Stupid People

[freshnesschronic]

Yeah I'm pretty stupid.

I'm pretty sure I got conned today.
An overweight woman was walking on the street today and me and my roommate and his friend were going home from class. She stopped us and said she is a victim of domestic abuse and she's pregnant and not from around here (Champaign Urbana, Illinois, USA) and is raising 38 dollars to get her "home."
My roommate said "what do you want us to do" and she said "just spare a little money so I can go home."

We reach for our wallets and my roommate pulls out a dollar. She says "sir you can help me out more than that (with some attitude!)" and I KNEW my roommate really wanted to say "bitch please be grateful!" but I wanted to get her to shutup so I gave her a 10. Yeah (that 10 was from my mom in a Halloween card she sent me! ). She said "thank you sir" then turned to H, my roommate's friend, and asked if he could help. He was very reluctant, but gave her a 5 (because I showed up my roommate with a 10, fuck I feel bad for H cause it's my fault).

10 minutes later reflecting on this I can tell she was a con artist. It's probably bullshit she isn't from around here just walking on CAMPUS calling out domestic abuse and she's "pregant" when she's really just fat. Fuck but my dumbass fell for it.

Reminds me of a time I was leaving my girlfriend's dorm and a well dressed walking man approached me and said his family was in the car a ways back and he was looking for I 74 interstate and needs money to get home and mentioned his Baptist church. Well I could tell from that immediately that it was bullshit so I said "I don't have my wallet unfortunately, but God Bless and I hope you do ok." God Bless made him grin and fortunately leave without me being conned (but he did ask me about my bike as I was unlocking it to leave).

But this time I was dumb. And now my roommate is jokingly calling me an asshole for forcing H to get his money doped. But it's true, how funny it is that I'm the asshole here.

[glatt]

Don't worry about it. Ten dollars is a small price to pay to learn this life lesson. It's actually the perfect amount, because it's enough that you will pay attention, but not enough to hurt you. You won't be conned anywhere near as easily next time because of this experience. Consider it an investment in your future ability to detect scams.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by freshnesschronic

I'm pretty sure I got conned today.

You did.

But now you know.

Go forth and sin no more.

Since I deal with sad looking homeless people pretty much all the time, I'm pretty immune. Most of them are with it enough not to try hitting me up for anything other than cigarettes.

Chances are you're going to see this lady again and again ... probably not pregnant. Nice touch, though, that she's asking for an odd amount. Bad on her that she's harassing people into coming across with more than a buck. Beggars used to have standards.