They can learn new tricks from their cellmates, IF they do get caught.
I just found out that my church has stopped making up “homeless bags” for people to give out. For years they would give them to you as you exited the service so you could give them to panhandlers instead of cash.
Apparently the recipients were going through the bags, eating what they wanted immediately, and throwing the bags just anywhere. The local municipalities called the church and told them they were a major source of litter. Not everyone begging is in a frame of mind to make good decisions.
Because of all this, I think I’d rather make contributions to facilities that serve people when they need actual food, etc, like program at my church that gives lunch on Sundays and a bag of groceries for every family member who shows up.
In Sacramento, they hang out in the parking lots of the motels close to the hospitals because the people turn over constantly and they won’t get recognized. My second surgery, I confronted the guy e.g. out of gas, wife in hospital, money to get home, yada, yada, yada and told him I was on to him and to get lost. Then I complained to the management. I don’t think you should have to deal with this crap on private propety.
How can you tell when it’s panhandling or a con? or even legit once in a while?
I was pumping up a tire in the grocerystore parking lot (it had a slow leak), and a white woman with a British accent came up with a story and asked for gas money, she would repay. I gave here $10 I think and when she asked for the address to send the payback to, I gave one to her. A little more chitchat and she asked me, “Now you wouldn’t give a stranger like me your home address, would you?” in tones of concern with my wellbeing. I think I was supposed to assure her it was my home address, but I just said, “No: work address”. End of conversation, off she goes, I get back to pumping up my tire.
I do wonder if I had given my home address, if the house would have been burgled by the time I got back.
It could have been begging; it could have been a con to get an address, with a burglary payoff–a ‘crime of opportunity’.
By the way, yes you can cheat an honest man. Honesty is no defense.
Wow, I can’t believe some people would give a complete stranger their home address. There must be people out there doing it or else the con artist wouldn’t be asking for them.
Whenever someone asked me for money I would just say no and keep walking. There was this one guy that followed me for a block to the train station. He kept saying stuff like ‘I haven’t eaten in days, look how skinny I am’ or ‘I just need money for the train to get to a friends house’. I just laughed in his face and told him to look at how skinny I was. 
I didn’t give him anything because he was pissing me off and he eventually left.
Now that I think about it, people stopped asking me for money after that day. I guess there must be a hobo network after all.
What bothers me are the people who look better-fed (and I am of the large persuasion) than me out panhandling. If you’re going to beg for money, try and look the part.
For awhile the most popular scam story in these parts was that the person(s) was a missionary on their way to Arizona (it was always Arizona) and their car had broken down and they needed money to get to Arizona and do God’s will. After the third time I heard this story, I started telling them that God must want them here more than in Arizona, since He’d stranded so many of them here.
So, MaryEFoo, did you ever get your $10 back?
My gf of years ago always handed out cash to any joker that asked, but I always thought her a sucker. So once, as I was leaving El Mexicano, I was hit up for a donation for food. Not wanting to be a sucker myself, but not wanting a fellow human being to starve either, I took him up to the counter, paid for a large burrito and drink, and made sure he began to eat it. He thanked me so profusely that I started to feel guilty anyway. At least I didn’t feel taken.
Was it just someone who wanted to save five bucks at the expense of a little begging? Maybe.