As a public service to the many California Dopers, you may want to be on the look-out for this con artist.
We get the same sort of scam in Bangkok perpetrated by Westerners but never documented to this extent.
I fucking love the internet.
She’s apparently making enough on this scam to be able to eat pretty well.
You would think the police (or some locals with a little bit of a “neighborhood watch” in them) could set up a sting some time and put a stop to it…
Ahh, she’d probably just wind up two towns away, doing it again a week later.
There was a South African (she said) lady doing this for the longest time out at the airport. Would go up to farangs (Westerners) with a sob story about having lost her ticket, her money etc. She had various reasons for not being able to contact the airline or the police or anyone else. Later, someone matching her description was hitting on tourists in the city at certain spots.
Then there was a Frenchman who for the longest time kept hitting up other farangs waiting at bus stops on Sukhumvit Road with a similar tale of woe. He approached the same guy twice, six weeks apart! Other similar scammers too, one in particular who was spotted eating an expensive meal with a hot Thai babe just hours after he wheedled some cash out of a backpacker couple. Unfortunately, this sort of thing makes you very jaded to what could be genuine hard-luck stories.
I think that most people (even genuinely hard up people) would never dream of appealing to strangers on the street for cash. Having been in pretty harrowing circumstances myself, I try to recall the times I contemplated soliciting aid from strangers. Zip, actually. There is always a better way - even if it means not eating.
My sister got taken in by a guy running this scam at the Vancouver Airport. (Just needed to raise enough cash to get downtown, dontcha know?) She gave him folding money (4X the fare, as it happens) and was genuinely surprised to see him not much later fleecing someone else.
Kicker: Vancouver’s light rail from the airport to downtown runs on the honour system - there is no-one collecting fares, no turnstiles, and it’s rare to see anyone ask to see a ticket.
There are two main types of cons: those that try to exploit people’s inherent greed, and those that try to exploit people’s inherent humanity. Both are bastards, but I’d cry less if the ones exploiting people’s altruistic qualities happened to have their genitals abused with a rusty rasp.
I saw some young kid (about 20) in the tunnel at the railway station in peak hour. He’d obviously got on the piss and fallen asleep in the nearby park and had no money to catch the train home. So he started busking in the tunnel to raise money for the fare. I gave him $5 to stop. He made Janis Joplin sound like Sinatra.
I wish they could all be California girls.
Images like this make me feel like I’m reading an article about an elusive mythological creature or something.
But yeah. The internet is awesome.
Also: I think the idea of having a wiki for a specific city like this is badass. It’s like reading a video game strategy guide- lists of NPCs, places and events of importance, etc. 
Hmm. I guess the way to check this would be to offer to actually buy the ticket. It’s just like offering the hobo food when he says he wants food money. I don’t know why they won’t take it to keep up the ruse, but they never do.
I had a weird-ass experience at a rest stop not long ago. These two women with three children in the back seat of their car approached me and told me they needed money to get home to their father’s funeral. I said, ‘‘you need gas money?’’ and they said, ‘‘yes.’’ I did not have any cash on me, so I told them if they pulled up behind me I would pay for their gas. They seemed disappointed, but said okay.
When I pulled up the pump, they sped away.
I can only assume in retrospect that they were trying to scam me, but there were seriously three young children in the back seat of the car. Who does that?
Matchstick women? 
I’ve been hit up for bus fare in Seattle – in the Ride Free Area. :rolleyes:
These cons have been not uncommon in my area, and one of the local newspaper columnists does stories on them now and then, listing descriptions, their usual schticks, and where they like to hang out.
Yeah, this is the best way to find out if someone really needs help, or is running a scam. The scam artists will ALWAYS want money for food or gas, but when you offer to BUY them food or gas, as opposed to just giving them cash, they’ll refuse.
This is one advantage of doing most transactions with a credit/debit card. I just tell them that I never carry cash, but I’ll be happy to buy formula or gas or whatever. I usually collect a nasty glare in return.
Most people who ask for money are going to use it on booze or drugs. Since I don’t want to subsidize someone else’s bad habit, I never give cash, but I will sometimes (very rarely, but it does happen) offer to buy gas or food. So far, I’ve never had my offer accepted.
How do we know this is true? Can’t just about anyone put up a wiki?
Well, if it’s false, then the odds of having this same girl actually appear, crying and needing genuine help, seem rather small. So not much harm done. I supposeif if it’s false, the girl shown in the pictures may suffer embarrassment, but the thrust of the message is to beware the behavior, not so much beware the girl. And if the claim is false, then you’ll not see the behavior.
There are a bunch of commenters on the wiki page posting that they’ve seen this chick. Yes, they can all be lying, but it’s not a single random person.
Look at all the replies on the wiki. There are a great many people who report encountering a person who has a certain appearance, and who uses the same couple of stories. How likely is it that there are a lot of young women out there who experience the same horrid circumstance of her mother or boyfriend stranding her? And how likely is it that she will need around $40 to buy a train ticket? She’s come up with a story and an act that works. She sees no reason to change it. There are about a couple of dozen people who have reported seeing her work her act. That’s just the number of people who know about the wiki, and who are motivated enough to post on it. This is not a random circumstance, this is well-documented behavior.
She’s defrauding the people who open their hearts and wallets for her. This isn’t good.
It’s also not terribly original. There are lots of people selling sham stories for a quick handout. Generally it’s called begging rather than con artistry, but it’s certainly very common. Singling out this one girl seems more likely to be the act of an ex-boyfriend than a social service. There are probably another dozen people doing a similar thing in Davis, if not more.
I get these people all the time, pretty much anywhere. They’ve all got the same crappy story about they need to get home but are a couple of bucks short. I pay them no mind. Unless they happen to have a really original story, in which case I’ll throw them whatever loose change I have in my pocket, usually about 50 cents, just for them taking the extra effort to attempt to come up with a unique angle, even if it’s still bullshit.
Then there was the time I was in Philly for work and I gave a guy outside of 7-11 a dollar. Upon receiving the dollar he responded with, “I need about ten!” I took my dollar back.
I liked this comment (Page):
Ayup. I’m sorry for those truly in need, but coming from L.A. and spending a lot of time in Seattle has made me jaded.
There’s also a comment by someone claiming to be ‘Crying Girl’, which was posted from a Vacaville IP address. She should spend her ill-gotten booty (or her ill-booten gotty) on some education.