Strangers asking for money.

[ALongHardWinter]

Is it just me who's experienced this? There seems to be an epidemic of people approaching me in the street,while I'm waiting at a bus stop and even actually on a bus,either asking me directly for money,or spinning me a convoluted story about they've lost their wallet/been mugged. In the high street of the nearest town to where I live there has always been the odd homeless person sitting outside a shop and asking for any spare change.
But this is on a different level. Yesterday evening,I kid you not,I had 4 different people approach me on the space of an hour while I was making my way home from the town. Requests varied from 'Can you 'lend' me a fiver?' (Yeah right,like I'm ever going to get it back!) to 'Can you give a few quid to buy some food'. I (politely) said no to all of them as I am really not in a position to be handing out money to total strangers. But by the time the fourth person approached me,I was like WTAF?! I can guarantee that barely a day goes by when I'm out and about when I don't get at least one person asking me for money. Is it the area I live in? (West London) or is it because of benefit cuts and people are feeling the pinch?

In central London I used to get approached by a very well spoken well dressed man asking me for money. His wallet had been stolen he said and could I lend him a few pounds. He approached me a few times over a period of time, and I saw him approach other people at other times too.

I have also been approached by a well spoken woman in High Street Kensington with the same story.

Everytime I said, oh you poor thing, the best thing is to go to the local police station, they will sort you out - and point them in the direction of the police station. They are not best pleased.

It’s a scam.

It's put me off doing what I thought were normal things I was supposed to aspire to, like going into town and having lunch.

Have to agree with that. Being pestered constantly either by homeless, big issue sellers, charity chuggers, etc., is one of the reasons I try to avoid town centres these days. It's a real pleasure to go to the Trafford Centre instead where you can park free and can roam around the centre/stores without being harrassed. No wonder so many town centres are going down the pan.

There’s an Eastern European begging ring which hang out on High Holborn and around Farringdon - I walk past them all every day. There’s about 7 - 10 on any day working the bus stops and pubs along the road. And it’s always the same ones. I feel for them because they’re likely forced into this by gangs, but no way am I giving them money.

Then there’s the same lady on the overground whose boyfriend had kicked her out. He’s been kicking her out for several months now. And the young man outside Victoria station with a cardboard sign saying it’s his birthday. It’s always his birthday.

It can be very hard to tell who’s in genuine need and who isn’t, especially.

Also, to those who prefer to buy food than to give money (and I include myself in that group) - my mum used to regularly buy a few things for a homeless guy who would approach her outside the supermarket and ask her to buy him specific foodstuffs. Because he was asking for food rather than money she assumed he was genuinely just hard up and hungry so was happy to help him out. One day the cashier asked her, "are these bits for...?" and described the guy. My mum said yes, and the cashier said he comes back and returns the food so he can have cash instead. You can't win!

I was approached by a woman at the entrance of the tube. Well dressed and very distressed. Said she’d had her bag stolen and had no money to buy a tube ticket home. I was well aware of the scam but she was so upset I thought she was genuine. I was on my way to an interview after being made redundant. I was living on job seekers allowance and couldn't really afford the £5 I gave her.

It wasn’t until later it occurred to me that I’m sure the tube staff would have assisted if she was genuinely stranded.

Selling the Big Issue is not begging, is it? I thought it's a dignified way for homeless people to make money?

I was approached by a man asking to borrow my mobile phone as he needed to make an urgent call. I was in my busy town centre so I said I would dial the number for him and hold the phone but he could talk. He talked and was ungrateful about it and moaned that I wouldn't let him hold the phone and that he wouldn't run away with it.

Next time I'll only do it for a vulnerable person in need.

About 18 months ago to two years this happened in city I'm in for around a month. Very aggressive and a lot of people said it put them off going into city centre. Then it stopped - city centre doesn't do well - several bigger cities nearby and out of town shopping places. I think it was a gang testing the waters and moving on.

There has been a huge uptick in homelessness in city due to UC but that was on a different timescale.

I am cynical though we went back our old university town for work – week before students were back there was suddenly beggars everywhere all summer very few every year.

When I was in my 20s I had a longish commute which cost me a lot - one of the nicest people who travelled much further than me changed at my fairly well to do town then go off the train and got on same bus to town centre I did. He spent the day bagging – used to see him at lunch time. He didn’t fair dodge – which would have been hard at those stations – but saw him most morning present ticket, didn’t travel late in day after rush hour and couldn’t avoid paying on the bus.

The commuting costs train and bus meant it was worth my while, when off probation period, sucking up moving costs and paying slightly more in rent I don’t understand how the guy economics worked yet must have done as last few months of my commute he started bringing a friend.

I have personally known 2 Big Issue sellers who were not homeless.

It has never been a requirement that Big Issue sellers should be homeless, BMW6.

@Flairhead - must be a popular scam then!

In Bristol there's a useful scheme of various unobtrusive places in the city centre (my friend had to point them out to me) where you can make a contactless payment of £2 by presenting your card to a screen. The money is divided between the 5 homeless charities working in the city.
We used to live in a small town in Gloucestershire, where there was always a woman of middle eastern appearance and almost no english selling The Big Issue outside the Co-op. Every morning she'd be dropped off by a bloke in a black BMW.
I feel sorry for store owners in the centre who are trying to make a living with piles of manky duvets outside their shops the people sit around in all day.

Happens in Leeds a lot I noticed

Selling the Big Issue is not begging, is it? I thought it's a dignified way for homeless people to make money?

True, but everybody (not least the sellers) knows the score and the natural instinct will be to feel sorry for the person selling what is not really a very interesting magazine and very overpriced and maybe feel guilted/shamed into buying one or otherwise feel the need to apologise to the sad-faced seller if they have no money or otherwise aren't willing to buy one.

I'm not saying that the magazine is entirely without merit, but if it were just sitting there on the shelf of the newsagent among all the other available magazines, waiting to be selected and bought, I really cannot believe that they would sell many at all. To be honest, if it were funded by advertising and given away free like the Metro, I'm still not convinced that many people would actually bother to take one.

It's nothing like the local newspaper sellers you sometimes see (and hear calling out) in cities, from whom people will either buy a paper if they actually want one or otherwise just ignore their pitch and keep walking on by without any sense whatsoever that they should somehow feel bad for simply not wanting one.

This has happened to me in some shape or form in literally every single country I have ever been to. Some people just feel entitled to other peoples money.

We have a frightfully middle-class one. He hangs around the arse-end of the borough claiming he got terribly squiffy at a party, lost his wallet/phone and needs to get back to Hampstead. He's still here at least 5 years after I first spotted him.

And, as PPs have said, I include chuggers in my definition as beggars. Not the little old lady smiling and just holding her bucket in the background in support of her favourite charity, but the ones who collar you as you walk by, may follow you as you keep walking and then lay on the guilt if you decline. If you do sign up to their direct debits, you'll usually find that the first two years of your payments go straight to them or their company for commission. They don't care about the charity - I'll bet many of them would need to check their clipboard regularly to remind themselves which charity so close to their hearts that they're allegedly fundraising for.

If the aforementioned little old lady routinely kept 50% of her takings and then passed the rest on to the charity, everybody would be rightfully horrified. Why is it different for the direct debit chuggers, then?

If you want to go into business as a middle-man and make your own profits, go right on ahead - but you need to offer goods or services which people are entirely free to accept or decline on their own merits and not be made to feel like they're personally responsible for drowning puppies if they say no thanks.

I've had this with a woman who approached me (and then walked with me as I tried to walk away) and started telling some long story about how she had no bus money and wouldn't I want someone to help my mum if she was stuck somewhere.

Two weeks later she stopped me again and started spinning the same story until I said "you asked me for money a few weeks ago", at which point she turned and ran.

Strange that you say that OP, happened to us a few weeks back. Pulled up on our drive this woman comes up and asks if we have £3 for her as she has no money and needs to catch a bus.

My partner just said no, walked to the shops and she approaches me again asking for money.

I was once approached, as I walked home, by someone asking if I had any change. I pointed out that if I could afford the bus fare, I wouldn't be walking. The character description I was offered was not flattering.
I have also found that "stranded" people at railway stations are not that pleased if you helpfully direct them towards the nearest member of staff, as mentioned by other PP's.
But my all time favourite was my mate Mike. He contracted polio as a child, and will spend the rest of his life with one leg in callipers; he's philosophical about it, just gets on with his life, but hates the "sympathetically tilted head and kind voice" approach. One afternoon, as we all sat chatting in a beer garden, a rather dubious "charity collector" approached us. Mike asked him on whose behalf he was collecting, and was told it was for the poor cripples or some such. At which point Mike lifted up his callipered leg, clunked it on the table, and told the collector "OK I'll take my bit now; I'd like a pint of bitter please".

I think Leeds is much better than it was 10 - 15 years ago. Walking down Briggate used to be like running the Big Issue gauntlet.

I once bought a copy from a chap at the bottom of the Victoria Quarter. Transaction completed, he asked for it back because it was his last one and he had nothing left to sell. And, sadly for him, that's how it remained.

does anybody else remember Xylophone Man - an elderly, dishevelled gent and a constant fixture in Nottingham city centre (until he died a few years ago)?

Sure do I believe about 100 attended his funeral and there's now a memorial to him on Lister Gate. Nice piece about him here: www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2005/09/05/xylophone_man_update_feature.shtml

With the Big Issue sellers, police in this area say they're largely run by eastern european gangs now. Apparently they've intimidated the usual sellers off their patches and put their own folk in

I really don't like being approached by anyone asking for money charity or otherwise. A few people have mentioned Leeds - it happens outside the centre too eg when you are about to drive away from a supermarket etc

Big Issue run by Eastern European gangs?? That sounds like an urban myth to me.

I live in a small town in rural Scotland, and have never seen a beggar here ... But even we have the Eastern European selling the Big Issue from time to time. Never seen anyone buying it though.