my mid-20s), can you please help me. I am trying to get home to CT. and I have no money. Can you please give me $20." I felt sorry for the guy and gave him the money.
About 1 year later, I was walking down 5th Ave. with my girlfriend (now wife), when I was approached by the same guy with the same story. Only this time he was limping and walking with cane or crutches. I said, "I remember you from W. Houston Street. You scammed me then, and it won't happen again." He bolted like a sprinter, crashing into the crowd along the way.
I did not get a good feeling. In fact, the opposite.“How does it feel to be the greatest guitarist in the world? I don’t know, go ask Rory Gallagher”. — Jimi Hendrix
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07-13-2021, 01:16 PM #5
No one likes getting scammed, so instead of cash I hand out gift cards that they can redeem at the local smack dealer.
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07-13-2021, 01:26 PM #6
Bull. Shit. Everyone has heard a version of this story. Just like the "i gave a panhandler some money then watched them walk around the corner and get into their brand new BMW". GTFOH
You people who perpetuate this crap should use smaller cities to make it believable. lmao
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07-13-2021, 01:42 PM #7Registered User
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07-13-2021, 01:44 PM #8
All the crackheads that tried to get money off me were truly crackheads.
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07-13-2021, 01:47 PM #9
It’s all true, cast and all.
Unless I was really buzzed and his arm was merely in the sling“How does it feel to be the greatest guitarist in the world? I don’t know, go ask Rory Gallagher”. — Jimi Hendrix
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07-13-2021, 01:54 PM #10Registered User
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I don't give people money on the street anymore, but will occasionally offer to buy food. One guy in downtown Portland took me up on it; we went into a minimart and I bought some staples - bread, peanut butter, stuff like that. When I left the store, he turned around and went back in - I realized later that he was probably trying to return the food for cash.
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07-13-2021, 01:57 PM #11
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07-13-2021, 01:58 PM #12
There are professional beggars. They provide a service--they make you feel good like Wooley said, for which you pay a price. The price should be the same as the prevailing rate for a street level BJ in your community. The good feeling isn't as strong as a BJ but it lasts longer.
Most people who ask for money need it and don't have a better way to get it. What they need it for varies.
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07-13-2021, 02:02 PM #13
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07-13-2021, 02:09 PM #14
Begging is hard work. There are two styles. The ones that just sit with a hat at their feet and a cardboard sign and the others with a con story. I think both work. The sit and beg style generates a low but steady income, which when added up probably nets close to the $ the con story guy or gal pulls in over a day.
If I was a beggar I think I'd adopt the sit and beg style. It would would allow me to post here on TGR."timberridge is terminally vapid" -- a fortune cookie in Yueyang
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07-13-2021, 02:11 PM #15
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07-13-2021, 02:13 PM #16
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07-13-2021, 02:15 PM #17
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07-13-2021, 02:21 PM #18
so in the 90s Mrs. MT is at a very drunken cleint dinner in manhatten at the end of which she has something leftover in a tin and no idea why she has it so she hands it to a homeless person on the street in times square who opens it yells "WHAT NO POT ROAST?" and throws it in the street.
"Can't you see..."
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07-13-2021, 02:21 PM #19
When I was a naive Upstate hick I got conned out of $100 for a "limo" ride by a gypsy driver from LAG to 5th Ave. Had a nice surprise later that day when the lady who was the pinup in my room at the frat house joined our table for lunch. So the day was a wash?
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07-13-2021, 02:23 PM #20
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07-13-2021, 02:29 PM #21
Back when I was still smoking, bums would ask for one all the damn time. For a while I'd hook it up, then got annoyed and stopped.
Then one time I put the butt out in the ashtray that was part of the trashcan outside the kwikmart and this bum who I denied earlier went over, took it out and lit it.
Maybe I got scammed but he definitely went above and beyond in my eye what a scammer would do for that smoke, I felt like an asshole, and bought him a pack.Live Free or Die
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07-13-2021, 02:41 PM #22
I'll just assume, for the moment , that Schindler's story is for real...
If she wasn't a total con artist, then maybe she had the sense to not spend what little money she had on gas instead of food.
When ya gotta decide where the last $11 goes, it's food, not fuel.
Poverty teaches priorities for some.
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07-13-2021, 03:05 PM #23
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07-13-2021, 03:05 PM #24
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07-13-2021, 03:06 PM #25
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