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 have seen this kind of school he describes. They are very small and certainly wouldn't have a receptionist, website or a brochure.

I send about £25 a few times a year to a lovely woman I met years ago in a developing country who did me a great kindness. She always thanks me and never asks for more. I know she is very poor and she uses the money wisely.

Covid has been very hard on people without savings. They are used to working hard to earn cash to live hand to mouth. Many people in the UK are really clueless about how desperately poor some people are.

OP, I'm your case, yes it could be a scam, but as PP say, if this man is a scammer, he has left it a very long time to ask for money.

I think you're really kind to even consider it. If you can afford it, then send some money to him. Accept it's possible that it's not genuine. But if it is actually genuine, what a lovely gesture.

In fairness some of the larger charities really do seem to have lost their way, CharityShopChic, even with the auditing, etc. - but that still leaves smaller genuine ones, including as you rightly said those in the country concerned

Through the wonders of the internet many of them can even be checked out, which is a damned sight more than can be said for a possible scammer sending random messages with a carefully uncheckable story attached

Because I'm not an idiot. But you know what, if someone got a tenner off me under slightly false pretences, so what?

Those two sentences together are at complete odds with each other?

No. But probably there’s more than one poor and desperate person in north africa

I would send it. You can easily afford it, and even if he turns out to be lying / scamming, you did a good deed and earned some good karma points.

I'm another who has read a virtually identical story here before too.

However the difference is it wasn't a taxi driver, it was a tour guide, and if I recall correctly the woman was single and on a group walking holiday (or similar).

The guy followed the woman holiday maker on Facebook whilst she was still there. She thought nothing of it, was a bit surprised but accepted his friend request just to be polite. He occasionally liked the odd post of hers over the next year or so but nothing more.

Then after a year he messaged her through Facebook asking for a little money, then a bit more. She posted on here for exactly the same advice.

Yes, it may be a scam but it's just as likely not and you say you can easily afford it. You might be really making a difference. I would give him the money.

If he is scamming you, why would he wait 4 years before he asked for help? Perhaps it’s not for educating his children, but whatever it’s for, he sound quite desperate.

FUCK that!

Oxfam literally spent donations on renting underage prostituted children in Haiti and then spent more money covering it up.

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/15/timeline-oxfam-sexual-exploitation-scandal-in-haiti

I'd rather give knowing it would be spent on heroin than give a penny to them even again.

I've been so skint that I've had to return groceries to the supermarket... but I would never beg for money from a close friend let alone a random acquaintance.
I would be ashamed to be honest.

I would send the money. If you can afford it and you know it will go to him I would assume he is truthful.

And then forget about it. You will have done a good thing with best intentions. His role in all this is his responsibility.

If you can afford the one off payment then do it and see what happens...if more requests follow then maybe a scam.....its not a huge amount to lose...i once gave an ex colleague and friend 100 quid as told me she had no money to buy food yet few weeks later bleated on about her teenage son wanting a real Gucci belt for 400 quid or more....he got the belt....i blocked her and never seen her since....very awful needy woman anyway.....but i could afford to lose the 100 quid....

OP you’re a lovely person for wanting to help. But even if it is genuine, the problem is it will surely be an ongoing cost not a one off thing, so you helping out once is not really going to help in the long term.
i know you’re feeling bad about it but for what it’s worth I think you were right to question it and it’s not sitting well with me that he’s now making you feel bad by saying you think he’s lying. You were entitled to clarify more details.

And no, I wasn't a junkie. I just didn't want to be beaten up at home anymore. But cheers. I still remember you walking past me in disgust for asking for 20p.

I am so shocked by your posts OP. This has scan written all over it. Your lovely elderly neighbour has been scammed and you are well aware of it. Giving money like this - a little to you so you can feel like you are helping is insane. He gave you what 5 taxi rides total 4 years ago? Texts every now and again to say hello nothing more (because he doesn’t care!) and repeat x500 to the other wealthy (to him) women he does the same too probably on broadcast from WhatsApp. Please wake up. There are literally thousands of people being scammed every day, andyou joining in despite clearly knowing it’s a scam is ridiculous. It just encourages them to continue and frankly just allows you to feel good about yourself.

Do yourself a favour, if you can afford it, go to the supermarket and spend the equivalent on food for a food bank which will help someone in genuine need on your own doorstep and block his number.

Honestly.

I visited Morocco in Dec 2019 just before lockdowns.
I met a girl and her sister just leaving a restaurant. I was standing outside waiting for a taxi. Somehow we got talking. I said I wanted to go to a Hammam spa. They said they're going tmrw and I should come. I said I had plans. Then they said they'll meet me at the market. They did and we went round for about 40mins. The next day they came with their mum to the market. I bought us drink, we took photos and parted. The next day they messaged me asking for help with school fees that her mum said she should ask me. It made no sense cos from her FB, the restaurant, dressing etc she certainly wasn't poor. Ofcourse she would appreciate some forex and might use it to pay her fees if any but she certainly would live the rest of her life healthy, safe, educated and easting healthy without help from anyone except that was a war or something unexpected. I think if she had said she needed help paying hospital fees for a relative or her house burnt or other unexpected expense I probably would've paid and felt stupid afterwards but at least I knew the school fees story couldn't be true.

This

I am going to swim against the current here. Follow your heart. IF you can easily afford this, and IF you want to do this, do it, but without expecting anything in return. And I'd make very clear that you can only do this one time. VERY clear.

A friend of my father's once took him to task for giving a panhandler money "for gas." My father's answer stayed with me forever. "Someday, that man and I will stand in front of our Maker. Better that it be on his conscience that he took money under false pretences than that I failed to help another human being when I could have done so easily."

Yeah, I'd refuse.

I say this as the sucker who gave a lot more than that to my children's nanny for her family in a third-world country. She really did a good job with my kids and I really appreciated her work, and I considered her a friend. But after I moved to another country I got tired of her only contacting me to ask for money.

This is someone who worked for me for a year though, I wouldn't dream of sending money to a guy who drove me around (for a fee) four years ago. Block him. If you want to do a good deed find a reputable charity for the cause of your choice.

Cool story bro, but not helping someone isn’t a sin. he might even have harmed him by giving him money for drugs.

In the case of scammers the wider implication is they must be stopped before targeting vulnerable people.. like the elderly. Nothing ‘good’ comes of it.

The amount of people who are telling the OP to give money to a virtual stranger in a country renouned for this kind of thing, plus telling people that they shouldn’t be giving money to charities is shocking.

I wonder how many of those posters have scammed money out of people that way, so laying on the guilt means they’ll always find some sucker to fall for their sob story online.

Anyone who asks a virtual stranger for money on the internet has no right to be offended if that virtual stranger wants to verify the details they have given. None what so ever.

And to the poster who said donate him money via western union, you mean that source frequently used by scammers so the donations can’t be traced? Yes what a fabulous idea. Not.

Well I could have improved my ‘less developed’ country but screw them, I prefer the U.K. Although we have different issues.

She’s probably going to have a similar thought pattern, but she might not even know that the NHS is a possibility , unless you tell her of course. I certainly had no clue about half the things I’ve now done….

I’m wary because I know too much about scams… and what people in my country also do

I can’t believe the amount of people on here who are saying send the money! Don’t be so ridiculous!!! Of course it’s a scam! Even if it wasn’t who the hell would ask people for money like that?! Don’t send a thing. Block their number