Today i was walking through my town when a man came up to me, he was claiming he had no money on him and the bank had chewed up his card. He said he was trying to get to such and such a place by train and had basically no money or anything on him.

He asked if he could have £15($22) to pay for the train ticket, he would send me the money in the post.

What would you of done?

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
Today i was walking through my town when a man came up to me, he was claiming he had no money on him and the bank had chewed up his card. He said he was trying to get to such and such a place by train and had basically no money or anything on him.

He asked if he could have £15($22) to pay for the train ticket, he would send me the money in the post.

What would you of done?

I would have said I didn't have the money on me.
Giving a stranger 15 quid, then my address so he could send it to me would be asking for trouble, in my opinon.

Realistically, if an ATM machine chews up your card, you go into the bank and get it sorted....

who would have only a bank card on him and nothing else and then on top of that do you know how rare it is for atm machines to just chew up a card, there is a 100% chance he was scamming you

I know in dallas there are 4 people to a intersection going car to car for money when you are waiting at a light, some even go so far as to dress up and make it look like thier doing it for a charity, but their there every single day. Ive heard where these people make 100k-200k a year begging for money, and they dont pay taxes or anything on it, poor ha i dont think so...

one time i helped one such guy he told me he will refund me my money within 2 days and i never saw him back in my life :rolleyes:

I helped the guy, he was panicking and looked to old to be someone playing a stunt. If he was a fake then he was damn good at it. Normally i would tell people i didnt have any money on me.

No doubt it will turn out to be a conn, gullable me as usual
:rolleyes:

No big loss anyway.

Royal Bank of Scotland / Natwest loose nearly 3 million cards in other companies cash machines a year.

I would have told him to go to his bank. Card loss numbers are generally free phone. So he could have called his bank easily. Most banks will approve a trust credit on a customers account as they can identify them without ID.

( I work for natwest by the way)

Originally posted by thebyp2
( I work for natwest by the way)

Can you increase my interest rate? ;)

i can actually, but i'm not going to ;)

i can also mark peoples overdrafts as paid, even if they aren't and lend people up to £20,000 ($28000).

So people, what ya got to offer me?:cool:

Thats interesting ive never heard of anyone i know gettong their cards eatin in the US although im sure it happens often

The company that makes most cach machines is actually based here in Dundee.

how rare it is for atm machines to just chew up a card
It happens -
1. when you enter the wrong pin 3 times
2. when you don't have money and try to access your account.
3. when your card expires

The company that makes most cach machines is actually based here in Dundee.
There are a lot of companies which make cash machines, especially in the USA. However, there are only a handful of networks which handle the transactions.

it also happens when:

somebody disputes a payment
or the most common, the link network goes a bit funny

Originally posted by cbaker17
who would have only a bank card on him and nothing else and then on top of that do you know how rare it is for atm machines to just chew up a card, there is a 100% chance he was scamming you

Well that describes my vacation in the summertime. Towards the end I was low on cash so I went to a bank of america ATM, popped in the card, and low and behold the bastard thing chewed my card up! To make it worse, since it wasn't a B of A card (I use a local bank and I wasn't in a local area) they wouldn't give it back. Turns out there had been a little something that made my bank suspicious of the card a few weeks earlier (that they kindly never bothered to contact me about) so they had frozen the card.

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
Today i was walking through my town when a man came up to me, he was claiming he had no money on him and the bank had chewed up his card. He said he was trying to get to such and such a place by train and had basically no money or anything on him.

He asked if he could have £15($22) to pay for the train ticket, he would send me the money in the post.

What would you of done?

i'm afraid it appears to be a classic scam. we had a guy who came in to an office a friend used to work at. asked if they would lend him money for petrol (gasoline) and that he would come the next day and repay it. suffice it to say he was never heard of or seen again. the next time someone else tried it, they told him no chance. thing is, someone might be genuine (you never know) and it harms the genuine people.

There may be many genuine people who do actually need the money, but will they bother paying it back once theyve got it?

Originally posted by thebyp2
i can actually, but i'm not going to ;)

i can also mark peoples overdrafts as paid, even if they aren't and lend people up to £20,000 ($28000).

So people, what ya got to offer me?:cool:

You sound like a useful guy to know :) :D

What's your position in Natwest? (If you don't mind me asking...)

Matt

Originally posted by thebyp2
(I work for natwest by the way)

Can I boo and hiss? - I work for HSBC part time :D
Only joking - at least you dont work for lloyds :angry:
"No we havent recived the cheuque"
"But Royal Mail said it was signed for"
"Yes well ummm, oh here it is!"

:rolleyes:

Yes go to the bank, I can't speak for other banks but when ours takes a card it doesn't chew it up it drops it into a box inside the ATM :)

DTA!!

If a person seems honest, I'll give them a little money. Or, atleast point them in the direction to some other form of help.

To be honest, it would depend on how much money I had on me and how genuine their situation appears. If I did give someone any money, I probably wouldn't give out my address; I'd just tell them to keep it. Really hard to say what I'd do since I've never been in that situation.

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
Today i was walking through my town when a man came up to me, he was claiming he had no money on him and the bank had chewed up his card. He said he was trying to get to such and such a place by train and had basically no money or anything on him.

He asked if he could have £15($22) to pay for the train ticket, he would send me the money in the post.

What would you of done?

I had the same thing happen to me once. A Mexican lady asked me for $10 and she sounded desparate. She even wrote down my address to send me a check later. Guess what? She never did!

:( :mad:

Funnily enough, something more or less the same as Alan's experoence happened to me just last week. I was walking back to town from college when a bloke came up saying he was just released from hospital and was beaten up at a club the night before. there wasn't a scratch on him, well not that I could see anyway. He wanted to get some money to get back to Northallerton (about £3 one way from Darlo).

I said I didn't have any money, but I'm sure some people would have given him some. The next week I saw him sat in the street begging for money, I very much doubt that he didn't get the three quid he needed in one week. I reckon he's obviously one of the many druggies we have!


Oh yeah, it's like the bloke who used to busk with an old crappy guitar. The next week we saw him with a brand new guitar. He stopped playing too as he pulled his Nokia 8210 out of his pocket and answered it :)

Originally posted by 21inchguns
DTA!!

what this means :confused:

Originally posted by Gurudev

2. when you don't have money and try to access your account.



I've had less than I asked for before (a check had cleared that I didn't know about) and I got my card back.....


--

I had something like this happen to be before too. I was walking a few blocks to a conference I was attending and this guy stopped me and said he had run out of gas. When he saw that didn't impress me he tried telling me he was a student... then that he had a baby in the car! I told him I didn't have any cash and kept walking.

The next day I see the same guy and he tries to tell me the same story. I just said "You asked me yesterday buddy" and kept walking.

He was there all week.

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
I helped the guy

tell us if you got your money back ;) :)

that happened to me once when i was in highschool we all went to a party to a small town about 2 hours away well after the party was over we went to a village in me and my buddy and the rest of the group headed on back after we got to village in i realized that i had placed my bag with wallet/money and everything in my friends cars trunk because mine was parked about 2 blocks away from the house and i didnt want to walk there
so i was phuked for money and had ordered a massive steak and ate it


so this guy gave me 20 bucks

i didnt ask him to he just overheard me freaking out and said if i promised to repay him

well i did i sent him 40 bucks

What's your position in Natwest?

I'm a relationship manager.

tell us if you got your money back

Yeah tell us!

Doesnt look like i will

There's old guy who is (used too anyway) beg in Chester with his dog. People took pity on him, especially tourists, throwing notes and pound coins his way. Guess what? Thats what he does for a living, he cons people, at the end of night he walks around the corner and gets into his posh car (cant remember the name one below a Rolls Royce), and goes home to his mansion and wife.
The worst are the ones that pretend they're from charities. I'm sure there's one gang that goes from city to city (saw them in Liverpool one week and back in Chester the next). They don't ask as well, they pester, getting less polite each time you said no, so persistant, so ******* obvious, especially when they looked stoned, but hundreds and I mean hundreds of people fall for it.

Utter Scum
:angry:

Had the can I borrow some money to get back to blah blah blah, just got out of hospital.

If you wanna feel good donate to a charity you know exists, via a method that you know the charity will see the money. There's no point giving money to people you dont trust when later you're just gonna feel stupid.

My logic tells me you shouldn't have helped....except....you have to be there to really know. Normally, I wouldn't, but once years ago...

I was in downtown Atlanta late one evening. A young man, college age, approached me. He said he had just arrived from overseas to go to college...told me the school (a tech school). He was mugged...all his money taken (certainly easy to envision that). He needed just enough money to get a room at the YMCA for the night. Then tomorrow he could go to the school, try to get help.

I figured it was a scam, but, if so, a very good one, and he didn't ask for too much. Guess I just decided I could sleep easier giving away a little money (certainly much less than I had spent that night), than I could wondering if I had turned down a young man truly in need.

I told him not to return it, but he insisted and I gave him an address (out of town). Incredibly I got the money and a note back, but even if I had not, I would not have regretted the decision I made. However, it was special. He said his first impression of America was horrible (the mugging). However, I helped restore his faith, and his hope. He was in school, having a great time, and given a second chance, found our country to be great.

I may of helped the bloke who supposedly just came out of hospital but something told me he hadn't been to the nightclub the night before. I mean he was wearing trainers (which aren't allowed at this club) a t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms (which funnily enough aren't allowed either). Now if he lived in Northallerton (20 something miles away), I very much doubt he would have brought a change of clothes with him!

Oh yeah, and he was clearly well and truly stoned!


Batesy

I usually don't carry that much on me, I usually have around $10 USD on me at all times.

Reminds me of the time I was conned out of all the money I had in my wallet (about $100 to $120) while walking down the strip.

The next time I'm on the strip, I'm going to hunt him down :angry:

Heh, working online everyday tends to put a dent in your faith of fellow human beings.

A few or so back I did give a guy $5 outside a store. I figured it'd end up as a sixpack, or Night Train, but he had a 5 year old kid with him. It was in the low 30's (F) and that poor kid looked damn cold. I gave him the cash, told him to buy the boy something hot to eat, and gave him a look that made it clear that if I saw him with anything else than steaming food in his hand, he'd have more than the cold to deal with.

Greg Moore

Id have got my mobile out, asked him which station he is travelling from and to, given him 10 minutes of questions to check he deserved it then if he did i'd phone the train station and book the ticket over my credit card and tell him to go and pick it up.

Then i'd give him the account number of my paying in account which never has any cash in and can only draw upon available cash.

If I never get the money back I wouldnt mind but at least I would know it was used for the right purpose.

-XT

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
Today i was walking through my town when a man came up to me, he was claiming he had no money on him and the bank had chewed up his card. He said he was trying to get to such and such a place by train and had basically no money or anything on him.

He asked if he could have £15($22) to pay for the train ticket, he would send me the money in the post.

What would you of done?

The guy was probably scamming you.

Having said that, if I had been in that situation I would have give him the money and no address to send it back to. After all it is only $22.00 (one decent meal), and what if he was telling the truth?

In other words if he was scamming me he is the one that has to sleep with it at night. If he was telling the truth and I didn't give him the money I am the one that has to sleep with it at night.

Just my thoughts.

Michael

Thats basically what i was thinking at the time

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
Today i was walking through my town when a man came up to me, he was claiming he had no money on him and the bank had chewed up his card. He said he was trying to get to such and such a place by train and had basically no money or anything on him.

He asked if he could have £15($22) to pay for the train ticket, he would send me the money in the post.

What would you of done?

Oldest trick in the book... Here in Greece many drug-addicts etc do that. I always respond to them that if they give me their passport/ID/Drivers License they can have it back when they come to my office and repay me ;)

I am not a bad person, just fed up with this s**t. I once helped a guy who ran out of gas and had no cash on him. I payed for some gas so he could drive home.

I another incident a guy with a motocycle had a flat tire and I gave him a bottle of that spray you use to spray foam in the tire so you can drive to the next garage. These bottles (one time use) cost plenty but what the hell right?

Trust towards a stranger is ok when you are able to determine the need of that stranger... a guy in REAL need is always honest/trustworthy ;)

Alan, he still haven't returened your money?

Today i was walking through my town when a man came up to me, he was claiming he had no money on him and the bank had chewed up his card. He said he was trying to get to such and such a place by train and had basically no money or anything on him.

He asked if he could have £15($22) to pay for the train ticket, he would send me the money in the post.

What would you of done?

I would have if it seemed to be a legitimate story told the person
I won't give you the money but I will however buy the ticket for
you and send you on your way.

This would help to make sure the money was not used to buy
drugs or alcohol or to help pay for his mansion.

You'll be amazed at the excuses you hear from people when
you offer to give them work for food, or offer to buy the food or
what ever it is they are asking for.

Just a good way to test if this is a story worth believing. That's
my $0.02

Regards,
Ray

Check your locks and be sure to set your alarm - you do have an alarm don't you? :eek:

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
Doesnt look like i will


Does it really matter if you do?

I would have taken the guy to the train station and bought the ticket for him so that I knew that is what it was spent on. Bottom line is that someone needed help and you helped them. That is what we are called to do and you are a better person for it.

Having said that, I do not advicate getting scammed. Thus I would have taken him to the train station and bought it myself. :-)

I don't think that there are too many people who are not scamming in that instance. I was on vacation once and lost my wallet, I didn't walk the streets begging for money, I went to the bank and had my folks wire me money.........

Originally posted by SplashHost.com
I helped the guy, he was panicking and looked to old to be someone playing a stunt. If he was a fake then he was damn good at it. Normally i would tell people i didnt have any money on me.

No doubt it will turn out to be a conn, gullable me as usual
:rolleyes:

No big loss anyway.

You're not the only one, I would hae done the same thing....:rolleyes:

Although it may turn out to be a con, like you said "no big loss"

I also would have done exactly as kwimberl suggested and bought the ticket for him.


Here's a good and true story:
I volunteer a few hours here and there every month of my community/temple and always see and meet people asking for money, and this reminded me of one guy who used to walk around with a shirt that said "please give me $$$, i need food" then his shirt said, "please buy me lunch, it's all i ask". Now he's got one that says, "I'll buy you lunch if you work for me"

It's been almost a year since I've carried cash. Makes it hard to stop at burger king, but subway takes plastic.

When people ask me for money, I have to say, "sorry, don't carry cash".

Walking around downtown, I can always tell when someone's going to ask me for money though. Because typically a stranger won't approach you unless they want something. I usually get it out before they do, anymore. "Hey, can you spare a dollar?"

I did give a stamp to a lady at the post office once. :)

The asking for money thing has happened to me quite a few times since we last talked about this thread. I think I'm the target with me going to college, to get back home, you have to walk down one main street into the town centre where the students from all colleges in the town must walk, makes it an ideal place to get some money from. I think that's why I'm always being asked for money for buses, trains, a pasty from Greggs etc etc (The list goes on!)