A few years back, one of the local newspaper columnists ran a small series of articles about the various scam artists and their stories. There was the mother collecting money to get her kids something to eat, there was the father who only needed a few bucks for gas, there was this one who needed medicine, that one who needed bus fare. The columnist didn’t have (or the newspaper didn’t run) pictures of these folks, but he did do a pretty good job of describing each one, and where they usually worked.
Aren’t modern times wonderful? Why, back in my day, you had to walk downtown to get panhandled – today they deliver to your front door! 
This guy could also have been checking whether to see if the house was empty.
If you’re in he asks for money,if you’re out he burgles your house.
This is a very common scenario.
Well, yes, the money is in the wealthy neighborhoods. Not only do poor people not have money, they’ve probably heard it all before, easily recognize crackheads/tweakers/junkies, and are harder to scam than (potentially) naive and softhearted suburban housewives.
Can’t stand the fact my mother-in-law gives money to anyone who asks her. Random stranger comes up to her on the street, reeking of booze, asking her for $5? She gives 'em 20. Except she won’t give a dime to her own kids and grandkids (some of whom are in their late 20’s, so we aren’t taking toddlers) when they need help.
Anyhow - guy in the OP was a scam. Ambulances do not operate on a Bring Your Own Medication basis, and neither do ER’s. For a breathing emergency requiring ambulance transport you won’t be asked to pay until after things are under control, and it being life or death you’ll get what’s needed either way. On top of which, ambulances and ER’s don’t use inhalers, they use nebulizers, injections, and bottles of oxygen. The story doesn’t hold up.
The Target ad this week in our area advertises an albuterol inhaler in the pharmacy for $9.
Here’s the link on page 16.
Same here, by the way. We live in a middle class neighborhood as well. It’s not as uncommon as one might think.
So… sans cash or credit cards and there’s an emergency requiring funds like an automobile, plumbing, electric etc. problem what do you do?
Ask for help from family/friends or do without.
We either wait til payday and suck it in or ask relatives, who probably wouldn’t have it either.
When it comes to my daughter’s insulin, however, it might be a different story.
Oh, Lord, yes. I was there for quite some time. Several years, actually. I worked for the company that owned Columbia Supply on Gervais Street. I lunched in Five-Points. I lived out near the base, near the Seventh Day Adventist Church. I negotated Malfunction Junction. I was mugged on Senate Street. I befriended a staff attorney with the South Carolina state legislature. I had David Beasley (now former governor Beasley) as a guest in my very modest home. (I cracked the security of his office’s emails, whereupon he ordered sweeping changes in computer security. Note that this was done at his request, in order to test network vulnerability.) I was there when the USC president was hitting on Robbie Benson. I was there when our air conditioning went out during one of those weeks of 102 degrees in the shade weather, when the waterbugs were flying around searching for relief from the heat and goddamn 99.9% humidity. (We were neither blessed with rain nor snow — only the stagnant dank of atmospheric moisture.)
Ah, the old days.
I agree with everyone here that this was in all probability a scam. That said, if the guy had health insurance, $9.00 could have been his co-pay.
Well, damn. We had it first! 
Automobile, suck it up and take the bus until I can get it fixed. I had this happen once and rode my bike everywhere while I was saving to buy a new starter for my car. If anything more major goes out, I’m going to be basically screwed, as I don’t have money for car payments. It’s a '95 with about 130k miles on it, and I’m just hoping I can squeeze several more years out of it.
Plumbing/electric would hopefully be handled by landlord (unless you mean electricity/water bill, which I do make enough to cover)
Everything else is fluid. I can live off of $10 worth of lentils/tortillas/rice or what have you for a week, as long as I have my essentials (gas and Diet Coke).
A few weeks ago I got approached on AIM, by a deaf friend.
She was all " I’m sorry but I ran out of stuff for the kids. I need some help. Will you send me some money?" She needed to buy milk and butter for a mac and cheese. I was sitting there thinking “WTF?” I suggested she go to a food bank or even dumpster dive or subsistute something. She was all " Food banks suck"
I was all Ummmm I dont even really know you. How do I know you’re not scamming me? She’d also previously “canvassed” (collected money) for some illiterate dumbass who’d lost her money to a real scammer.
Man. I’m always torn when people ask me for money. I hate the dilemma of trying to guess if someone’s just hungry, or scamming for money for drugs.
People who beg near roads - and this includes actual charitable organizations with one exception - never get jack from me. They’re slowing the flow of traffic and endangering themselves. The one exception is the Fire Department here - they occasionally do collections for Muscular Dystrophy. I figure Firemen know enough to do it safely.
I’ve twice been approached in a parking lot, and both times I spared a few bucks. One guy asked me for a couple of dollars for food, and I gave him a five - and he actually hugged me and wished me a Merry Christmas. That was kinda creepy.
Never gotten the door to door scammers to my recollection. I do get day-laborer types coming by to ask if I need work done, but that’s about it…
My husband is a soft touch for this stuff. He gave a woman $10 when she approached us in a mall parking lot at night, claiming she ran out of both gas and money. (This was a very upscale mall; if you’re going there and say those words, either you’ve had the Worst Day Ever, or you’re scamming where the money is.) He also gave an obviously very scrawny and twitchy guy $5 when he approached us in a train station late at night. Guy had some elaborate story about traveling, running out of money, etc. For the last one, my husband told me he knew the guy was full of it, but “he’s in a worse place than you or I have ever been.” I did agree with that, but that’s true of most people begging for money I think.
I had a pair approach me in the same train station; this youngish guy swooped in first with a “we were visiting our friend at the University of Chicago and ran out of money and we just need a little more so we can get a bus back home” story. My brain was trying to process this and why couldn’t he just get some money from his friend when the guy then mentioned his “sister” and that drew my attention to the girl, who just so looked like a meth abuser that it tripped my BS detector and I just said no and got the heck out of there. The guy was obviously very scrawny and dressed shabbily but I could have bought it was just a “counterculture” way of being or something, until he mentioned the gal.
When I was in my early twenties I had a guy approach me outside Walgreens (drug store) to say he needed $10 for diapers for his baby. I immediately offered to walk into Walgreens and buy him a box of diapers. He said, no, you won’t get the right kind, just give me $10 and I’ll get them. I said, Walgreens is right there, you can come with me and pick out the right kind. He cursed me out and walked away.
And the reason I still remember it is that, young as I was, I assumed I had been having an honest conversation with a guy in trouble and I was completely shocked when he cursed and walked off. Bewildered, I recounted the encounter to my sister and she had to gently inform me that he was scamming me for money for drugs.
I still offer to buy 'em whatever they say they need (food, mostly), but like most responding here, they rarely take me up on it. I’ve never had someone knock on my door at night, though. I would definitely call the cops.
I was on a subway train with MrWhatsit once on the way home from dinner out, when what appeared to be a homeless guy got on the train and loudly announced that he hadn’t eaten for 3 days and needed money for food. MrWhatsit offered him our leftover pizza takeout. The guy said, no, he doesn’t like spicy food.
The rest of the people on the car laughed. Afterward, MrWhatsit told me that he felt a little bad about the whole thing, because he hadn’t meant to make the guy an object of ridicule. He was just genuinely offering the pizza.
I’ve posted about this before.
It was early evening at my home. My family was all at home and we were just starting to settle in for the night when we received a knock at the front door. There, stood this teenager. He looked about 16 yrs old and had some sob story about how he was trying to get away from this group of kids who were going to beat him up. He wanted to come in and use the phone. I immediately asked Mrs. D to bring me the cordless phone so I could call 911 for him. He immediately refused and said he would just try to get away somehow. I then had Mrs D. bring me my large Mag lite and offered to go with him to where he was staying. He refused that as well and then started to take off.
I immediately called 911 and told them what happened. They sent over a policeman who took my statement and then took off.
I thought it was interesting that when I offered to call 911, he started balking, then when I offered to escort him to where he needed to go, he left. he definitely was looking for something other than help.
I had someone try the gas can scamming thing on me. So I offered to buy him some gas. He was taken aback by that, then laughed a little and told me I’d caught him out, that he was just asking for money and didn’t really need gas. At that point I did give him a couple of bucks, because hey, at least he had a sense of humor about the whole thing.