You just paid a damn good actor $7. Here's the thing - if he needed the money so badly, why didn't he ask his father/a friend of his mother's/somebody else who he knows in New York? I don't buy it for a second. Honestly, I've heard too many stories from people begging for cash, and each one is more incredible (in that "I can't believe it" sense of the word, not in the "Wow, that's amazing" sense of the word) than the next. The story is meant to get your sympathies (hence the "stroke victim" and the "racial slurs") and get you to open your wallet. $12 is one of the heftier sums I've ever heard asked for - in my experience it's usually something more like a dollar or two. But after he's taken your money, he has no intention of giving it back, trust me. I have no problem with asking for money if you need the help - but the lying and disingenuity of it all really make me mad. Particularly because, again solely based on my experience, if they're telling you a story to get the money, they don't need it as badly as they claim.
The story I fell for back at Penn was a guy who needed $1.25 to get a token for the bus to get back to his little girl in West Philly - a fairly believable story at that. I gave him a dollar and some change (I didn't take the time to really check, but it was more than $1.25) and he promptly took my money and walked right into the 7-11 we were passing by. He bought himself a hot dog, for a dollar and change.
If you see someone on the street who is asking for money for food, give it to them... but if anyone tries to get you wrapped up in a story that sounds so unbelievably depressing and heartwrenching that you can't but help the guy out, just tell him to stop lying and piss off.
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Date: 2007-09-06 01:59 pm (UTC)The story I fell for back at Penn was a guy who needed $1.25 to get a token for the bus to get back to his little girl in West Philly - a fairly believable story at that. I gave him a dollar and some change (I didn't take the time to really check, but it was more than $1.25) and he promptly took my money and walked right into the 7-11 we were passing by. He bought himself a hot dog, for a dollar and change.
If you see someone on the street who is asking for money for food, give it to them... but if anyone tries to get you wrapped up in a story that sounds so unbelievably depressing and heartwrenching that you can't but help the guy out, just tell him to stop lying and piss off.
--Jeff