Strangers Asking For Money?

[Smowball]

I'm not talking about general begging here.
I was out with somebody ages ago shopping, and I could see what looked like a distressed schoolgirl asking people for money, and they all seemed to either pretend they hadn't heard her, or they said no. Anyway, I had to walk past her and as I got closer she did appear to have been crying. She was about 16, quite a big girl. Was bigger than me. She then stopped me and said could please give her a pound or two and she had lost her phone and had to call her mum. Without giving it a thought, I took a pound out of my pocket, which I always keep in there for supermarket trolleys, gave it to her and went on my way. My friend asked why I had 'fallen for that act and she was clearly just trying to get money' and I just said but what if she was genuine? It was only £1. What would you do?

[craft1948]

I'd have offered to ring her mum on my phone..............

[marval]

I am with craft on this.

[quinie]

I would have let her use my mobile to call her mum

[sara3]

me too..

[MrIncredible]

If she gave me that story i would offer her my mobile to call her mum.

used to see a chap with a empty jerry can asking people for money for petrol (story being that he had run out of petrol) he used to run out of petrol a lot!

[quinie]

That's a better idea,craft.

[Smowball]

Ahh, but I saw on tv once that somebody offered to lend them their phone and the other person said yeh ok, and then sprinted off down the road with their phone!

[marval]

That is why I would offer to phone her Mum, so I get to keep my phone.

[Traci66]

A few years ago when we had our shop a teenage lad came in one lunchtime saying he had to get to York but had no money and could I possibly lend him £3 for the bus fare, I gave him it much to my husbands dismay, husband thought I was a mug and said the lad had probably been to every business in the village with the same story. Next day a car pulled up and a woman got out with a bunch of flowers and came into the shop, gave me £3 and the flowers and thanked me for helping her son, who had been left stranded in our village by his friends after a falling out.

[Old_Geezer]

It's nice to hear it is sometimes genuine. When a youth I felt sorry for someone looking for bus fare from folk and gave him it. Read in the newspaper a few days later that someone had been using this story to con folk. I assume it was the same lad I gave a few coins to. Much less likely to agree in the same circumstances after that.

[Sharingan]

I'd have given her £1, wouldn't really bother me if she'd lost her phone or needed it for something else, it's only a £1 and she might be in real trouble.

[TWR]

Once put £5.00 of fuel in this persons car, I towed to a garage with the HGV I was driving at the time, the garage was on the A6 near Preston, she said she was working at the local Aerospace Factory in Chorley, She said she would send the money to my home address! " Bye Bye to a Fiver, but that never stopped me helping people, but it makes you think. Oh well.

[Sammy48]

To be honest, Smowball I would have given her a £1.00 aswell.

[queenofmean]

I'd have given her the pound a pound to me isn't life and death. I'd be reluctant to lend them my phone incase they a) do a runner or b) phone one of these high priced numbers

[andy-hughes]

I'd have given her a pound as well - for what ever reaason.

I usually give to beggars - always if they are women.

I will give a Big Issue seller the money, and ask them to keep my copy and re-sell it.

i remember asking directions from a BI seller in Birmingham, and he was really nice, and obviously quite ill with a cold / flu.

I was on my way to Maconalds, and I kept thinking about him all the time I was eating, and how lucky I was. So on the way past him again to the station, i gave him the burger, fries and milk - exactly what i had just enjoyed, and a £10 note. He was SO grateful. He said he hadn't ewaten since the day before, and had slept in the street for two nights and was desparate to find a warm bed to start to feel better. I was really glad i had helped him.

There but for good fortune ...

[Wharton]

I think asking for a 'pound or two' gives the game away.

[joko]

id have tried to assess as to whether i thought she was genuine or lying i guess - rather than instantly judged her

there are few like that that hang round my local train station all day asking for money 'for their train fare'.

i find the non genuine ones, will, once you have given them the pound they initially asked for, ask for a bit more ... they are usually just thinking you are gullible.

often they are are drunks or smackheads, and they get nothing - but if a child has clearly been in tears and is in distress - swollen face etc, then i'd help them

[joko]

i remember years ago at college, me and a mate were sitting on the floor outside a building waiting for a friend to come out.
we looked like right scruffs as it was art college and we were covered in plaster, paint etc, as well as wearing hippy-ish clothing.

a woman walked past just as we were saying how we looked like right scruffs, and my friend jokingly said to the woman, in his best 'scouse smackhead' voice - "ay luv, gorrenny money terrelp de 'omeless please der luv?"

the woman sort of mumbled 'hang on', and walked back the way she'd came, and we paid no further attention, as we thought she was just mumbling to herself, then, to our shock, she came back and gave us £2!

we didn't know what to say, we didn't want to say 'only kidding' after she had gone to that effort for us, so we just thanked her.

my mate was made up and said "ooh pound each!", but i refused and insisted we put it in a charity box.
He looked dejected as we watched it roll round and round and round in one of those big swirly coin collection tubs.

[boxtops]

It's a hard call. Some years back I was in Brighton at that odd hour, 7pm, when work's gone home and the nightlife's not yet started, when I was approached by a young teenage boy at the end of an alley asking for money because he'd lost his train ticket. (He was nowhere near the station.) Common decency says yes, but there was nobody else around, so I declined - i felt that if I got my purse out, there might be someone else down the alley who would come out and grab it. If he'd really lost his train ticket, there are ways at the station of dealing with that.

[Peter Pedant]

I may have been taken in..... I signed - what's wrong to a deaf girl who said, 'I'm not deaf' and I replied you really are very naughty....

a friend used to give £1 regularly to a beggar-girl with dirt I thought obviously smeared on until he saw her get into a car in Newton Heath a few miles away from her 'pitch'

and finally I used to give James McIntyre £1 (before he died) every now and then who had a pitch on Newton Heath High (and he was, alot of the time) and he was the one who used to employ kids to burgle the local houses and if he found an insurance cert in the belongings used to ring up the insurance co and tell them he had been employed to burgle the claimant. This explains to anyone interested why it was so difficult to claim for theft under the insurance in North Manchester.

Its a rough world boys and girls