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Emotional Mugging

21:19 / 25.04.04

I got stopped on the way to work and got told by someone that they had just found out that their mother was dying of Sycle Cell Anemia, and that they need the train fare to Reading to see her. I couldn't and didn't help, but felt bad, and wondered if there was something that I could have done, but later got told by a friend that they had encountered the same story on three seperate occasions. Has anybody else gotten hit by such a con, and have they fallen for it?

21:27 / 25.04.04

This wasn't at King's Cross station, was it?

21:34 / 25.04.04

I used to walk past the Infimary (big hospital) in Edinburgh twice a day, and without fail someone would ask me for 50p for their bus fare back to Granton or wherever because they'd inexplicably managed to *get* to the hospital but didn't have enough money to return.

Just last night a man with a quavering voice started asking me for directions to a not-very-local hospital, producing a photocopied appointment letter as proof that he did really need to go there. I know that he would have then asked for money to get there because that same person tried the very same thing on me last year. (I live on a street that's mostly bars and restaurants so it's a fairly safe bet that you're not going to meet the same person twice - he was just unlucky in this instance.)

Oh, and the last time I gave someone 50p on the street, a month or two ago, they ended up nicking my wallet.

I know intellectually that anyone who asks you for money in public is 99.99% or more sure to be fake, but somehow I keep doing it. I think that I'm determined not to become so cynical I automatically dismiss any request for help, even if those requests are universally fraudulent. A few quid a year is worth that. I must say though that I'm unlikely to give anyone any money ever at the moment, so that's not worked too well.

21:49 / 25.04.04

Happened in Clapham.

And FM, I know what you mean about that streak of distrust that one or two unflavoursome encounters produce. Someone could be missing a limb, bleeding to death and I had somebody burn their wallets in front of me, and I'd now think that it was some sort of a con.

22:20 / 25.04.04

Yeah, sounds like the man who perpetually travels the victoria line/south london rail network with the 'I'm very sorry to bother you...' line.

I gave this guy sitting by the cash machine fifty pee the other day, and got chatting a bit. It emerged that he 'commutes' (his word!) from Orpington to Borough every day.

Try not to be too cynical, though... I started getting the Big Issue recently, that seems to be actually starting to get pretty good of late.

09:08 / 26.04.04

I started getting the Big Issue recently, that seems to be actually starting to get pretty good of late.

That's bad news for the seller on Adelaide Street who guarantees 'Your money back if there's anything interesting in it'.

09:35 / 26.04.04

I know exactly what you mean, I've had the "I need my train fare back to wherever" one pulled on me, and I gave them money, only to see the same couple doing the same thing again a fortnight later. I thought there was something obviously dodgy about it at the time, but by then I'd already been pulled into conversation and was too slow off the mark etc to pull back out. Oh well, I only gave them a bit of money.

I appreciate what Fridge says about the cynicism thing - I was on another messageboard recently and the subject of the homeless/beggars came up and I was saddened but sadly, not that surprised at the amount of bile that came up. People seem to be harbouriong such an enormous amount of resentment towards those on the street, I imagine because they encroach on our personal space, and remind us of something we'd like to ignore. Make us feel a bit guilty etc. Shocking attitudes, really.

(Another good one - being in an office when the subject of a squatter being awarded a property comes up. Ohh, feel that resentment! Chew on that spite! )

09:38 / 26.04.04

There seems to be another one where someone will come up to you waving a set of keys, and saying that their car has run out of fuel and they need to borrow some money for it, but it's ok because they have a set of keys it shows they have a car and a house and are not homeless and trying to con you

11:26 / 26.04.04

I sometimes give money to such people, partly because I applaud the effort gone in to constructing an elaborate back story, and partly because I once really did need to borrow 50p to get the bus home and someone helped me out. On a side note there was this scouser who used to hang around my town and you would see him every single weekend asking for 20p to get the bus back to Liverpool. It got to be somewhat of a standing joke. He's not around anymore and I always wonder if he made it back to Liverpool.

Ex

11:38 / 26.04.04

and are not homeless and trying to con you

There is something very unfair about the fact that if you're generally a solvent member of society but you just happen to need 20p this one time, you're probably more likely to get it. Whereas if you're homeless, wet, hungry and badly dressed - less likely. Really odd priorities. I suppose the 'sob story' approach short-circuits various mental discussions people might have which stop them giving out cash: about the deserving/undeserving poor, what the money'll get used for ('Of course he won't spend it on crack/White Lightening - he told me, it's to phone his girlfriend...'). It also may get round that powerful sense that incredibly poor people are just Not Like You.

Anyway, yes to Phyrephox: I see people who've constructed intricate tales of ex-girlfriends who are about to leave the country as a kind of one-to-one street performance. Not really bothered about whether they're authentic.

13:17 / 26.04.04

Such a thing happened to me when I was a college student. I was walking home when a woman in tattered clothes and her hands all cut and scabbed stopped me. She was crying and sort of cornered me (a large woman too) and explained that she had AIDS and the clinic was across the street (I don't know if it was or not), and "they" had told her she had to bring $50 to get the treatment. Besides the fact that it didn't seem right, I didn't have a dollar on me anyway. Still she kept me there a while, sobbing and begging, and me trapped by guilt and awkwardness. I didn't think it was true, but what if it was?

When I finally tore myself away I went straight home and phoned the university police, since I knew she was technically on their campus. They knew exactly whom I was describing, said she definitely did not have AIDS and she had tried that scam a number of times. I was really shaken up by it, though, and felt emotionally mugged as you say.

14:19 / 26.04.04

That sounds much nastier than anything I've had to deal with and I'd agree that something like that is nearer to emotional mugging. I've only really encountered the tales about missing trains, pay and display meters, urgent phone calls and so on.

14:25 / 26.04.04

I once got asked (by a woman who drunkenly informed me that I looked just like her daughter) to go to the local Co-op and buy her a bottle of gutrot sherry, because she was banned from all the local off-licences...

But in general, I buy people's sob-stories and will generally give something if I can afford it. This makes me a soft touch, no doubt, but I don't think that one can ever be sure that a recipient will use charitable money for 'good' purposes, and I don't think it's appropriate to withhold charity on the automatic assumption that every beggar is telling lies. For all I know, hairy old chap who accosts me at the cashpoints may very well need a couple of quid to get into a hostel, and I would rather help him in case this is true than not help him in case it is a lie...

I also agree with what Ex said above about it being eaiser to get money if one looks less in need of it (this is true throughout society though not just w/r/t the homeless, cf. outrageous bank charges etc.).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:41 / 26.04.04

Stokey's kinda weird as far as begging is concerned... they do tend to fall into 2 categories. (Both of which I used to give money to, I hasten to add.) Now I've got to know them all by name and stuff, there is a definite divide. There's the smackheads who'll be fucking nasty to you (one in particular, I got on alright with. As did a friend of mine. Who incredibly stupidly lent him a hundred quid, and ACTUALLY THOUGHT HE WAS GONNA GET IT BACK. Obviously, he didn't. Round about the same time, he got real fucking aggressive with a friend of mine, who was fucking pregnant at the time, purely because she didn't give him any cash. Since then, I've had no moral isssues with telling the cunt to fuck off) and there's the genuine needy.

However, because of a recent influx of smackheads (and I'd like to point out NOW they're all white British guys) there's been a crackdown, and even the genuine beggars don't get a fucking look-in now, cos everyone's fucked off with being hassled by the wankers.

I have a friend who works as a groundsman at the cemetery where I walk my dog... his first job every morning is going round picking up needles. And boy, does he come up with a whole fucking BUNCH of them or what? (This is a cemetery. People's relatives are buried there. Have some fucking respect, people!)

Sorry- I may sound a little down on smackheads, and that may not be a particularly progressive attitude to take (especially if you're a pisshead like myself). But I am.

Whoah. I've just realised how off-topic the majority of this post is. I apologise. Delete away, if you want.