Panhandlers and beggers

I encountered two different panhandling situations in the last three days. In one, I gave. In the most recent one, I didn't. Why? Because in the first case, it seemed like it was likely true. In the case tonight, I knew it was a con. However, upon checking, it seems the first one was just a better designed con.

In the one on Sunday, which I reported on Twitter, a bunch of people were walking with collection cups in traffic with a sign up. It said they were collecting money for the funeral of Robert Floyd. I guess that one resonated with me because my family and I just buried my mother. The sticker shock for the funeral was extreme. I can't imagine a family without the means having to come up with $13,000. (The sticker said $6,000 at the cheapest, but when all the expenses were added up, it came to $13k. Mom had made it clear that cremation was not an option.) As my brother said, the funeral director should name his yacht after our mother. Me? I prefer to think his daughter went through freshmen year of college from my Mom's death. 

So, I guess it was the right con at the right time for the right mark. Not only did I give, I pulled out of traffic into a Rent-a-Center parking lot and gave five dollars. The teenage girl said it was to bury their uncle Robert Floyd. When I said I just buried my mother, I got no response to speak of. 

Tonight I look up the obituary of Robert Floyd, and guess what? Either he's being stored in the closet until the family could afford to disclose his demise and bury him, or no such person died in my area, or seemingly, nationwide in the last week. Or in the last year. A dupe. A con. Or perhaps it could be called "an imaginative beggar's pitch." Buy our fantasy and you'll feel generous. 

I gave $5 to those grifters. I should have called the police on them.

Tonight in front of a discount store, I ran into a different grifter with a different beggar's pitch. Unlucky for him, I heard the pitch before, by a guy who got caught in the lie. Moreover, tonight's grifter dressed his story in so many pathetic curlicues that he red flagged his it with less credibility. What are the odds that he's lost, looking for a large municipality (not a street), just got out of the hospital (wearing a bracelet, you see) just blew his money on a prescription (when he walked up to me from the opposite direction of the drug store he pointed to), desperately needs to pick up some kids (in his car, you hope) but his car is out of gas and he only has $1.13 in his pocket? Come on, guy, find one story and stick to it. When I told him no and walked away he said "God bother you." I've never heard that curse before. Hearing that line made the entire thing worthwhile. 

The car broke down/out of gas bit I've heard before. It's familiar like a Nigerian Scapam to me. I was with some friends one night in front of a coffee house more than a decade ago when I guy walked up to us and said he needed to pick up his daughter who was in a somewhat seedy part of town, but he was out of gas. One of us actually gave him money. I don't remember precisely, but maybe it was me. 

Not even a week later one of my friends who had been present told me that the same grifter came in the front door at his work asking for money for the same reason: grifter's car was out of gas and he needed to pick up his daughter  from a somewhat seedy part of town. Again, the guy mentioned the exact amount of money in his pocket. This time, his mark, or at least his host, was a heartless, soulless corporation, with a guy there who had heard the pitch and recognized Mr. Tough-luck, who then went to jail.

I'll readily admit that I might beg at some time in my life. I mean to say I'm not too proud to avoid it if I need the help, but the line between begging and conning can become very thin. You have no way of knowing if anything they're saying is true. The fact they give precise details without being asked tells you something. People's desire to help can become a magnet for psychopaths. Also, in tough economic times, despearate people tend to listen to the psychopaths. That's how an entire family can be made to beg and walk out in traffic and raise money to bury their nonexistent dead relative, throwing all safety and dignity aside. A family was doing it, and somebody in the family was behind it. 

What's sad is there a people who really need the money and help but won't ask for it. The Rush Limbaugh's of the world will say it's shameful whether you need it or not, and whether in crosses the line into grifting or not. No, it's those who use it as a racket who make it shameful for everybody else, and it's it's a shame that the best people should be made to starve, while the worst people are the wheels that squeak the loudest and therefore support themselves very well with begging.