Reading through the comments on the page linked in the OP:
Out of context, that’s a pretty funny line.
So a couple of years ago I was approached by a guy in a Wal-Mart parking lot. He looked quite distressed and ask for some bus-fare money because he just got off a bus and somehow left his wallet on said bus. Ch’yeah right.
This happens all the time everywhere. Well maybe not in Baghdad, for example.
Thais. The beggars here tend to run in monthly themes. One month it will be women holding small children or babies (often not their own). Sometimes children with cute puppies. It’s all out of Dickens, they’re all part of an organized ring, and these people never get to keep the money themselves, but rather have to turn it in to their minders. That includes the children out begging in the wee hours of the morning.
Some of them aren’t even Thai. The ring brings in a lot of Cambodians to beg. One time the police rounded them all up and flew them back to Phnom Penh, which must have been a real treat for them, their first airplane ride.
There was even a case of a transvestite beggar who rented “her” friend’s baby to go begging with. Really.
I’ve been approached twice at a particular store for help with their car (either gas or oil). One, a young woman, stalled and wheedled when I offered to buy her a gas can. The other, a man, actually accepted me paying for a bottle of oil, gave me all the change in his pocket (about a buck, I think), and refused a receipt from the cashier afterward.
I was actually surprised at the latter; I was sure he’d ask for money instead, given the general track record. But it seems he actually did need help. Wow!
A while back I was walking to the store and passed a guy on a bench asking for a hand out. He looked pretty down and out so I ask him what he needed money for. He said he just wanted breakfast. I walked across the street to Mcdonalds and bought him a breakfast and juice. I took it to him and he just tossed it under the bench. When I passed back by about an hour later it was still sitting under the bench.
one variant i encountered here is the paperclip scam. an entire group of these youths would be in an area each individually approaching people with the story that they are trying to meet a donation target for their school project or some sort within an alloted time span. their story doesn’t make any sense, but i saw people hand them money anyway. i guess the sight of well dressed beggars was a bit jarring.
Beggars are everywhere.
Once I stopped by a roadside panhandler when I was on my way to work with my lunch. I offered it to him: good sandwich, apple, yogurt. He said his teeth were bad so he couldn’t have the apple and he waved off the other food. I shrugged and rolled up the window.
Another time, I was coming back from grocery shopping and had a bag of very nice apples (I like apples). There was a girl on the side of the road who somehow struck me as being legitimate. I rolled down the window and handed her the bag of apples and she rushed forward gratefully. Now, that could have been an act and she could have been expecting money on top of it… but she didn’t stick around for any.
And one time I was hit up for gas at the gas station… by someone who had a gas can. So I filled up the gas can with my credit stick and he seemed pretty pleased. I never saw the car, though.
Because this happens everywhere all the time.
It’s not even particularly new, I remember being stopped by a girl in a parking lot a decade ago asking for money to pay a taxi to get home to some far flung suburb. Cell phones were just beginning to become ubiquitous, so I offered her mine to call someone for a ride. She seemed confused, but she made the call.
Fair enough. Seems real.
Also, the NYTimes did a write up.