to send money to a Moroccan taxi driver

[Autumnterm]

Back in 2018 I went to Marrakech on holiday with my son. I can’t remember exactly how but I ended up getting the phone number of a friendly local taxi driver who took us from A to B several times. When we went back the following year we used him for our airport transfers both ways.

Since Feb 2020 we haven’t travelled abroad anywhere but I would occasionally get a text from him saying hello or how are you, to which I would respond hello/salaam/labas and that was that. I didn’t think much about it except that he was checking in just in case I was headed to Morocco and was tempted to use another taxi driver....and I did at one point recommend him to a relative going there but their trip was recently cancelled due to COVID.

Anyway cut forward to this week. He texted again and said hello my dear friend how are you and your family, and I responded as usual.

But this time he went on to say that life is hard for him, he has had no work due to the collapse in tourism and as a result he cannot pay for his kids to go to school. He sent me a picture of them - a boy and a girl, they look to be about 3 and 5 years old so I presume he means nursery school.

Stupidly (maybe) I asked how much was school and he said €90.

He has since sent me several texts asking if i will help pay for his kids to go to school. His English is not perfect but it sounds like he wants €30 a month for three months and he says in return if/when we go back he will drive us anywhere we want.

On one hand I know that Marrakech is one of the scam cities of the universe (lots of the people who run investment scams targeting UK pensioners are actually based there). I have no way of knowing if the kids in the photo he has sent me are really his and if there really is a charge to go to school and if he really has no work.

On the other hand €30 is affordable for me and I genuinely do feel sorry for people who rely on tourist revenue who have had a very hard time of it over the last two years. Morocco is open for tourists now but it was locked down for the whole 2020 season and some of 2021.

Would I BU to send him some €?

I send money regularly (bi annually) to people who worked for me 20 years ago in a developing country. .The difference being I know them well. I paid school fees (‘private’ definitely doesn’t have the same connotation as here, public primary was under a mango tree). at one point I did think that one of the women was fleecing me but then we went to visit (the only time I’ve been since leaving the country) and even if she has been using the money for something other than intended it was hardly as if she was rolling in it - she definitely needed it more than me. I prefer to give targettred money in this way (as opposed to charities).

However when the children of one of the women grew up and got a phone and began texting me asking for money I Said no as I didn’t have a relationship or a history with them

fwiw and what I used to see in my work, oxfam was one of the better charities. Less likely to fly In Foreigners - instead employed locals and in far less fancy offices. They would be my charity of choice. I avoided the religious charities as they pushed uncomfortable moral messages even when they didn’t know they were doing it.

re your situation. It’s really uncomfortable when people you don’t know well
ask for money. I would be in the same conundrum. I think I wouldn’t send the money as I didnt know the person well enough. I’d feel disappointed too even though that is unreasonable of me - I’d feel that is why they kept in contact all along. But I wouldn’t think they were a scammer or a chancer. I would think they were asking me because they neeed the money and I was richer (which I would be as I met them as a tourist) . The request for money lays bear massive financial inequality at the heart of your relationship- something you might like to pretend isn’t there… but very much is.

Posters saying education is free in Morocco need to see what that education in Government schools consists of. It's totally normal for parents to prefer private schools which tend not to be fancy but not as dire as the Government schools. It's like that in many middle-income countries where parents might have a bit of extra cash to access private schools.

The taxi driver's kids could go to a Government school but highly likely taxi driver has been scraping together whatever he can find to keep them in a private school to ensure they have a chance at a better life than he has had.

The amounts sound about right too.

Just saw this article which says that Marrakesh schools are particularly bad
marocmama.com/schools-around-the-world-morocco/

I often wondered if the ' I married an Egyptian waiter 40 years younger than me, and he left me broke' stories in the trash magazines and tabloids were made up...

Reading some of these replies I now know how these scammers are emboldened, and how many potential marks there are out there.

A 100% no overheads charity would worry me greatly. Who is auditing that charity? Who is evaluating their work? Who is doing their accounts? Overheads in and of themselves are not bad, they can ensure the work is more impactful and reduce the potential for fraud.

OP get practicing your sad face for when you appear in Take A Break cos you have lost your house / savings to a Morrocan taxi driver

An English taxi driver would have access to benefits. People in Morocco are destitute due to covid.

It amazes me how easily mumsnetters are parted with their money

Once he has your bank details will it be easier for scammers to empty your account?

Poster/s saying this thread has a racist vibe may be over egging it in general but you read posts like this and it's undeniably racist.

@Sawadeekaka
A 100% no overheads charity would worry me greatly. Who is auditing that charity? Who is evaluating their work? Who is doing their accounts? Overheads in and of themselves are not bad, they can ensure the work is more impactful and reduce the potential for fraud.

It is a small charity and I am very aware of exactly what the work is achieving and has done during the 15+ years that I've known about it. There is no fraud and we have personally seen the very impressive impact.

I'm on way to work but can share details privately later. However, best not to assume that the person you're talking to is an idiot.

This is absolutely true. Corporal punishment is still rife in free schools. Paying for education is the norm. Just as people pay for private clinics rather than go to the free ones. It's totally normal.

How the fuck would he get her bank details??

Oh and @Sawadeekaka several of the wealthiest people I know work for big name charities such as unicef and water aid. I don't need an auditor to tell me that any amount I can donate is funding their children's school fees and their jollies around the world with celebrities. Sod that.

That's EXACTLY hoe scammers work.

Watch 'For love or money' on BBC1, new series just started. Catch up on the iplayer.

Good luck op

An English taxi driver would have access to benefits. People in Morocco are destitute due to covid.

Basic benefits in the UK are pitiful and certainly wouldn't stop people needing to ask for help.'

If people in this country weren't in poverty we wouldn't have so many food banks!

OP

covid didn’t start these guys trying to get money from people.
In 2011 on my honeymoon in Athens we had a taxi driver do that - they did long hour tours to different places, sort of acting like a tour guide and recommending/ stopping at local good restaurants etc (the restaurants were their mate’s, usually shit, terrible shops etc where we were encouraged to buy huge carpets).
I know Greece had just had the really difficult economic collapse but .. I’m not wealthy and don’t appreciate being blindsided into spending money on inedible food or stupid tourist tat.
people impoverished on a large scale is sadly more common than well off people and the only long term solution to that is to change government structures and so on.

@fairylightsandwaxmelts You have no idea about what poverty means in countries like Morocco. There is NO safety net. Thankfully family networks are strong which stops many from utter destitution and Morocco has (until covid) done excellent work in reducing poverty. But it's still poverty at a level that we don't see in the UK.

I'd err on the side of caution. Assume it's a con until you can prove otherwise.

You clearly have issues with charities, @pixie5121 . If you really wanted to check out how much the Red Cross, Save the Children or any other registered charity were spending and how, you could check that out. But you won't, because that might contradict your own belief that all people working for charities have their troughs in the snout and are in it for the wrong reasons.

It's not "whataboutery" at all. This man is not a friend. He is a casual acquaintance. She doesn't know it's even him she has been messaging. She wants to send money because it will make her feel good about herself.

No. Change your phone number. Immediately.

Oh it would come, after the first 90 Euros there will be another emergency that he will need 100 euro for.

He will then offer to pay it back, just send the bank details etc.

Before you know it, the OP's house will have been remortgaged and she will be on the front page of ' Chat' complaining that her family have gone NC with her and why didn't anyone warn her about these scams?

Do you really not understand how these things work?

I would send him this money, all in one go, via Western Union (to be safe) and block his number. Because it seems totally plausible to me that he is a nice person who genuinely needs money, it's not a lot of money, but you do need to protect yourself.