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Things beggars will do for money!

25 replies

AviatorShades · 04/10/2018 22:40

A friend's just come back from a hol in Spain. On the pavement by the local shops there was always a poor legless man sitting with a blanket over his truncated body, a bowl nearby for coins. My friend and co. would always give him their change. One evening late, when the shops were closing, they happened to pass by, and saw him... Can you guess?

OP posts:
WorraLiberty · 04/10/2018 22:43

He was tap dancing along the pavement?

This is a growing problem in my are...beggars pretending to be either homeless or disabled when they are neither.

WorraLiberty · 04/10/2018 22:43

*area

blaaake · 04/10/2018 22:45

This is why I don't give them money, and never will. If anything, offer food. They usually refuse it.

Sorry10 · 04/10/2018 22:45

@WorraLiberty wtf Angry

IHopeYouStepOnALegoPiece · 04/10/2018 22:56

worra that made me laugh!
We have this all the time...one particular woman is bent double with a walking stick barely able to stand straight pleading for help...roughly once an hour she nips down the alley and stretches her back Hmm

There’s another who has been “pregnant” for approximately 21 months...

AviatorShades · 04/10/2018 22:57

Well, I've got to go to bed now, so I'll tell ya.

He'd been standing up all the time. In a manhole!GrinGrin
So he climbed out, replaced the manhole cover he'd been sitting on all the time, folded up his blanket,pocketed the money in his bowl, and sauntered off.,

And he was back in place the next day, poor legless man, still scamming the euros.

Bloody hell! Must be tiring, tho, standing all dayGrin

OP posts:
IHopeYouStepOnALegoPiece · 04/10/2018 22:59

That’s actually quite ingenious Grin

FanciedAChangeToday · 04/10/2018 23:04

Shock and Grin

GunpowderGelatine · 04/10/2018 23:05

Well I didn't expect that Grin brilliant!

Singlenotsingle · 04/10/2018 23:05

Miracle cure! Grin

AviatorShades · 04/10/2018 23:08

GrinGrinGrin

OP posts:
Sillybilly1234 · 04/10/2018 23:10

I bet his feet stink.

silkpyjamasallday · 04/10/2018 23:19

It's shockingly common ime. DP knows a guy who pretends to be homeless, he actually has a flat in the town centre. I also saw a guy in Las Vegas coming up to cars stopped at the traffic lights holding a sign saying he was a veteran and homeless, he had a stick and seemed to only have one leg, he was very thin and was wearing baggy cargo shorts. We saw him unfold his 'missing' leg when the cars started moving and he walked away!

MorningsEleven · 04/10/2018 23:23

Brilliant.

When I was a student there was a lad in town every weekend with a "hungry and homeless" sign. He lived in the same halls of residence as me.

EdWinchester · 04/10/2018 23:29

In a queue for the Vatican, a decrepit old woman with a hideous facial deformity, staggered up and down the line with her begging bowl being filled with notes and coins.

Our guide told us this woman lives in the richest district of Rome, gets picked up every evening in a very flash car, and her deformity is all makeup!

Burlea · 04/10/2018 23:38

We saw one in Tenerife we gave him a few euros, 2 days later in another part of the island he was getting into a Mercedes. Have now been told he's a millionaire.

Lockheart · 04/10/2018 23:51

There’s a young chap who sits outside Victoria station with a sign saying it’s his birthday.

It’s been his birthday every day for the last 18 months!

ColinsVeryJolly · 05/10/2018 00:08

When my best friend and I were about 8 or 9 we played a game where we pretended to be people pretending to be homeless and begging for money but in fact we were millionaires.

It amused us greatly at that age. We should’ve done it in real life 🤔

tinytemper66 · 05/10/2018 00:23

One of the saddest things I saw was in Lille. Dad forced his young son and daughter to sit on the floor and beg with him even though they were crying and I could tell they didn't want to.

BaronessBomburst · 05/10/2018 00:31

DH and I spotted a young woman in Cologne. She was barefoot and poorly dressed - with a perfect French pedicure.

ThisIsTheFirstStep · 05/10/2018 00:33

It happens all the time in Korea, they crawl around in a kind of sleeping bag thing, usually playing religious songs full blast on a speaker.

AdoraBell · 05/10/2018 00:36

I used to work with a bloke who walked everywhere barefoot. He would beg for a laugh on his way home from work.

anitagreen · 05/10/2018 00:38

There was a man who looked really rough when i was in school who used to sit outside Putney train station every day begging he was there from year 7-11. When I left school my nan had those local guardian newspapers and there he was, he owned a 750K home, a brand new car and was actually sent to prison for something to do with obtaining money by deception. Couldn't believe it he honestly looked homeless and down on his luck Shock

icclemunchy · 05/10/2018 00:42

There's a lady who frequents the Perivale slip road of the A40. She has a crutch and to all accounts can hardly stagger up and down the cars.

I might feel more sorry for her if I hadn't watched her husband walk over to her take the crutch and proceed to stagger up the line of cars in the same fashion whilst she walked off towards Tesco perfectly normally!

At least the two young drug addicts who seem to walk miles asking for 20p don't bother putting on any kind of act

BitOfFun · 05/10/2018 01:13

Spain has an unemployment rate of around 26%. I'm not surprised that some people are driven to extreme measures.

Many beggars seen being picked up in flash cars are basically being pimped by criminal gangs who obviously never go hungry themselves.

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