(jikatu)
It was a horrible story. A man approached Liza on the street and said that he needed $6 because his mother had just had a stroke behind the wheel of a car and he was short on cash to pay for the tow truck while she was taken to the hospital. It was also a lie.
Liza’s story is posted on the New York Times City Room blog:
“Excuse me,” he said, turning around.“Yes?”
“I — I just moved to the neighborhood,” he said, naming an address on Underhill. “Do you know if there’s a tow truck place around here?”
I opened my mouth to direct him to Bergen Street, which is lined with car repair places, about to say, “They would know.” Before I could get the thought out, he spoke again.
“My mother had a stroke behind the wheel. An ambulance took her. I’m trying to get a tow truck. All I need is $6.”
Six dollars. The words “mother” and “stroke” were all I had to hear to get me reaching for my wallet. As I opened it, I thought of how here I was, alone on a dark stretch of block, with a man who could easily pull out a knife and tell me to give him all my money, my phone, even my dog. I didn’t have $6. I had a twenty. I gave it to him.
“I’ll pay you back,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it.”
The woman turned back after walking away and noticed that the man was leisurely strolling down the boulevard, looking not at all like someone who was in an emergency. Online, she found stories of a person matching the description of the man she gave money to. They took place in the same neighborhood and he had been telling the same story for years. One of the sightings said that they same him eating oysters and drinking martinis at a nice local restaurant. That post was from six years ago.
We all want to do good in this world but it’s important to not be taken advantage of. A sob-story with a pitch for cash on the street is probably fake. If you want to give your money to the less fortunate, charitynavigator.org is a good site to evaluate which charities are worth it.
Complaint Box | The Sympathy Sham [cityroom.blogs.nytimes]
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The last time I gave a stranger anything was several years ago when on a rainy dreary November day I am pulling into a strip-mall and see a man who looked very much like my father standing in the median strip holding a “will work for food” sign. His pathetic look as he stood dripping in the cold rain touched a cord with me so I pulled into the Wendy’s and purchased him a large value meal with hot coffee. I pulled back around and timed the light so as to pull next to him. I handed him the food and drink which he quickly grabbed and tossed into the bushes next to him and said “why couldn’t you just give me money your gonna mess this up if they see the food” ostensibly referring to the traffic behind me.
I pulled away irritated to find that when he grabbed the food from me he left a large shit smear on my forearm.
I will never, ever, ever give anyone (begging on the street) anything again.
I see where you’re coming from, and I used to think the same way about the $5 going to pay for drugs if I buy them food. Then I spent several years working with addicts. I guarantee you, if they need a fix, they will do whatever it takes to get the money for their drugs. Maybe it’s something that’s really dangerous for them, like sex work. Maybe it’s something that’s dangerous for the general public, like robbery or carjacking. So now I figure even if the $5 goes towards drugs, they’d have gotten those drugs anyway, and maybe they won’t do that crime to get the money.
I remember a college age kid outside Penn Station who had the elaborate sob story to solicit money from people (he had to get back to Albany to see his sick Mother, his wallet was stolen, only needed three more dollars to buy a ticket) the problem is he tried it on me every morning I walked by him on the way to work. I guess he needed a first class plane ticket.
Hmmm….hey, MY mom is also having a stroke. Can you all please deposit $6 into my PayPal account? (yeah…..stroke….that’s the ticket)
Has anyone ever heard of this one: I had a guy come up to me in a fast food parking lot and say “I just got out of jail today [and showed me a "correctional facility ID"] and need money for…”? I mean did he think that the jail ID would make me say “OK well obviously you really did get out of jail today so here you go!” BTW he was also driving a very nice new pickup truck. Needless to say I said no.
I have only ever given out cash to a begger once. Me and 4 friends just came out of a movie around 10pm. Two college age guys came up to us asking if we had any cash for fuel, because they were headed to Idaho, and ran out. I believe I gave them $6 (which is all I had, I usually don’t carry any cash).
Admittedly, it creeped me out a bit (late night, not a ton of people around), but I did it based on a few things:
1. It was in Utah, and these kinds of things turning into attacks aren’t super common
2. I figured you would have to be kind of stupid to approach a small crowd with the idea of attacking anyone.
3. It was only $6
4. When we walked away, I was glancing back every few seconds until we got to our car, and I had my hand by my side-arm, so I wasn’t very concerned
Outside of those circumstances, I think I would have just moved away quickly.
It only sucks when you actually need help… I was in a situation when I lost my wallet, money and all my documents (left it in cab) and I was at a railway station without anything in a city I didn’t know. I desperately needed to make a phone call (this was before cell phones were common) and was trying to ask people for change to make a call… and nobody helped out. My luck was that the cab returned after my colleague who was still sitting in the cab realized that I left all my stuff in there.