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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to send money to a Moroccan taxi driver

554 replies

Autumnterm · 26/04/2022 16:08

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 €?

OP posts:
Ithinkitsadoughnut · 27/04/2022 15:52

I actually think you sound perfectly capable of making the right decision based on the circumstances that you know, OP. I am pleased with your decision . You seem far from stupid or gullible and I would, I think, have done the same in your circumstances. Well done.

CharityShopChic · 27/04/2022 16:00

Even if the request is from the taxi driver, and he is hard up and desperate for cash, what makes you SO special that he has chosen you to contact, out of the thousands of tourists who he has ferried around over the years and added to social media?

And there is no way OP that you can prove that you are the only person he has contacted, and the only one sending him cash.

All you know FOR SURE is that you have had a message from a number that a taxi driver was using three years ago, requesting money. You don't know who sent it, you don't know how many other people it was sent to, you don't know what the money is to be used for. You are just choosing to blindly believe everything you are told.

Lovemypeaceandquiet · 27/04/2022 16:07

Wow, shocking, but it’s obviously up to OP to do with her money whatever she wants.

I highly doubt it’s a first time for this taxi driver (or whoever uses his phone) to ask a white foreign women for such favour.

As PPs said, he saw you from a mile off.

Lovemypeaceandquiet · 27/04/2022 16:08

But equally I know a man who sent few thousands of pounds to a Russian woman whom he never met so …

CharityShopChic · 27/04/2022 16:11

And totally agree, @AlternativePerspective . 22% of respondents think the OP should send this guy money.

Brace yourself for a lot more scam postings on MN.

Justdiscovered · 27/04/2022 16:36

The world is not as black and white as some people here suggest.
An intelligent person can take a calculated risk and send 90euros that they can spare in the off chance of doing a good thing. That doesn’t mean they are going to end up marrying a Moroccan taxi driver who only wants a visa only to then be abandoned in a council flat with all life savings taken away like some sort of channel 4 documentary.
anyone who has spent time living in developing countries understands how these dynamics work and chooses where their boundaries are.
I have and have paid school fees and sent money (ok, to people who I got to know better than a taxi driver) on occasions, and have had to say no on other occasions.
these people of course will do the rounds and contact any rich tourist who has shown a glimpse of humanity. So would you of it meant getting your child the only decent education possible. Any of us could end up in desperate circumstances and need to rely on others at some point t in our life.
and last thing I’ll say, if you’re going to choose to take the risk do it without questioning and accept that the menu may or may not go where you intend. Charity shouldn’t have strings attached.
if he is genuine it would have been humiliating enough to have to ask in the first place. If he’s not he’ll either disappear or have an answer for everything.
give lightly if you can, don’t if you can’t or you don’t want to.
nevee give more to an you can spare. It’s as simple as that.

LIZS · 27/04/2022 16:37

Is it definitely him or has his phone been hacked? All seems very strange.

JinglingHellsBells · 27/04/2022 16:58

CharityShopChic · 27/04/2022 16:00

Even if the request is from the taxi driver, and he is hard up and desperate for cash, what makes you SO special that he has chosen you to contact, out of the thousands of tourists who he has ferried around over the years and added to social media?

And there is no way OP that you can prove that you are the only person he has contacted, and the only one sending him cash.

All you know FOR SURE is that you have had a message from a number that a taxi driver was using three years ago, requesting money. You don't know who sent it, you don't know how many other people it was sent to, you don't know what the money is to be used for. You are just choosing to blindly believe everything you are told.

Exactly.

That is what I said too.

ALSO I don't know what the OP is getting from her thread any more- or ever, come to that!

@Autumnterm Around 80% of posters think you'd be daft to send the money. I'd have been wary from Day 1 when a taxi drier 1000s of miles away started having a conversation with me over whatsapp. But maybe some people are just flattered easily.

But all you have done for 18 pages is defend your decision to do that.

So, fine!

Move off your thread and send the cash to him.

Job done and no need to ask. you'd already made up your mind.

pixie5121 · 27/04/2022 17:14

This reply has been withdrawn

Withdrawn at poster's request.

JinglingHellsBells · 27/04/2022 17:18

I feel really sorry for all you people who seem to live in a bubble. It seems so grim.

Spare your pity. We're all fine.

We are just more choosy over who we allow to have our personal contact details. It can make life a lot simpler.

LegMeChicken · 27/04/2022 17:26

OP : ‘Am I being U?’
MN (mostly) : ‘Yes’.
OP : Ok, I’m gonna do it anyway. Oh and btw I’m actually a highly trained expert in the subject I posted about. I just needed the opinion of the plebs cuz ????

Now that we’ve settled the matter probably best you get this thread deleted as it’s probably a goldmine for other scammers. It’s of no use to you anyway.

Juniper68 · 27/04/2022 17:35

Autumnterm I think what you have decided to do sounds very respectful and sensible.

crackingreward · 27/04/2022 17:45

I feel really sorry for all you people who seem to live in a bubble. It seems so grim.

Yep. So grim deciding not to give a phone number out to a random taxi driver in a foreign country. So grim deciding not to keep in contact with a stranger. So grim being aware of con artists. So grim keeping my money in my pocket.

Grim? Living in a bubble? I think you have mistaken this for realistic.

Kanaloa · 27/04/2022 17:55

OP still hasn’t answered how it’s going to work if it is legit though. If he can’t afford nursery school then how will a one off payment help? Presumably if he can’t afford it this term he won’t be able to afford it next term. Who’s going to pay for it long term?

LIZS · 27/04/2022 17:56

You are such a mug. He’s probably conned loads of people and taken €100 from each of them. This won’t stop. Suddenly his children or his mum will be ill and need “lifesaving” treatment that he can’t afford. Suddenly he’s lost his home and can’t afford to buy his children things etc.

Or has an "inheritance" that can only be released by paying a fee or ill relatives/accident abroad ...

grapewines · 27/04/2022 18:03

crackingreward · 27/04/2022 17:45

I feel really sorry for all you people who seem to live in a bubble. It seems so grim.

Yep. So grim deciding not to give a phone number out to a random taxi driver in a foreign country. So grim deciding not to keep in contact with a stranger. So grim being aware of con artists. So grim keeping my money in my pocket.

Grim? Living in a bubble? I think you have mistaken this for realistic.

Exactly. There's nothing grim about it. That word is so overused on here it's ridiculous.

Original poster
Autumnterm · 27/04/2022 18:19

@kanaloa I have thought about that. He was getting by OK before the pandemic so hopefully once the tourism trade recovers he will be OK again. And even if not, his daughter should be old enough to start at a government school in September.

@legmechicken Your reply isn’t very useful, admittedly. But actually many others with local knowledge or who have visited recently have usefully replied on this thread to say that his story does stack up in terms of the culture, education system and current state of tourism there, which are the main things I was hoping to find out. I was maybe 50/50 when I started this thread but it has actually made up my mind for me.

and @JinglingHellsBells I am sorry but you are wrong. Lots of cab drivers in the UK have business cards that they give to passengers in the hope that they might book them for airport runs and so on, and I know many people who have gone on to use the same individuals over and over again. I have the number of a black cab driver who took my son to school for over a year, and I know he regularly does pick ups for other families from schools as well. I trust him a lot more than some random Uber driver. As for the Moroccan taxi driver - apart from using my number on Whatsapp to liaise about airport pick ups and meeting places, and sending the occasional how are you message - what exactly is the risk here? What’s he going to do with that phone number that is so dangerous? He could become a nuisance, maybe, but if he did, I would just block him.

OP posts:
JinglingHellsBells · 27/04/2022 18:51

As for the Moroccan taxi driver .....what exactly is the risk here? What’s he going to do with that phone number that is so dangerous?

Maybe start contacting you, creating a sob-story and ask for money.

I appreciate and know that some cab drivers give out business cards, but they have usually come, originally, from a company, unless they are 1-man/woman band. The difference is they don't usually start trying to extract money or create 'pal-ly' conversations years after you have used them.

JinglingHellsBells · 27/04/2022 19:25

Is it just me or does anyone else wonder if these sorts of threads are
going to be used by scammers to judge opinions before scamming?

A bit like casing the joint.

crackingreward · 27/04/2022 19:35

As for the Moroccan taxi driver - apart from using my number on Whatsapp to liaise about airport pick ups and meeting places, and sending the occasional how are you message - what exactly is the risk here? What’s he going to do with that phone number that is so dangerous? He could become a nuisance, maybe, but if he did, I would just block him.

OP this is the weirdest thing you have posted. He has become a nuisance, he is asking for money. Instead of 'just blocking' him you have decided to send him cash Confused

Ayeayeaye · 27/04/2022 19:35

N/C, I think I'm the person mentioned nearer the start of the thread who did a post a year or so ago about a tour guide from a trip I'd been on who'd contacted me on Messenger. He never explicitly asked me for money but was freaking out saying he was starving. The tour itself was around 10 years ago at the time I posted and this was the first time in years that I'd had any contact with him. I do think it was the same guy (I asked questions) and in the end I never sent anything but I blocked him. I did contact the company I'd travelled with and they told me they had agents out there "looking after" the guides. I have a second FB account and had a look a while back and he seems to be doing ok now, things are tough of course but hopefully he'll be fine.

At the time I was accused of having an affair with this man (not just here but on Reddit). I wasn't and he gave off no sleazy vibes at all, he was very knowledgeable about the country and funny too but as a single western woman on the tour perhaps he decided it could be useful to "stay in touch". I don't know. We all swapped emails at the end and exchanged pics of the trip. He was also friends on FB with the other single female in the group (it was mostly retired people on the tour) but I noticed at the time this happened that she was no longer friends with him.

It just makes me feel sad as it's tainted my memories of what was an amazing trip of a lifetime. I wish I'd handled it better (not by sending him money but blocking him like that made me feel guilty). Life there (and in many other countries) must be hard enough for ordinary people, let alone when there's a pandemic on and their main source of income (such as tourism) is on hold.

pixie5121 · 27/04/2022 21:28

This reply has been withdrawn

Withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
Autumnterm · 27/04/2022 22:11

crackingreward · 27/04/2022 19:35

As for the Moroccan taxi driver - apart from using my number on Whatsapp to liaise about airport pick ups and meeting places, and sending the occasional how are you message - what exactly is the risk here? What’s he going to do with that phone number that is so dangerous? He could become a nuisance, maybe, but if he did, I would just block him.

OP this is the weirdest thing you have posted. He has become a nuisance, he is asking for money. Instead of 'just blocking' him you have decided to send him cash Confused

I don’t think he has been a nuisance. He sent a couple of messages asking if I could help him and then when I didn’t immediately say yes, he said not to worry and didn’t mention it again.

I’ve experienced much worse than that on occasion from friends, relatives and partners in the UK who have had my number . If we all went round refusing to let anyone have our phone numbers just in case they ever said or did something “off” in the future we’d be very lonely people.

OP posts:
pixie5121 · 27/04/2022 22:19

This reply has been withdrawn

Withdrawn at poster's request.

crackingreward · 27/04/2022 22:29

If I sent this to my friends in Latin America or even Spain, they'd ask me what miserable, unfriendly, paranoid person wrote this.

Paranoid? Come on now. Being realistic does not equal paranoia

It seems like you're so busy being distrusting of everyone you meet and paranoid that foreigners are going to fleece you and steal all your money that you've missed out on all kinds of enriching experiences.

Goodness that's some leap you made there!

I recognise your user name from a recent thread we were on, you were not any nicer over there either, so much so I reported you and the comment you made was deleted. Maybe learn from it?

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