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I was at the gas station last month and a guy approached me for a dollar. I told him I didn't have any cash and asked him what the money was for and he said I need to buy gas my car is on empty and I don't have any money, I'm on my way to work and it's my first day I really don't want to be late and lose this job.
We were talking while his tank was filling and he said he had been in jail, he was living out of his car at one point and really needed a break.
I just filled his gas tank rather than give money.
He was surprised that someone would do that for him and wanted to give me back the money when he got paid, and I told him, just keep your job.
I tend not to believe that story any more. Afew years ago a guy approached me at a mall and asked for a few bucks so he could get something to eat. I gave him 5 bucks. Then I drove across the street to fill up my gas tank. Afew minutes later the same guy came up to me at the gas station and asked me for a few buck so he could get something to eat. After I told him to scram he went up to another gas customer and asked them the same thing.
A couple years ago I was spending a few days in downtown Nashville on business. One evening a casually dressed 30ish guy approached me and asked for a few bucks because he had run out of gas and he was traveling to California for a job. So I gave him 5 bucks. The very next night the same guy came up to me and tried to hit me up again while i was walking back into my hotel. I told him I had given him money the night before and I thought he was scamming people. His reply was, "Well, can you spare a cigarette then?"
Since then I have learned to say, "Sorry. I'm short on money myself."
The one I did give someone the money "because they needed to get home" (about $2.00) they promised to come back and pay me back the next day, that he was in the area every day, blah blah. This happened right in front of the place I lived too so they knew exactly where to find me. (I think he might even have come up to the door and knocked to bum the money--this was in an urban neighborhood).
Needless to say he never came back to repay that money.
I've had this kind of thing happen to me at least 20 times, that's why I posted the topic. I'll give money to someone who's just begging, but not to anyone who says they lost their wallet. I've noticed these types usually want a lot of money too -- they say they need $10 or $15.
For those of you who claim that there are "legitimate" people who do this, why can't they use a phone to make a collect call to get someone they know to come get them? What on earth are they doing leaving the house with no wallet and getting into a situation where they have to bother strangers for money to get home? I could only understand it if someone was mentally ill or wasted.
(I don't know what forum this belongs on so I put it here)
They have approached me with this numerous times. My opinion is that 100% of these people are liars. How many people go out of the house without wallet and get stranded and need to bum money? Who the hell is that inept?
I don't give to those 'one-person-charities' anymore since I discovered that, in many cities, it's actually a thriving business concocted by a group of people who share a flophouse and don't report their earnings or donate to any cause but a selfish one. I figured it out when I saw the SAME dog with about seven different 'homeless' people, and after months went by of seeing that same 'poor old dog', FIDO was getting quite fat, and there was not one of those supposedly homeless people who looked as if they had missed a meal or a bath in months. Wearing thrift-store rejects doesn't mean one is deserving of sympathy, especially if it is done in order to provoke that very response. I was actually homeless at one time with my child, and I remember never standing upon a street corner asking for handouts. I found a way out of that situation within 24 hours.
The way I see it, anyone desperate enough to stand on the street and beg for money needs the money just as bad whether or not their official story is true.
I don't typically give money, but I have offered food, and I have given gasoline to people making these kind of claims. There have been a few instances where I have given cash.
(I don't know what forum this belongs on so I put it here)
They have approached me with this numerous times. My opinion is that 100% of these people are liars. How many people go out of the house without wallet and get stranded and need to bum money? Who the hell is that inept?
99% of people asking for money on the street are liars. They don't want the money for food, housing, clothing, etc. They want the money for alcohol and other drugs
In so far as: "Who the hell is that inept?"
You don't deal with the general public very often (or at all), do you?
The way I see it, anyone desperate enough to stand on the street and beg for money needs the money just as bad whether or not their official story is true.
I disagree. Some people are shamelessly lazy freeloaders who think the world owes them something because they're too good to work a lowly part-time job that pays minimum wage. Many of these people are sociopaths who are incapable of feeling empathy or shame but are very adept at manipulating other people's emotions to get what they want. They get some kind of joy or high off of gaming the system and tricking people into feeling sorry for them and giving up their money for them.
The Obamabot Generation is typical of this new Age of Entitlement we're trapped in.
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