October 10, 2005

Anatomy of a scam

The other night I was standing on a "hip" street corner talking with a new friend. Suddenly, a shiny SUV pulled up, parked in the cross walk and the driver approached us. He had nice, middle-class clothing: non-hole-y jeans and a solid-colour shirt sans collar. He told us his car is on fumes, he forgot his wallet and needs to make it home to Eden Prairie. Could we spare a few dollars?

I looked at my new friend and she (despite her lack of employment) is looking at her wallet, so I felt obligated to look in mine. I didn't want to help (because I have been approached by others trying to make it to Eden Prairie... aka the end of the world...) but I didn't want to appear super-thrifty in front of my new, generous, caring friend. Particularly since this guy (unlike the others) actually had a car to fill with gas.

He ended up getting about $6 from us, asked for our address to return the money (which we denied him), said "God Bless" (a trite line which reeks of compulsive panhandling). With that, he sped off... probably to buy drugs.

Walking back to my car, I wondered why I didn't ask to see his gas gauge. If he would have killed us if we got too close to his car.... why I succame to the pier pressure of donating.... what really happened with the money… what he would have done if we refused him (drove off, or continued looking for help).... what I would have done with those extra dollars... and why I hadn't brought mittens.

It turns out my friend ran out of gas last week, so she felt really bad for him. But we both decided to never fall for that line again.

Posted by steveh at October 10, 2005 10:59 AM | TrackBack
Comments

argh! I hate being pressured by piers. so much worse than peers.

Posted by: Shermie at October 10, 2005 12:45 PM

Yacht's what you think....

Posted by: GenerationBob at October 10, 2005 01:08 PM

Succame, huh? Would that be anything at all like succumbed? You're watching too much Don Knot(t)s, although I can't say I blame you.
That man is a force of nature.
In terms of why you did it, that's obvious, and you intimated to it yourself. You didn't want to look like a butthead in front of your potential girlfriend, and brother, you did the right thing. What can you really buy for six bucks nowadays, anyway?
It was a bargain.
It doesn't matter what the schumuck uses the cash for, he saw the two of you, sized you up correctly, and made his move.
Oh well, life goes on.
Enjoy.

Posted by: Santoro at October 10, 2005 09:38 PM

Did my younger bro teach me this somewhat obnoxious but funny trick? When panhandlers hit on me I look friendly and say
'No Thanks!' as if THEY were OFFERING me money. Now panhandlers just look at me like I'm either very confused, stupid or crazy. Never have they insisted further or attempted to reverse my insanity. Santoro's on it however, you don't want your new friend to think you're a weird dodo on a hip street corner.

Posted by: heather at October 11, 2005 01:12 AM

$6 buys 18 candy bars at my "buy" price or 24 at today's sale price. That's a life-time supply of chocolate for UnderBlog, or 1.5 of my lunches.

Thanks for the tip, heather... I'll try it when I'm not on a hip corner.

Posted by: GenerationBob at October 11, 2005 10:02 PM
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