# Fool Me Once, I Call You a Sonofabitch **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 28, 2005, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687 "2005-03-28T23:17:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![violacrane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c57346/32.png) [@violacrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/violacrane)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/21 "2005-03-29T17:02:08Z")
There’s a woman who claims to need “coach fare to escape the abusive boyfriend” who works the main road near me. The first time I had no money and wasn’t really taken in but gave her a sympathetic hearing anyway. The second time I gave her a curt brush off and saw her go inot the betting shop not five minutes later. Yeah Right. ---
**Author:** ![Nutty\_Bunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d07c76/32.png) [@Nutty\_Bunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nutty_Bunny)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/22 "2005-03-29T17:16:35Z")
I met my husband about 8 months after moving to Troy, NY and he lived on 2nd St., near Russell Sage (not a great neighborhood…not a great city, for that matter). After walking me to my car one night, a homeless person came up to us and asked me for any money I could spare. Well, I opened up my car door, sat my purse down on the seat and dug some money out. After he left, now-husband looked at me, open-mouthed for a bit, then said, “Could you…maybe…not…do that again???” I’m from a town of about 300 people, what the hell do I know?? ---
**Author:** ![liirogue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dbc845/32.png) [@liirogue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/liirogue)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/23 "2005-03-29T17:16:57Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > See the first scene of _The Sting_ (1973) – the big-envelope-of-money-down-the-pants deal that Robert Redford and Robert Earl Jones pull off. > > Yes, they’re STILL working that one. Explain for those of us that _still_ don’t get it, please ---
**Author:** ![Fanny\_May](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3be4f8/32.png) [@Fanny\_May](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fanny_May)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/24 "2005-03-29T17:23:35Z")
A similar thing happened to me. But I never lost money. A guy came to the door, said he was visiting his mom across the street, who said I knew her (he offered no names, was a quick spieler) and said he’d run out of gas in his SUV and just needed $20 to get back home to a tony suburb nearby. I said I had a can of gas in my garage, but when I came back with it he was gone. About 4 months later he tried again, this time saying he had a flat and would buy a can of flat fixer at the corner store. Only this time I quickly asked which house his mother lived in, which he dodged by continuing with more of his story, then I asked where his SUV was and he said around the corner. I said, "C’mon, I’ll go with you. And he froze, sayinig ‘What??’. I said I was parked that way and had a can of flat fixer in my trunk. He started to back away and I told him “Your mother doesn’t live here, you have no fancy SUV, you live in no fancy suburb, you are a common thief.” He was backing away so fast he fell down, so I went inside. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/25 "2005-03-29T17:43:21Z")
My big getting scammed episode happened when my friend and I were riding our bicycles down the California coast when we were 20. A couple of New Jersey boys their first time out west. We were on the outskirts of Malibu, by the side of the road. A guy pulls up in an old car, gets out, and tells us this story about how he’s in the Navy and needs to get up to San Francisco by the next morning or else he’s going to be arrested and who will take care of his boy? Cue the boy with a doleful expression. We were resistant at first so the guy then takes off his watch and offers to sell it to us for whatever we can spare. He even has a receipt showing the thousands of dollars he paid for it! So my friend and I each give the guy $20, he gives us the watch and the receipt and he takes off. Of course the watch was a cheap knockoff. And I can’t remember what the fate of the boy would have been had he made his ship anyway or if we even considered it. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/26 "2005-03-29T18:13:47Z")
I always assume I’m being scammed. Once it was by a man with a baby in Washington DC. I gave him $5. The other was a drunk on a train during the holidays. I gave him a $10. Neither offered to pay me back. I thought that part of Eve’s story was a nice touch! ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/27 "2005-03-29T18:23:12Z")
Where I used to live, at the local bus station there were always people with sob stories asking for money. It got to the point where they were making announcements not to give these people money. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/28 "2005-03-29T18:37:09Z")
I get hit up in the grocery store parking lot at least once a month by someone whose car is dead and they’re short on cash and need only $21.47 (or some other exact amount) to go buy a water pump and install it. The last time, it just so happened that I had some spare time on my hands, so I went into the store, then watched him hit up several more people, at least three of whom gave him money. I told all three of them that they had been scammed. We got the management of the store involved, they called the cops, the joker gets hauled off in cuffs because he had warrants. Made my day. ---
**Author:** ![nivlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3bc359/32.png) [@nivlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nivlac)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/29 "2005-03-29T18:52:04Z")
This is why I don’t give handouts on the street anymore. Some years back at the entrance of a subway station, someone approached me with a sad story. He just got into town, someone was supposed to meet him and take him to his living space, so he’s hungry and stranded in the big city with no money. He wanted some money for fare and food, and promised to pay me right back when he meets up with his contact. He looked pathetic, so I gave him $10 and my business card where he can send me his repayment. Of course, he never did. A few months later, I saw him at the same location singing the same sad song to someone else. It was a $10 lesson for me. Now, I only give to charitable organizations that I know well. ---
**Author:** ![Campion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@Campion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Campion)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/30 "2005-03-29T20:44:23Z")
When I was in school in Chicago, I got hit up fairly regularly, usually by women who needed the money to get to the shelter. I offered to drive a woman there once. She scowled at me and I realized – _she_ knows she’s lying, _I_ know she’s lying, _she_ knows _I_ know she’s lying, but she’s now mad because I’ve called her on it! Then there were the people with the “I’ve lost my wallet” scam in front of the cathedral. Guy hit me up on Monday; he tried again on Tuesday. I said, “you got me yesterday.” He grinned and said, “Oh. Sorry. See you later.” One of my schoolmates told me that a woman who lived in his building begged for a living. She would get up in the morning, put on her goin’ beggin’ clothes, then go out and beg all day. She made enough to live quite well, thank you. Then there’s a newsletter that homeless people sell (the Chicago-ites will remember the name – it escapes me now). The ones selling the “new” copies are legit – but other people will pick up the discards out of the trash or off the ground and try to sell them as if they, too, are legit. I miss Chicago. LA doesn’t have nearly the same quality of scam artist, at least in my preferred venues. ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/31 "2005-03-29T22:28:56Z")
I’ve seen the various scammers (a new scam sob tale is that you’re raising money for your relative’s funeral) but what’s with the pawn shop scam? I once had a young man approach me in front of a pawn shop, hold up a leather jacket, and say that he needed money to take his girlfriend to the hospital so he was trying to pawn the jacket. The catch was that the store wouldn’t take the jacket without an ID and he didn’t have one. So could I pawn it using my ID and then give him the money? I just told him I didn’t have an ID and moved on. I thought he might be fencing stolen merchandise. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/32 "2005-03-29T22:46:26Z")
I generally assume that strangers who have sob stories and ask for money are con artists. Every now and then, my cynicism has been challenged, though. A few years ago, a young man came over to me in a parking lot. The usual spiel: “I need $5 for gasoline, got to get home soon, my baby is in the car and she’s getting chilly,” and so on and so forth. Well, he really did have a baby in his car, so I forked over a fiver. He insisted on getting my address so he could pay me back. I gave him my business card. Two days later, I received an envelope at my business address. Inside the envelope was a twenty-dollar bill wrapped in a sheet of paper that just said “Thanks, and God bless you.” ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2005, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/33 "2005-03-29T23:58:16Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > And thanks to you, that poor girl will _never_ become Homecoming Queen. She’ll still be out there in her 70s, like Miss Havisham, her Homecoming hopes fading . . . I had no idea Miss Havisham even _wanted_ to be Homecoming Queen! ---
**Author:** ![Teelo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@Teelo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teelo)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2005, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/34 "2005-03-30T08:03:21Z")
> [@pinkfreud](#): > > I generally assume that strangers who have sob stories and ask for money are con artists. Every now and then, my cynicism has been challenged, though. > > A few years ago, a young man came over to me in a parking lot. The usual spiel: “I need $5 for gasoline, got to get home soon, my baby is in the car and she’s getting chilly,” and so on and so forth. Well, he really did have a baby in his car, so I forked over a fiver. He insisted on getting my address so he could pay me back. I gave him my business card. > > Two days later, I received an envelope at my business address. Inside the envelope was a twenty-dollar bill wrapped in a sheet of paper that just said “Thanks, and God bless you.” So, what I gather so far is that for every 25 or so people, 1 of them will actually be legit. With a society like this, its a wonder i’m still alive. ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2005, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/35 "2005-03-30T10:18:54Z")
> [@KRC](#): > > I’ve seen the various scammers (a new scam sob tale is that you’re raising money for your relative’s funeral) but what’s with the pawn shop scam? I once had a young man approach me in front of a pawn shop, hold up a leather jacket, and say that he needed money to take his girlfriend to the hospital so he was trying to pawn the jacket. The catch was that the store wouldn’t take the jacket without an ID and he didn’t have one. So could I pawn it using my ID and then give him the money? > > I just told him I didn’t have an ID and moved on. I thought he might be fencing stolen merchandise. Yep. Thief steals jacket, unwitting Good Samaritan uses I.D. to pawn jacket for thief. Rightful owner/police find jacket, pawn shop owner gives police the name and address of person who pawned it. I’m not saying the police would show up and drag you away in handcuffs; any cop with half a brain would realize your story is credible. But it doesn’t get them any closer to catching the thief. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2005, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/36 "2005-03-30T14:23:48Z")
I’ll give spare change, but if ya want paper… tell a joke, sing a song, play an instrument, do some routine- heck, it doesn’t have to be good, just make an effort! I always give at least a buck to street musicians. Or obviously homeless people who have a pet. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/37 "2005-03-30T14:40:39Z")
My daughter and I filled up her little red wagon with the cookie dough buckets neighbors had order last night and made our deliveries. I got a call shortly thereafter from one who couldn’t understand why I hadn’t told her they still owed $10 bucks on their purchase. I have a hard enough time asking anyone for money even if it’s due. How someone could ask with the intent to deceive is simply beyond me. I know it happens but to me that mindset is just unimaginable. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2005, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/38 "2005-04-02T05:51:30Z")
> [@liirogue](#): > > Explain for those of us that _still_ don’t get it, please And a bump for those of us who continue to fail to get it. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2005, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/39 "2005-04-02T06:16:11Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > I’ll give spare change, but if ya want paper… > > tell a joke, sing a song, play an instrument, do some routine- heck, it doesn’t have to be good, just make an effort! > \ That’s my MO as well. I donate to the official charities, and will give money to people who are making an effort to earn it. Nobody gets money for nothing. Not me, not them. ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2005, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687/40 "2005-04-02T06:28:26Z")
At the Philadelphia airport, in my more naïve days, I withdrew $20 from an ATM and gave it to a guy with a good story. :smack: (Not so many problems in airports since 9/11…I suspect beggars and con artists are more frowned upon today.) Once I lived in Paris, in a tiny rooftop garret (converted servants’ quarters) in an affluent neighborhood. One day I was approached on the street by a man who asked for money to help him get home to Pau (in the very south of France, a long expensive train ride away). In my strong American accent I started my polite refusal, saying “I’m a student…” and he immediately said “say no more, no problem, I’ll ask someone else.” I guess students’ reputation for poverty, or for spending all their money on beer, precedes them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fool-me-once-i-call-you-a-sonofabitch/296687.md?page=3)