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JiimyPopAli posted:One scam I thought of the other day was a panhandler in downtown Toronto: "The Shaky Lady". The documentary about her will be called The Shaky Lady Shakedown.
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Apr 7, 2016 17:48
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Aren't stories about how panhandlers are secretly rich and faking their mental illness like one of the oldest urban poo poo that didn't happen myths? They exist for a reason, so you can feel better about not giving bums money.
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Apr 7, 2016 18:40
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Winnipeg has the Toonie Lady, who walks around downtown loudly crying for someone to give her a toonie and that she's "soooo hungry." Of course, those toonies end up going into the nearest VLT machine and if you give her food, she'll toss it onto the ground. Apparently she's been around since before toonies were even a thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELKApgq4V6E Celery Face fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 18:44
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cheerfullydrab posted:Aren't stories about how panhandlers are secretly rich and faking their mental illness like one of the oldest urban poo poo that didn't happen myths? They exist for a reason, so you can feel better about not giving bums money. One of the Sherlock Homes stories has this as a plot point.
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Apr 7, 2016 18:58
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Homeless people 1. Want to be homeless. 2. Are faking mental illness. 3. Are just going to drink/gamble/do drugs/whatever with the money. 4. Are secret millionaires. I can't remember the other ones, but people spout one of these things near-constantly. Again, I'm pretty sure these stories exist, that people are constantly saying and repeating these things, because the natural impulse when you see somebody in need is to help them. Keeping one of these ideas in your head helps you not do anything, makes it okay.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:06
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I always figured if you're desperate enough to sit in the cold shaking like a nutcase, then you can have some of the change that's in my pocket. gently caress, I've gone into a shop before and, without having been asked, bought a tramp some cigarettes and some beers, because if I was having to do that for a job, I'd love some beers and cigarettes.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:27
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You can't become a millionaire faking homelessness. You need to get to the point where you hire other people to fake homelessness and profit from them. Ask me about my MLM Panhandling scheme.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:28
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cheerfullydrab posted:Aren't stories about how panhandlers are secretly rich and faking their mental illness like one of the oldest urban poo poo that didn't happen myths? They exist for a reason, so you can feel better about not giving bums money. If panhandling didn't work, people wouldn't do it. There have been enough hidden camera exposes on the secret lives of panhandlers to make me believe that it isn't an urban legend.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:49
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You joke but that happens here in central Florida, the homeless folks dive up intersections to panhandle and split the money at the end of the night. It's incredibly profitable during the winter months due to the amount of tourism the area sees in that time. It takes a person with a very strong will to submit themselves to that work, I have much respect for them.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:49
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I have no doubt that panhandling could net you good money sometimes but it's kind of ridiculous to think they are going home to $300000 homes. How would you even buy a home? You're not making enough to buy one with cash and you technically have no income in order to get a mortgage.
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Apr 7, 2016 19:58
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Oh yeah I wouldn't think any of these people are going home to middle class lives, some live in a makeshift camp in the woods up the street from my work in a really crappy part of town. I mean they probably have enough money at the end of the day for whatever lovely to-go food they feel like eating (nobody gonna let them eat at a sit down place) and their drug/drink of choice if they roll that way. For most or many of them I would assume this is a life they did not want for themselves, but for a few of them it is a largely peaceful if primitive existence.
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Apr 7, 2016 20:16
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I've seen those news stories and I think the worst person in them is the guy who always says something along the lines of, "I thought they were homeless! I've given them some change or a buck on my drive home from work every day for the past couple years, I'm outraged!" As if their drive-by, low effort charity ever had the possibility of making meaningful change.
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Apr 7, 2016 20:36
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:I have no doubt that panhandling could net you good money sometimes but it's kind of ridiculous to think they are going home to $300000 homes. How would you even buy a home? You're not making enough to buy one with cash and you technically have no income in order to get a mortgage. I have seen a single homeless guy take donations from more than one car in a particular light cycle. Even if you figured a buck a donor, one donor a cycle, that light cycles every 3 minutes, so 20 cycles an hour... you're already doing triple to post-tax minimum wage. It is not hard for me to believe that you could exist better begging than you could working. Perhaps living in a mansion is a stretch, but living in a nicer apartment than the guy manning the drive through window of the fast-food joint you're standing in front of... doesn't seem far fetched at all. UglyDucklett posted:For most or many of them I would assume this is a life they did not want for themselves, but for a few of them it is a largely peaceful if primitive existence. photomikey fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Apr 7, 2016 |
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Apr 7, 2016 20:37
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photomikey posted:It's tax free, so in the US, they're already making 30% more than someone with a job. Seriously, what would one make slogging away at minimum wage? $9/hr? Over an 8 hour day, $72 and then uncle sam takes $15 or $20, you walk with $55 or so?
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Apr 7, 2016 21:54
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cheerfullydrab posted:Aren't stories about how panhandlers are secretly rich and faking their mental illness like one of the oldest urban poo poo that didn't happen myths? They exist for a reason, so you can feel better about not giving bums money. http://hushmagazine.ca/affairs/social-commentary-1/riches_to_rags/ http://hushmagazine.ca/affairs/social-commentary-1/richestoragspart2/#.UvneikJdXto
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Apr 7, 2016 22:31
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RenegadeStyle1 posted:I have no doubt that panhandling could net you good money sometimes but it's kind of ridiculous to think they are going home to $300000 homes. How would you even buy a home? You're not making enough to buy one with cash and you technically have no income in order to get a mortgage. Eh, maybe she inherited it from her parents. There are millions if not hundreds of millions of beggars in the world, so it stands to reason that some percentage of them are crooks. Some percentage of everybody are crooks.
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Apr 7, 2016 22:54
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Well there has also been the rise of panhandlers who clearly aren't homeless or poor. Not saying they are getting rich doing it, but I've personally seen them in my hometown where they text away on their cellphones while they half-heartedly hold up their cardboard signs. Some of them are pretty well dressed too. There's one guy who has a really nice looking electric scooter that he sits on while begging at the corner of the Walmart parking lot and I always wonder where he plugs it in at night.
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Apr 7, 2016 23:07
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photomikey posted:It's tax free, so in the US, they're already making 30% more than someone with a job. Seriously, what would one make slogging away at minimum wage? $9/hr? Over an 8 hour day, $72 and then uncle sam takes $15 or $20, you walk with $55 or so? Just imagine if we all gave a dollar a day to our local city or state government so that people who were genuinely destitute could just have a place to sleep and a permanent address. Then at stoplights we could say, "I pay my tax, just go to the local shelter and they'll take care of you" and not have to worry about anything cos people who need help would be all right. 
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Apr 7, 2016 23:13
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I know! If only I was paying a dollar a day in taxes. I guess we could just wish for that day, hmm?
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Apr 7, 2016 23:53
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You can afford an extra dollar a day for everybody who doesn't have a place to sleep in your town.
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Apr 7, 2016 23:57
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Right? And I could afford a dollar a day for roads, and a dollar a day for libraries, and a dollar a day for... well, gently caress it, I'll just vote for Sanders!
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Apr 8, 2016 00:06
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No! The only people who use libraries or roads or beds are cheats and thieves! I read a newspaper article once!
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Apr 8, 2016 00:18
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photomikey posted:It is not hard for me to believe that you could exist better begging than you could working. You should go try it.
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Apr 8, 2016 00:35
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photomikey posted:It's tax free, so in the US, they're already making 30% more than someone with a job. What? No. Not unless they're making over the median wage, and that's in states that, you know, have a state income tax. At which point I doff my hat to their marketing skills and would recommend that they submit a resume for a more formal job.
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Apr 8, 2016 00:56
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Show us on the doll where the taxman touched you.
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Apr 8, 2016 01:29
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photomikey posted:It's tax free, so in the US, they're already making 30% more than someone with a job. Seriously, what would one make slogging away at minimum wage? $9/hr? Over an 8 hour day, $72 and then uncle sam takes $15 or $20, you walk with $55 or so? Ah yes, the "constantly stating complete and utter lies" line of arguments. It's not a good argument.
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Apr 8, 2016 02:21
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I used to work at a K-Mart in high school and someone pulled the "hey, you shorted me my change, I gave you a twenty." In retrospect I should have asked for the manager to count my drawer, but instead I made change like a dingus. No surprise when my till was $19 short that day. Another one that I'm still not sure about to this day is when a lady wrote a check for 2 vacuum cleaners totaling over $300. She handed over the check and I ran it through the check printer at the register, then [???]. I guess I just handed the check back to her and rang up the transaction like I had put the check in my till. I still have no idea if she scammed me in some way by suggesting that she needed the check back, or if I was just a dumbass high schooler who gave it back for no reason and she was as confused as I was. Anyway, my till was $300 short that day but I still didn't get fired. I had to sign some paper with HR admitting that I screwed up, so that one's in my K-Mart permanent record. Thinking back, though, it may have been a scam... who buys two full priced vacuum cleaners at the same time?
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Apr 8, 2016 02:23
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Lutha Mahtin posted:I live in the only ZIP code for hundreds of miles in any direction that has no racial majority due to it being a popular spot for immigrant families from all over the world. One thing that's nice is that I haven't had to deal with any door to door solicitors for about half a decade I think there's also the issue of how culture affects what strategies work on people, and which backfire spectacularly. Knowing your market is hard when your market is essentially a representative sample of the entire goddamn world.
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Apr 8, 2016 04:03
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The majority of homeless people are mentally ill. Even if they are magically making piles of cash they are not taking it home and stuffing it under a mattress, they are spending it on drugs and alcohol to make the voices shut up for a while. Not one of them is thinking "This sure beats working".
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Apr 8, 2016 05:10
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So like, regardless of how much they earn, homeless people having some normal people things like a cell phone and some decent clothes is cool and good because they are spending their money sensibly and have good prospects for being employed. I have friends who think the government should take homeless people's laptops. Like that's going to improve their situation?
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Apr 8, 2016 06:31
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I think the government should give homeless people laptops. So they've got email and can look up opportunities etc.
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Apr 8, 2016 06:37
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The problem isn't that they shouldn't have phones, but if you are living hand to mouth everyday are you going to get an iPhone and an expensive carrier plan or do you get the cheapo gophone from Walmart? Cause I'll tell you which I've seen them using. I'm not saying the poor shouldn't have nice things, I'm saying that having nice things seems like less of a priority when you have to rely on the pocket change of strangers to eat. Edit: should the government provide or take away people's laptops? Neither. But instead of buying a laptop use the public library's and use that money on something else. Blackchamber fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Apr 8, 2016 |
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Apr 8, 2016 06:58
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The Lone Badger posted:I think the government should give homeless people laptops. So they've got email and can look up opportunities etc. Whoa. Hold on. You are going to take someone who's only problems are schizophrenia, homelessness, and a wicked heroin addiction and put them at risk of becoming GOONS? That seems a little unkind.
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Apr 8, 2016 07:09
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Reconsidering the laptop thing. Perhaps the homeless could make money doing gold farming in MMOs and thusly taking jobs back from China.
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Apr 8, 2016 07:22
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The biggest con was defunding mental health in the 80s and shifting the mentally ill into what would eventually become private prisons.
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Apr 8, 2016 08:29
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Blackchamber posted:Well there has also been the rise of panhandlers who clearly aren't homeless or poor. Not saying they are getting rich doing it, but I've personally seen them in my hometown where they text away on their cellphones while they half-heartedly hold up their cardboard signs. Some of them are pretty well dressed too. There's one guy who has a really nice looking electric scooter that he sits on while begging at the corner of the Walmart parking lot and I always wonder where he plugs it in at night. There's just plain fewer jobs and the ones that do exist are far likelier to just plain suck. Not much you can do when the only work you can find is 20 hours a week for minimum wage but go try to find other money.
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Apr 8, 2016 08:52
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Please no more chat about in/authenticity of begging by homeless people. There are multiple reasons for homelessness and there are scammers and con artists in every level of society. Talking about forms and tactics of scams is interesting and amusing; beating each other over the head with our moral righteousness is not. In short, if you want to debate homelessness, housing policy or whatever, please start a new thread. 
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Apr 8, 2016 09:59
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The most notorious scams right now in Germany are all targeting old people. German pensioners are often wary of banks and many keep large sums of cash or jewelry at home. The scammers have a couple of possible tricks, the most important being the nephew con. They call the elderly and by using smart conversation skills, get them to reveal the name of their nephews. Then they pose as the nephews and tell some sob sorry about how they need a large sum of money quickly, usually to buy an apartment. The money is then collected by a "friend" of the nephew. Most of these scams are revealed when pensioners go to their bank to withdraw 10000+ Euros, and the bank staff have been specially instructed to alert the police in these situations. Some are only discovered later when the real nephews call. Also common are the fake superintendent or fake police officer. They get the elderly to open them the door and distract them in the kitchen, while their accomplices sneak in the house and steal stuff. The crazy thing is that some of these old people are really down to earth working class people, living in tiny flats, and they have sums up to 100000 euros stuffed under their mattresses. The scammers know all the usual hiding places and can make of with bundles of cash in minutes.
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Apr 8, 2016 10:37
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There's been quite a few scams being run at my university to the point where running into one is almost a daily ritual. 1) Golden Key Honor's Society/Club You will get an email on your uni account saying that you are eligible to join the Golden Key honor's society because of all these amazing things that make you special such as: your awesome gpa, only 15% of uni students are eligible, it's invite only, lots of perks, special cord at graduation, etc. etc. All you have to do is send them $150 every year. This one is pretty good because each university usually has a golden key "chapter" with a fairly legitimate looking website upon first glance. Then you do some digging and find that the "executive officer" of the chapter's email address is some really lovely yahoo throwaway account. 2) Bullshit University "Clubs" Same thing as above, but someone will pass around fliers for some "Pre-Med" student club for all healthcare oriented students, will actually hold a few meetings, and then ask for $50 in dues from each student so the club can become nationally certified/recognized/whatever. The person(s) running the thing will pocket the money and bail. 3) Bullshit Tutoring Services On the first day of class (typically in hard science classes), someone will randomly pass around fliers offering tutoring services for said class claiming they are uni sponsored when they are in fact not. On the flier is a url the student can go to to pay to sign up for "extra" services which the student will never receive. 4) Cellphone text message signup scam "Hey you! Please help us raise awareness of Muscular Dystrophy Research Fund Cuts to Senator fuckface by texting "Fund Muscular Dystrophy Research!" to 397-323-9876" 5) Study Abroad in TURKEY over the summer! Only $1975! round trip all expenses paid!" I really don't know what the gently caress this entails, I don't want to know, and I have no idea how the gently caress this has not been shut down yet other than the fact that even the most gullible of all people have no interest in ever going to Turkey.
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Apr 8, 2016 12:24
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Avalanche posted:There's been quite a few scams being run at my university to the point where running into one is almost a daily ritual. I'm guessing it's a basic MLM scam, sign up a bunch of people and you get to go free, similar to spring break scams. Sell enough Cancun vacations to your friends and you get to go party in Cancun. And while Turkey is a bit of a hard sell, plenty of history nerds would love to check out historical monuments in countries like Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and Syria. Of course, for obvious reasons, there are some serious travel restrictions in place.
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Apr 8, 2016 12:54
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