There is a woman currently in the news who begs on the street in the name of charity. Apparently she’s been doing it for at least a decade, and even brought her toddler out in the middle of winter to do it. They are calling her the Sticker Lady because she compliments your looks, hands you a sticker, and then asks for a donation for charity. (She denies she says it’s for charity but I’ve been approached by her myself. She lies.)
She says she makes $75 on a good day, can afford her expensive car because she got a great deal, and lives in a very posh house she shares with her husband only because he rents her space in the basement, and is a registered business! Her husband was the head of the Hare Krishna movment in Toronto for a period, as well, as an interesting side note.
She takes her act on the road and panhandles elsewhere sometimes.
And this is what she said about herself: “I know I’m different. And I know I walk a different path,” Hebert told the Sun. “It’s not an easy life.”
I’m just… speechless. It makes me mad because she does say it’s for charity, and she’s living very, very well off other people’s generosity. I do give to people on the street, food if I can, or money if I have it and it seems like they really do need a hand. But reading this makes me wonder if some of the other people begging on the street are just faking it, too, and better at playing needy than this woman. Toronto has a lot of organizations to help homeless, homeless or at risk youth, etc., so it might seem perfectly reasonable to people that they send out people to solicit donations. And apparently she’s asking for tsunami relief donations now.
Do you have anyone like this where you live? What do you think of this woman? Is what she’s doing morally wrong? Or is she smart for thinking of a scam that obviously works so well?
Oh for pete’s sake, I screwed up the title. It’s supposed to say STICKER lady. :wally …Actually I suppose a Sticky Lady might make for a more interesting scam…
Sounds like straight forward fraud. I don’t know what authorities you need to contact about this, hopefully they will investigate, catch her soliciting for charity and arrest her.
Well, not exactly like that… but here in Tallahassee we used to have a guy who called himself “King Love”. He had formerly been a doctor (real name was Kamal Youssef).
Dressed up with a robe, a crown on his head, and lived mostly on the street. Carried around signs with political messages sometimes. Panhandled and danced around on street corners in his royal regalia, with his signs, whooping and hollering at the cars going by.
A couple college kids let him crash at their place for a few days one time, then had major trouble kicking him out.
When I was in college, I was supposed to meet a friend of mine outside a club in D.C. (I can’t remember what it was called, but this was in the early 90’s and it was above the Banana Republic on the corner of Wisconsin & M in Georgetown). Anway, she was late and I started chatting with the guy who was panhandling at that corner. He told me that he was actually a general contractor and he did construction by day, but that he made more money on Friday & Saturday nights doing his panhandling gig than he made at his day job.
I don’t know. He could have been full of it, but he was pretty well-spoken and it seemed like he was telling me the truth. He wasn’t misrepresenting himself to people by telling them he was homeless or collecting for a charity or anything. He was just standing there with his hat out and people were putting money in it.
I know that if there are people who do stuff like this that they’re in the minority and that most people who are begging are really in dire circumstances, but it makes you wonder.
I’ve seen the ‘sticker’ woman a bunch of times. I hate her, hate her, hate her!
She’s often found ouside of the Toronto Eaton Center on Queen and Younge.
I wouldn’t recommend neeting her for yourself though… … she’s tricky.
She’ll start by trying to soothe you with: “Hey, here’s a sticker. All the cute guys are getting one” and the she STRIKES!
Before you know it one of her filthy adhesive discs will be clinging to your jacket. Now she’ll sink her teeth in and ask you to give her money for the damned sticker… :mad:
I’ve run into her a number of times (she got me once), and although her scheme is terribly dishonest I don’t think she ever told me she was working for a charity.
There is a street corner that I pass at least twice a week that has people with cans collecting during the holidays. Yesterday I passed there and there were two guys collecting. However, they both tried to hide their cans when a cop came to the intersection. This being rather suspicious, the cop turned on his lights.
The traffic light turned green and I did not witness the outcome - but they were not there today.
I wonder if she could be collecting for the Hare Krishnas. I’ve been victimized by a similar stunt by an ISKCON scammer.
I may give money to seemingly-legit charity collectors. I give money to street performers gladly BECAUSE THEY ARE DOING SOMETHING. But scammers & beggars I have no patience for.
If you have to beg, learn some songs or jokes, please!
There was an article about her in the Montreal Gazette this week. Apparently there’s been enough negative publicity in Toronto that she’s decided to come try begging in Montreal for a while. They showed a picture of her house, which is better than my apartment, and she was wearing a real nice down-filled hooded ski jacket with mittens and everything. :dubious:
Maybe she does need money. But if you have nice clothes, a shower, and a home address for your application forms, it’s quite easy to get a job. There are some out there who don’t even have that much, who can’t get jobs and have nowhere to sleep at night.
I hope a good number of people read that article and will walk right past her when she sticks her hand out.
That kind of story is why I don’t give to panhandlers.
There is a guy near my work (although he covers a pretty big area) who is very creative. Sometimes he has a car, sometimes a kid, sometimes a wife and a kid, but he usually is alone. His stories change regularly and he has quite a repertoire. I see him all the time.
Also, I read in the local paper some time ago about some out-of-work actors who were making a pretty good living panhandling.
The thing is, it’s not just panhandlers. I had posted about the Texas State Fraternal Order of Police here a while back. As near as I was able to determine, if you gave them $10.00, you would be lucky if 50 cents of that went into any “good works”- the rest was eaten up by the hired telemarketers and genereous management of donations.
Also, I heard on the radio a couple of days ago that the Red Cross had recieved so much money for the Tsunami that they were not actively seeking donations anymore. We are a generous people, but I don’t want to give freely to people who simply don’t wish to work or peopel or organizations that view my checkbook as a free ride.
Well I think that the Red Cross is doing a good thing - there is a limited pool of money out there, and infinite organizations, so if you think your needs are met for the time, shouldn’t you not go actively searching for more?
Dunno if torts are the same in the Great White North but south of the border if she touches you without permission she’s committed assault. Next time sue her. You’ll get her nice house and she’ll end up begging on the streets.
There’s a major intersection near me that has been listed among the top ten dangerous intersections in this area. For a while I was constantly seeing people begging from the medians in this intersection. One guy was always in a wheelchair. This made me nervous that he was going to get hit one day. They’d usually have signs that they were homeless vets and they pretty much just stood there not forcing themselves on people.
Eventually, there were a group of people on each corner with buckets with signs that they were collecting for a shelter of some sort. These people were aggressive and approached cars and talked to you. One chick even yelled at people if they didn’t give her anything. I stopped seeing the “homeless vets” when they were there. One evening I was approaching this intersection and saw traffic backed up and numerous emergency lights and sirens. I suspected that someone got hit but it could have been one of the regular accidents. I turned off down a back road and avoided the intersection. Since then I have not seen anyone begging at that intersection. However, they are now at the next major intersection to the west.
I believe they are scammers and I don’t give them money. I also think it’s too dangerous for them to be in intersections and would like to see that done away with. If I did have any extra money for charity I would prefer to give it to a known charity or a mission downtown that I know helps the homeless.
This is not untrue. I put myself through secretarial school by working evenings doing door-to-door solicitation for registered charities. The thing about the people working at these type of jobs is that a lot of them would have been on welfare if not for this type of work - there were a lot of borderline-able-to-look-after themselves people, and students like myself.
As for the people on the street who expect my money for nothing, not getting any. Sell me a Spare Change mag, sing a song, bang a tambourine, but don’t think you’re getting my money just for standing there. I don’t get paid for that; why should they?
Thanks for fixing my error, Czarcasm. Muchly appreciated.
Bippy the Beardless, I read it in one of the articles that thus far no one has complained about her in order for anyone to do anything. I guess it’s not too surprising, but I’d get real sick of her if I worked downtown and had to pass her on a regular basis. She is really pushy, like pung said.
It’s funny I didn’t realize she was such a fixture in Toronto–I googled “Sticker Lady” and got all kinds of references from personal pages and blogs. I wouldn’t really have thought much of the news story besides, “huh, 'magine that” but for the fact she is obviously not a charitable organization but claims to work for one.
It could be a Hare Krishna thing, or she merely saw from her husband’s involvement how profitable it can be to panhandle. Similar methods, no? Offer someone something of very limited value and put the pressure on for a decent ‘donation’? (I’m not familiar with ISKCON, something new to google for the fun of it!)
Yeah, I heard she tried her luck in Montreal recently, too. Heh. I’m glad she’s getting too much publicity right now to get away with it. Wonder where she’ll go to next? The Hamilton news station is pretty well keeping up with her (that’s where she lives). They must be camped out there cuz the other night they showed footage of her coming back from her trip to Montreal (hiding her face with her big coat).
Hey, Monstre, thanks for the link!
And technically you are getting something for your money. . . a really plain and cheap sticker. Woohoo!
