I remember a few years an interview with an author who had traveled extensively, particularly in the Middle East, and he would often just knock on random doors and ask if he could sleep there for the night. This was in areas where there were hardly any hotels and it was common for locals to rent out rooms. His reasoning was that when complete strangers went out of their way to get you to stay at their place they might have ulterior motives, but a random person in a random house was more likely than not, a decent person. He had a LOT of faith in the kindness of strangers, but nothing bad had ever happened and he’d made lots of friends that way.
I don’t think that’s something I would do personally, but I think it’s an interesting story and I know people who have been burned renting a room from locals,although most work out perfectly fine. (I remember in Dubrovnik we were flocked by women renting out rooms the second we got off the bus)
There’s probably a similar reasoning going on in this phenomenon and I think Mr.Excellent explained it quite well.
There’s a scam that was on a British TV program called The Real Hustle, which is interesting in its own right due to one of the presenters being absolutely, unbelievably smoking hot. Jessica Clement is her name. Yowza.
Anyway, where was I? It’s not the kind of program that stands up to great scrutiny (except for Jessica), as they don’t give any figures for the likelihood of such a scam, and sometimes I don’t even believe the scams have happened. But they had this “stranger watch my stuff” one. It requires three people and takes place in somewhere like a coffee shop. The mark is sitting at the table with his laptop/cellphone/PDA/whatever. Scamster #1 is at another table, also with a laptop or whatever. #1 asks the mark “do you mind watching my stuff while I go the bathroom?” The mark says sure. About two minutes later, Scamster #2 appears and grabs #1’s stuff and runs out the door. The mark goes “hey, stop thief” or the like and is much distracted and upset, because it is a stranger’s stuff that has been trusted to him and yet he has screwed the job - and often follows #2 out the door - which gives scamster #3 the time to take all of the mark’s stuff, and casually leave, looking like a customer.
That’s how they explained it. They could have dreamed it up, of course. I was kind of distracted watching it, though, thanks to Jessica.
I have the “extremely trustworthy” look and get asked to do this all the time. Yes, even in airports. I don’t do it anymore, especially in airports. I’m pretty sure this is a TSA no-no, because I have seen airline personnel also decline the request to watch people’s stuff.
I also take all my stuff with me if I need to go get a drink or use the restroom. As an adult, I see it as my responsibility. If someone is disabled or injured, I hope the staff of wherever I am would be accommodating. Also, I don’t want to be in the idiot position of explaining why I lost my stuff, saying “Oh, I asked that perfect stranger to watch it for me, however could something bad have happened?”
People sometimes look pissed when I turn out to be not as nice as I look. But I just can’t think of an upside that outweighs the downside of either 1) the person doesn’t come back in a reasonable time and I’m dealing with their stuff or 2) something does happen to their stuff and I’m stuck trying to explain or 3) they actually do have something explosive in their bag.
If I ever need to supplement my income, I could probably do OK by just starting to say yes to these requests, and stealing the stuff.
Complete hijack. If you haven’t already, do a search for Jessica-Jane Clement - especially her fansites. You’ll be pleased, so NSFW, obviously!
Ok, in a pang of guilt, seeing as I was asked to watch this thread, like many other UK dopers I grew up during the IRA years and have been thoroughly socialised not to leave my own bags and to keep an eye out for any kind of untended package in a public place. If someone wanted to leave their things with me, especially somewhere like an airport, I’d have to say a polite no.
Ya know, I’m just not sure half the scams on that show would go as planned if they didn’t have Jessica and her brea–charm working for them. A good example of a scam that probably would not have worked without Jessica is the fake lottery ticket scam. The mark seemed only to go along with it because he had a perfect 10 insist he go to the ATM with her.
Someone did this to me at the airport. I told her I did not feel comfortable doing so, as they tell you FREQUENTLY not to leave your stuff unattended, and she copped a big attitude with me and walked off and left her stuff anyway! Admittedly I could not help keeping half an eye on it while she was gone, but seriously - WTF?
Well, in that case, since you were uncomfortable with the situation, and had told her so, I see no reason why you shouldn’t have gone to the nearest TSA officer, and pointed to those bags that some suspicious woman just left behind.
Frankly, when people cop attitudes when you turn down requests for favors, or on the spot deals, my “scam” alarm starts going off. The simple act of requesting a favor indicates that it’s reasonable for someone to turn you down. If you can’t accept that implication, shut up and just do what you planned to do anyways.
[rant]
One of my many pet peeves about this country’s reaction in the wake of 9/11 has been how the electorate has demanded an iron-clad guarantee of safety, while complaining at every turn at any inconvenience. (Whether the inconveniences imposed have any material benefit to security is a rant for another time.) As a general rule of thumb, security is going to be effective in direct proportion to how inconvenient it is. Until people accept that, we’re going to keep having idiots like the woman you’re talking about who think the rules don’t apply to her. Or that flight attendant in Boston a few years ago who got upset because TSA strip searched her because she was wearing an underwire bra.
I once was accused of stealing someone’s MP3 player after being asked to watch their stuff. Turns out they had taken it with them and left it sitting on the counter by the sink in the restroom. These days, I’m more inclined to say “Sorry, but I can’t be responsible for your stuff.”
Well, one thing that comes to my mind is that even listening to any serious proposal to seal the border with Canada, when we can’t make the border with Mexico airtight indicates a certain lack of rational threat assessment on the electorate’s part.
It’s not that I don’t think that it’s possible for a “rogue” nation to infiltrate a team of commandos into Canada without passing through Canadian customs. It’s just that I don’t see why, if one assumes that the “rogue” nation has the resources to do that, they won’t be able to fake their way through any reasonable border clearance.
The whole debate about a national ID seems asinine to me, too. I’m a child of the Cold War. I keep remembering how often it was mentioned that the Soviets required people to go everywhere with official papers, or they were at risk of arrest. Nowadays, a person outside his or her home without ID can be detained for questioning, if an officer thinks that there’s something suspicious about their refusal to provide ID. And most of the electorate seems quite willing to swallow the arguments that a national ID will somehow magically protect us from another 9/11 style attack.
All the while forgetting that the 9/11 hijackers were mostly in the country legally, and had all entered the country on legal visas.
Then there’s the fact that one of the rallying cries for cracking down on illegal immigration is to protect the population from terrorists. AFAIK, none of the successful terrorist attacks on US soil ever involved illegal immigrants. The 1993 WTC bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing, and 9/11 all were done by people who were either US citizens, or had crossed the borders with legal visas.
It seems to me that if a measure is proposed in Congress, by either party, there are large numbers of sheeple who will support it, if only the Congressional mouthpiece suggests it will “improve security.”
At an airport? Are you out of your mind? I was three weeks pre-knee replacement, and because apparently he thought I was faking it to pre-board, I was loudly mocked by the gate attendant as I hobbled painfully down the ramp to board the airplane – mocked so clearly that the man behind me, a complete stranger, said, “Did he just say what I thought he just said to you?” Had I not been in such pain, I would have stopped and ripped him a new one; as it was, he waited till I was 30 feet past him, the cowardly bastard, so I contented myself with writing a vitriolic letter to the airline when I got home.
So no, you can’t expect the staff to help you just because you need it, especially if you don’t appear visibly disabled or it’s a situation where they think you might be faking it. At least now I have a five-inch scar on my knee and documentation to prove I’ve had a problem, but when I needed it most, of course I didn’t have it! Asking someone to watch my knitting bag seemed, quite honestly, the least of my worries at that point, and was easily checked when I returned to make sure it contained no contraband.
No, I’m not out of my mind. I see people requesting and receiving wheelchair assistance at airports all the time. Surely these aren’t hallucinations?
I’m sorry you had a bad experience, and if he was that rude he deserved to reported to his management. But if you find yourself in a similar situation again, you can probably get better results by giving the airline a heads up that you do need assistance, even if you feel you can manage without a wheelchair.
More often people will ask me if they can leave their stuff here. I shrug and say sure. They never ask me to watch it, though, although they probably think they have. What do I care what you do with your stuff, I’m not responsible for it.
This usually occurs while I’m at work, anyway, so even if I wanted to, I cannot stand there watching your stuff, I have work to do.
In Sydney airport my flight had been cancelled, and I was being shuffled onto another one, so as to be able to make my flight out of Thailand, so I could make my flight out of Bahrain so I could make it to tropical London (why, again, did I do that?)… I’ve lost track.
Oh yes. I’d been at the airport for a good eight hours, had another eight ahead of me, and a nice old lady watched my giant bag of stuff so I could nip off to the loo and buy a snack. I didn’t feel bad for asking, and I can’t imagine I’d mind watching other people’s stuff.
Tigs, I was on the other side of your incident, except the person I asked to watch my machine (and my bucket of quarters) was an individual traveling with my group. I didn’t know him from Adam’s cousin, but because we’d been shuffled along together for three days I thought he’d be safe. I got back to 5 quarters in my once full bucket, my machine cashed out and him long gone. When I saw him a bit later, I asked what happened. He said he forgot he was watching my money, when he won :dubious:
I learned my lesson.