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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think this is incredibly cheeky?

40 replies

crunchymint · 26/07/2018 12:08

Okay I don't believe them, but often get young blokes trying to beg money for the bus fare at bus stops in town. Every time I think bloody hell, if you really don't have the money, just walk. No big deal at all for them to walk 2 to 3 miles home.

OP posts:
PurpleMac · 26/07/2018 13:11

How do you know they only live 2 or 3 miles away? Hmm

EggbertHeartsTina · 26/07/2018 13:19
Biscuit
Original poster
crunchymint · 26/07/2018 13:20

Because they say they need the bus fare to get to x. And the buses only go 4 miles away maximum before coming back to city centre.

OP posts:
Iwasjustabouttosaythat · 26/07/2018 13:20

And do you really think they want the money to catch a bus?

CSIblonde · 26/07/2018 13:20

Are you in NE London near me OP? Same guys, nightly, wearing designer gear? (so £ for that then ). Usually hanging around either chicken shop or betting shop in daytime? (so I assume v prob local). It's the grabbing my arm that fecks me off. They get verbally abusive when I say "No. Please let go of my arm". If there wasn't heavy footfall of potential witnesses there I think mugging would be their next gambit tbh. I go the long way round the back streets to get to High Street now.

VladmirsPoutine · 26/07/2018 13:21

What's the point of this thread? You do like starting random threads about your daily very mundane musings, is this an attempt to up the ante?

AWomanIsAnAdultHumanFemale · 26/07/2018 13:21

And do you really think they want the money to catch a bus?

Read OPs first sentence.

Hinkle · 26/07/2018 13:22

It's not cheeky, it's desperate.

YANBU to say "no"

ShumpaLumpa · 26/07/2018 13:23

Why is OP getting a Biscuit? Hmm

I give a lot to charity but certainly don't give it to people begging money for the bus.

OP, I agree with you. I thought the lady who bought coffee for the homeless man in mcD's was lovely but this is different.

Original poster
crunchymint · 26/07/2018 13:24

You do like starting random threads about your daily very mundane musings

Yep I do. If they are too mundane for you, you don't have to read them.

OP posts:
Original poster
crunchymint · 26/07/2018 13:25

Shumpa Yes people begging for food or a cup of tea are very different. Most of the people at bus stops where I live won't have a great deal of money themselves.

OP posts:
Berthatydfil · 26/07/2018 13:26

It’s begging or a scam.
There’s a man who hangs round the pay and display car park asking for change for the car park - he’s a known alcoholic and I’m also aware of a scam in my town (there’s a hospitsl in nearby town ) where a man and sometime a woman ask for money for taxi or bus fare to hospital town as woman is pg needs midwife or is having m/c (sorry if this upsets anyone) . It was on my towns fb page they had taken money from a lot of people.

VladmirsPoutine · 26/07/2018 13:27

I usually don't and just hide the thread but thought I'd post on this one as it seemed a very daring attempt to ramp up the fun. Can't wait for tomorrow's edition about the woman at the M&S cafe who ordered a Cappuccino "in this heat!!!!"

Original poster
crunchymint · 26/07/2018 13:30

Poutine So tell me what is an acceptable thread to start then?

OP posts:
CSIblonde · 26/07/2018 13:31

Vladimirpoutine,
It's not mundane to me, it's bloody scary being grabbed and shouted at.

VladmirsPoutine · 26/07/2018 13:35

It's not so much the aspect of mundane that is an issue - if MN were to do away with mundaneness then there'd be a lot of tumbleweed boards - of which there are currently many.

It's this notion that young men begging for money are somehow to be treated with suspicion and contempt. I don't know your local bus stop so perhaps the boys are holding out for a contribution for anything other than bus fare but it's just another thread to stick the boot in to those that are in or have fallen on harder times; "They can/should walk", "They're young men, should be out at work" and so forth. It's rather tedious.

Original poster
crunchymint · 26/07/2018 13:37

Hey I am laughing at Poutine. With security breaches I would never now use MN for serious stuff. I use it for entertainment, normally when I am avoiding housework or an essay.

The guys where I live that do this don't grab your arm. That does sound scary. Just hate that they are scamming people who will be in the main poor and that they use such a crap excuse for it.

OP posts:
dimplesmccutie · 26/07/2018 13:39

Vladimirpoutine if you dont like it dont comment do fuck off

Original poster
crunchymint · 26/07/2018 13:44

Poutine Ah you think I am bashing the poor? That makes your reaction more understandable. No I am not. I am on JSA £73.10 a week at the moment.
It is a scam. It is the same few young men who beg bus fare all the time. And probably from people who are much poorer than them. And yes, to be honest I have walked when I have not had the bus fare and would not have begged for it. I did give bus fare to a woman once on a free course I was on who had an obvious limp and for whom it was an obvious struggle to walk.

OP posts:
Original poster
crunchymint · 26/07/2018 13:46

And not once did I say they should be out at work. It is not easy everywhere to get a job. And I also know that some people are basically unemployable and would struggle to get any job and hold it down. I actually wouldn't even care if these young men were scamming £4 or £5 from better off people. But they are not.

OP posts:
Isawthelight · 26/07/2018 13:47

What's the point of this thread? You do like starting random threads about your daily very mundane musings, is this an attempt to up the ante?

Hmm scroll on past.

SistersOfPercy · 26/07/2018 13:47

There is a guy in our local town who always needs £3 for bus fare to the next town as his wife is in labour. I feel desperately sorry for her as she's now been in labour for about 7 years to my knowledge.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 26/07/2018 13:47

Two teenage girls once asked me for money when they were waiting at a bus stop, because they didn't have any money for their fare, apparently.

I did point out that I would have been more inclined to give them some if each of them hadn't been eating a litre box of ice-cream (like it was a choc-ice- folded back the cardboard so that they could gnaw the ice-cream out of it.)

They were a pair of fat little cows, an' all.

Bugjune · 26/07/2018 13:51

Seems like a perfectly MN appropriate thread to me.

I'd walk on past them too, OP. Cheeky feckers.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 26/07/2018 13:56

I was once approached in a car park by a young bloke in an apparently distressed state, asking for money to get to X where his baby was sick.
I thought it was probably a well acted scam, but gave him a couple of £ anyway.

Just a few days later, on top of a bus a few miles away with my sister, I saw him again, sitting at the front of the bus.

He turned around, saw me looking, evidently saw that I'd recognised him. He gave me a very long, meaningful, 'So?' look - can only describe it as insolent - which said as plainly as anything, 'Yes, I conned you, so now you know and there's eff all you can do.'
He repeated the long look soon afterwards, before getting off the bus. I think it was meant to be intimidating, though God knows why -it wasn't as if I could do anything.

Having said that, I'd probably do the same again with just a couple of £, on the off chance that it was a case of genuine need.

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