Has this ever happened to you?

[mitchedwards]

Yesterday I was approached by a elderly homeless woman. She gave me the story about needing her medicine and needed money to buy it.

While I was reaching into my pocket she told me she needed a 20 and did not want change. I was utterly amazed by her boldness. I gave her a dollar (all I had in my pocket), she took it and looked real disgusted.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[bobbait]

wow!! that has never happened to me!! that's crazy!! was she dressed nice or like a bum?

[mitchedwards]

wow!! that has never happened to me!! that's crazy!! was she dressed nice or like a bum?

Defiantly homeless

[Mikey]

I wouldn't have given her anything.

If she was indeed homeless,.....

There's shelters out there that would feed her, give her clothes and place to sleep ... and perhaps even buy her medicine.

All she has to do is walk through the door.

[Gorn Captain]

Inflation also hits the homeless.
Soon, they'll have to start accepting VISA......

[Gorn Captain]

I once gave a homeless guy a "free show".

When I was in San Francisco, I was caught in a rain storm. It was pouring down, and the wind blew my baseball cap right off my head.
I went after it, but the road was so slick with water, I started losing my balance.
I did all I could to stay upright, almost making cartwheels, and this seemed to last forever, still trying to catch my cap.
I eventually regained my balance, and this black homeless guy was giving me applause and cheering, like you wouldn't believe.
I took a bow, and left the guy still cheering.

That show was worth at least $5, I think....

[Adam West]

20 years ago my now wife and I were walking in Georgetown (suburb or D.C.) to take in some site seeing and have lunch.

A panhandler begged us for money claiming he was hungry, etc.

About 20 minutes later, we are poking around a shop and the panhandler walks in and asks the shop owner to exchange his small bills for bigger amounts. Apparently, he does this frequently as the shop owner asked him how he did. The response...kind of a slow day...I have $100 so far. My jaw dropped open since this was a time I had just graduated college and was making a salary far less than that.

Later on, we were eating lunch by a window up at the street. Sure enough, this panhandler walks by and right up to our window, holding his stomach like he hasn't eaten in days.

I have never seen my wife so angry. She started yelling at him from inside the restaurant and immediately asked that we be moved to another table so we didn't have this screw ball staring at us while we trying to enjoy lunch knowing that he made more money begging than either of us.

[Mikey]

This talk reminds me of the squeegee guys in NYC

I almost miss going into the city today and they're not there anymore.

Being nostalic about beggers ? ... ooooh-kay

[Cosmicman]

Yesterday I was approached by a elderly homeless woman. She gave me the story about needing her medicine and needed money to buy it.

While I was reaching into my pocket she told me she needed a 20 and did not want change. I was utterly amazed by her boldness. I gave her a dollar (all I had in my pocket), she took it and looked real disgusted.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Things are really bad right now with the economy. Now the homeless are picky. What next?

[livingdead70]

20 years ago my now wife and I were walking in Georgetown (suburb or D.C.) to take in some site seeing and have lunch.

A panhandler begged us for money claiming he was hungry, etc.

About 20 minutes later, we are poking around a shop and the panhandler walks in and asks the shop owner to exchange his small bills for bigger amounts. Apparently, he does this frequently as the shop owner asked him how he did. The response...kind of a slow day...I have $100 so far. My jaw dropped open since this was a time I had just graduated college and was making a salary far less than that.

Later on, we were eating lunch by a window up at the street. Sure enough, this panhandler walks by and right up to our window, holding his stomach like he hasn't eaten in days.

I have never seen my wife so angry. She started yelling at him from inside the restaurant and immediately asked that we be moved to another table so we didn't have this screw ball staring at us while we trying to enjoy lunch knowing that he made more money begging than either of us.

I was in Columbia SC one time and there was a guy begging people for money outside of a concert. Later in the night we went into a convience store, same beggar is in there and pulls out a WAD of bills to pay with.
trey

[Marvelmania]

When I lived in Nashville I worked downtown and would park in the cheap seats down on Broadway and walk up to my office on Church Street (the reason I'm menchaning streets is because Mitch lives in Nashville). Anyway, There were always groups of homeless people waiting down there to ask for money as you would walk from the parking lot. I almost always gave spare change to them and would usually get an interesting story as they would walk with me. One even told me how he and the mayor were great friends.
I've never had anyone ask for more than a dollar though.

[toys2cool]

It has happened to me,It really upset me

I also almost kicked the crap out one,I was at a thrift shop looking for toys and I hear this guy asking the lady if he could please have a shirt and tie because he had a job interview and he didn't have clothes, I looked at this guy and my eyes got watery.THE lady screams at him and says no!! so i walk up to the guy and I tap him on the shoulder and tell him to get $10 worth of clothes (They give you an additional $5 if you spend $10) and the guy snaps me at me and startes screaming at me and calling me a bunch of racist things telling me he didn't ask me for ****! and pushes me... Man I snapped and went after the guy and everyone had to grab me,he then starts pointing a cross at me yelling SATAN! It's the Devil,he's here to kill me! I was like what? I've never seen anything like that in my life,I was so mad.... then the lady turns around and tells me,that's why i don't give him anything for free...I then realized he was just a poor nut job

I would never do that again,I just give them a $1 if they ask for it and that's it

[livnxxxl]

That kind of stuff happens in St. Louis all of the time. It does not help that I look like a walking target when I am out some where. They see my nice clothes, jewelry and cars and it pretty much gives them the green light in their mind I suppose. I hate the city! I had one dude follow me into a store begging. I would not cave at all. Don't get me wrong. I am really not a stingey person at all. I would like nothing more than to save the whole world if I could. However, We all know that is impossible. Back when I was younger I used to give a buck or some change here and there. Then I started hearing about all of the stories like some of the above mentioned where people were doing things like that just for profit. Some would buy cigarettes or alcohol with the money that they took in rather than putting the money to better use like it was meant to be for. That is when I stopped. I do feel for those out there that really are down on their luck and could seriously need help. Most of those people (not all) have brought on their own misery in the first place. It is difficult to sort out who really needs help and those that pretend to need help. Some of them really put on a pretty good act. I don't like to be like that when it comes to helping people, but whatchya gonna do? I do give to charities and food pantries at times as I believe that will at least help "some" deserving people.

Another one that comes to mind is when I was at a local mall doing some shopping. This tweenager came up to me and asked me for some money. She did it in a flirtatious kind of way. I thought it was kind of funny because I knew exactly what she was trying to do. She was trying to play me and I do not like that either. My gf is an adult entertainer and she has a lot of friends at the club so I know most all of the ins and outs of the game. That and the girl was waaaay too young for me to even consider doing anything with anyway.....AND the fact that I already happily have a gf that blows her away in the looks department. Needless to say I said no and walked away. The girl did not know what to think as she has no doubt did stuff like this before. She probably had thought that she had found her another sucker. I could tell by her reaction that she was not used to being told no. I would have loved to held her under the water for a bit dunking her just like Jim Carey did in that movie (I can't think of the name of it right now) The whole time he was dunking her because she kept screaming at him. He told her "Wrong answer FF!" - Jim Carey That was hilarious!

Lastly, And best of all....When I was on eBay I must have been solicited at least twice. I had two different people contact me out of the blue. These were strangers that I did not even know or had any dealing with and ask me to help them out financially. Unbelievable!!!

[johnnystorm]

20 years ago my now wife and I were walking in Georgetown (suburb or D.C.) to take in some site seeing and have lunch.

A panhandler begged us for money claiming he was hungry, etc.

About 20 minutes later, we are poking around a shop and the panhandler walks in and asks the shop owner to exchange his small bills for bigger amounts. Apparently, he does this frequently as the shop owner asked him how he did. The response...kind of a slow day...I have $100 so far. My jaw dropped open since this was a time I had just graduated college and was making a salary far less than that.

Later on, we were eating lunch by a window up at the street. Sure enough, this panhandler walks by and right up to our window, holding his stomach like he hasn't eaten in days.

I have never seen my wife so angry. She started yelling at him from inside the restaurant and immediately asked that we be moved to another table so we didn't have this screw ball staring at us while we trying to enjoy lunch knowing that he made more money begging than either of us.

An old scam, been around for years....in fact, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used it as the plot of his Sherlock Holmes story "The Man With The Twisted LIp" in 1891:

The Man with the Twisted Lip - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Bizarro Amy]

When I lived in Pittsburgh I saw a lot of people asking for money. Once, my friend and I were followed by this guy saying he needed money for food. We offered to buy him a sandwich or even some groceries. He responded that he really just wanted the cash. So we kept walking. There was another guy who was pretty cool. On cold nights we'd buy him coffee or hot cocoa. He never really bothered anyone. There was also a halfway house nearby and some of the people who lived there had really bad issues. One of the guys had run outside and was following my friends and I, screaming. The guy we usually bought coffee for took him by the arm and back into the building so someone could take care of him.