Giving money to strangers

[purelife]

How can you tell if someone is being geniune when asking for money or is merely a scam in disguise?  Do you not trust anyone even though that person could be geniune?

  Well, yesterday, my guy possibly got "suckered" into a scam as he gave $34.50 to a guy.  This guy was from England and his flight was in an hour.  He needed to cash in a traveller's cheque of some sort from 16 pounds to Canadian which would have worked out to $34.50.  He initially asked for directions but conintued on with his story.  My guess is that my guy kept asking questions as he's a nice guy.  This British guy even had his mom on the phone and everything and she was crying that he wouldn't be able to get home.  Then, my guy just gave him $34.50 cash.  

  When he told me this story yesterday and then I shared it with my coworkers, we thought that it was a scam.  But, how could you tell?

  Any which way, if it was real, then he will get a cheque back from England.  If it wasn't, then my guy learned his lesson to never trust anyone.  

  If it was me and I was alone, I wouldn't reach into my purse to grab my wallet because you never know if that person is just going to grab it and run away with it.  Plus, I rarely carry cash anyways.  

  GOSH, $34.50!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Sportsdude]

 sounds fishy to me.
But I wouldn't go so far to say you shouldn't trust anyone forever anymore. That's a bit drastic.
   

[P.C.]

That IS a tough call purelife.  I too have a hard time trusting situations like that.....and sometimes I'm almost certain that I'm being scammed.....but it's that tiny little reserve that make me fork over the dough.

  This happened to us travelling down the Oregon Coast.  We were stopped at a lookout.....quite in the middle of nowhere, and a woman came over to us and said she was at a loss for what to do.  She had encountered some unexpected car repairs leaving her short enough money for gas to get home.  I was a little surprised that anyone would travel that far away from home (I don't remember which state she lived in) without a credit card or SOME kind of back-up.

  Not wanting to leave the poor woman stranded, (if it WERE legit)  hubby gave her money.  She then asked us for our address so she could send us the money when she arrived home.  We decided to leave it that we may have been suckered, but not totally stupid.....we declined on giving her the address of our empty home.

  As much as I'm sure it was a scam, given the same situation, we would probably do it again.  

[purelife]

Hmmm, yeah, it's a tough call.  I guess that we like to put trust in people.  I also believe in karma too. ))

[P.C.]

me too.  I think you have to go on that teeny voice that's say.....'what if they really ARE stuck'....and what if I were in that position some day.

[purelife]

Agreed PC.  It's the "you never know"

[Sportsdude]

A friend of mine from Montreal, now he's being scammed, he's going to call the RCMP and get these people:

             here's the story:

I've recieved an automatic phone call saying that I should call back the above. at first I decided to ignore the calls but since they came in daily, I say : what the heck, might as well call them.

I talk to this dude saying I owed them 1000$, from td canada trust(I have a TD visa, which is fine).

first of all: let's say I 've never recieved any statement saying I owed a thou to anybody. nor have I ever recieved any letters saying that I was sent to a recollection agency.

the guy asked me how I would pay. a bit shocked I say I could pay lie a 100$/month until 1000$. then he said we'll call even if you pay 600$ at TD trust by may 31st...wierd, no !!??

then I asked the dude to give any proofs: there he gets really aggressive giving me my SIN and such...then he said taht only few can have my S.I.N....well thats no proof that I owe money, its just a proof that this not-so-nice-amymore derson has my SIN.

later He went on to say that I was to go to a TD trust Bank, pay the said 600$ and then they'd fax me a receipt !!!


I think that someone's trying to get money from me:

1- never recieved a letter saying I owe money somewhere.
2-never did he tell me who did I owe money to
3-pay now and we fax money later
4-person on the phone became really aggressive and arrogant when I asked details. like he tried to hide something
5- why would they settle  for 600$ if I pay now, instead of the 1000$ over small payments
6- why would he fax me a receit, shouldn't I get one on hand when I pay ??
 

[purelife]

Yeah, you never trust anyone who calls asking for money or demanding that you owe money.  

  My guy had a call from someone supposedly saying that he was from Translink and was collecting some money from a fine of a few years ago.  I told him to tell him to mail the invoice and hang up.  Otherwise, no personal information should ever be given over the phone unless you're calling your bank/visa company directly because you're in control.  Trust no one asking for information or demading money.  

[Sportsdude]

yup call me old fashion but I only do bank transactions at the bank, in person. If somebody called me asking the above I'd go to the bank see if its true if not then I call the cops.  

[P.C.]

That's not even dicey.  There are no moral obligations to make that one the slightest bit difficult to know what to do.  It's 'verifiable'.....you can check it out before you're a penny poorer.   It never ceases to amaze me how people can still get sucked into these types of scams.      

[Sportsdude]

yup.
When I was in Boston a few years back a guy was asking people for blank cheques. lol
 

[purelife]

My boss at work told me of a story where this one guy asked for money for a charity.  Everything was legit.  He sounded professional, but it was a scam.  He gave him $300cash.  

  From then on, he would only donate online.

[Michel]

[P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0mm 0mm 0pt"][SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA"]Last Easter in Montréal, one guy stopped me while I was getting out of a parking spot dowmtown and asked me 7 $ (if I remember well, or maybe 17) to fill a jerrican of gas that he was holding. He desesperatly needed the fuel to get to the airport where he has to take the plane the same afternoon to go see his mother sick in Gaspesia. He even show me (from a few feets) a boarding pass as a "proof", he has just been expulsed from a gas station where he was asking $ to everybody gasing there. Supposely the garage clerk gave him the empty jerrycan in exchange of what he would leave and stop solliciting.[?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /][o:p][/o:p][/SPAN]

 [P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0mm 0mm 0pt"][SPAN style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA"] [o:p][/o:p][/SPAN]

 [SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"]Scam ? Me think so now, but at the moment, I wasn't sure, still I didn't give him any money. I founded strange that he never reply anything when I ask him "you need 7 $ of gas, that's a lot man just to get to the airport. And how you gonna pay the parking if you don't even have the money for the gas ". He just carry on his story, so I left and just heard him complaining about people in Montréal, that we're so cold heart and so on... I found also strange that he had a small backpack on him, why didn't he leave it in his truck that was just "parked next street" [/SPAN]

[SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"][/SPAN]

[SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"]Ok now that I got your attention Purelife, were you at HON on Robson at lunch time today ? lol [/SPAN]

[Lise]

Really difficult siutation there, purelife. We like to think that most ppl in this world are genuine and for real but then again there are a lot more ppl who just take advantage of any situation.

  I feel your guy got taken on.

  If it were me, I would never have given money to anyone.... I just don't trust them. Nobody asks money and expects to pay in return just out of the goodness of one's heart. Ppl are just not to be trusted these days.

[Marik]

There was this one time where I got a phone call at about 1:00 AM (geez) from some lady who said I know her son. She said she needed money because her son is in the hospital because of some condition (I forget what it was called). She said she called me because she found my phone number in her son's address book (I barely ever give out my phone number... e-mail address usually). The thing is, when I asked her for the kid's first and last name, I didn't even know him! Fishy, huh?

But if it's some homeless guy who needs money I'd be happy to give some. No $ to panhandlers though... they messed up the windshield last time (still paid the guy)