Thursday, May 13, 2004

Sucker...

Do I have "SUCKER" written on my forehead? I think I might...

As I was entering my apartment, a man approached me and said, "I lost my bag in a cab and I don't have any way of getting home. Do you think you can loan me subway fare?"

I hate giving money to people on the street. I'm thinking to myself, "Don't do it! This is a scam!"

The guy says, "It's okay, I'll even mail you the money back. I'm not trying to do anything, I just lost my bag."

He showed me his watch. It was pretty nice. He had a cell phone and a subway map. He said he was from out of town...

So I gave him the $2. I didn't ask him to mail it to me (Do I really want this guy to have my address?)

Problem: When I was in college I once gave a guy a dollar so he could take the train to the airport. He said he was separated from his wife and kids. Two days later, I saw the same guy, asking me for money to the airport. I was so pissed off!!

Was today's guy a repeat of the guy I met in college? I'll let you know in a few days...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In college, when I was a freshman, I once gave a random guy on the street $10 to do the Boston AIDS walk. (what the hell, it was a good cause, right?) Of course, I found out the AIDS walk was several weeks earlier. Not so good...

I felt better when a year later, one of the freshman in my living group proudly proclaimed that he had helped a good cause that day by donating $20 to a random guy to do the AIDS walk.

This is much better scam than $2 for subway fare.