Can we help this dude get a taxi? Do we do gofund me's here?

[editor]

Literally everyone approaching you via Instagram and asking you for money is going to be a scummy scammer. If you squeezed Instagram it would ooze rivers of scammers. Fuck. Them. All.

 

[moochedit]

Ignore any messages or friend requests from people you don't know on social media.

 

[kalidarkone]

Literally everyone approaching you via Instagram and asking you for money is going to be a scummy scammer. If you squeezed Instagram it would ooze rivers of scammers. Fuck. Them. All.

I get requested regularly on Instagram by people I have no connection with and have noticed my profile because I've liked or commented on a reel. They are at the least influencers trying to get more followers. Anyway I always refuse unless they are an musical artist etc that I really like.

 

[danny la rouge]

Are you serious, Boris Sprinkler ?

No, he wasn’t. He certainly has a future in scams himself. Well played!

 

[chainsawjob]

I’ve given folk money quite a few times when travelling whilst knowing full well that the tragic story I’ve just been told might be true but is about 90% likely not, and I think that’s completely fine, but wouldn’t do it over the internet only in person meetings. Last time it was a taxi driver in Ghana whose 2yr old child may or may not have swallowed a coin the day before and needed medical expenses to pay the bill and collect her from the hospital. Absolutely no idea if that was true but he needed the £ more than I did either way.

Same. I gave £20 to a crying teenager at Oxford coach station, back in the day. She'd ' lost' her ticket and needed to get home to Cambridge. Most likely a scam (esp as my offer to go and buy the ticket wasn't accepted, she needed cash for some not exactly plausible reason). Good backstory about her parents being away on holiday.

I knew it was probably a scam, but she was young and crying convincingly and what if she was genuinely stranded? She said she'd send me the money, but didn't. Besides, I'd been stranded myself at a coach station when I was 16 with insufficient money, and a stranger took pity on me to get me to my destination.

You're a kind person though Boris Sprinkler. Deffo a scam though this one.

 

[kalidarkone]

Anyway Boris Sprinkler so you do not feel too bad about giving the fella the benefit of the doubt initially......let me share a story.....

About 20 years ago at the height of my Internet dating activity I started chatting to a guy from Serbia. OMG he told me so much BS and sent me ridiculously OTT love letters....by mail...(I was in quite a vulnerable space, bored and lonely and struggling with the mundanity of being a single parent) I would spend hours face timing him/ phoning him and even met his ma!

We started to hatch a plan of how to meet. I checked out going to Belgrade but had a very strong feeling that I really didn't want to go to Serbia......so we started looking into him coming to the UK.....and if that could work. In the mean time I bought him some clothes from Primark....it actually cost me more to send them to him the cost of the items (not much as it was primark)
I felt increasingly uncomfortable as he was chatting to an older woman in London who was going to give him some money when she sold her house......

In the end as my suspicion grew I decided that I needed to test him- he needed to meet me halfway if he was serious about coming over and also if I was going to financially support him....(I know I know wtf????)
So I asked him to fund the tourist visa himself. That did not go down well at all and my suspicions were confirmed.......and that was that- deleted and blocked forever!

Terrible on so many levels- most of all that it was so transactional and that in my desperate need for love, relevance, worth etc I was prepared to consider bringing a total stranger into my and my young child's home and life.....luckily the intuitive sensible side kicked in!

I'm way wiser now!

So don't feel bad Boris x

 

[moochedit]

Dating sites are full of scammers as talking to strangers is normal on those. Normally they are very keen to move the conversation onto another platform like whatapp, instagram, email etc asap because they know other users will report them and the dating profile will get banned. They will say things like "i don't use this site much" or "i never get get notifications from here".

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Same. I gave £20 to a crying teenager at Oxford coach station, back in the day. She'd ' lost' her ticket and needed to get home to Cambridge. Most likely a scam (esp as my offer to go and buy the ticket wasn't accepted, she needed cash for some not exactly plausible reason). Good backstory about her parents being away on holiday.

I knew it was probably a scam, but she was young and crying convincingly and what if she was genuinely stranded? She said she'd send me the money, but didn't. Besides, I'd been stranded myself at a coach station when I was 16 with insufficient money, and a stranger took pity on me to get me to my destination.

You're a kind person though Boris Sprinkler. Deffo a scam though this one.

Not a scam as such, but more likely you’d give money due to her being stranded than if it was for a bag of brown.

 

[moochedit]

Same. I gave £20 to a crying teenager at Oxford coach station, back in the day. She'd ' lost' her ticket and needed to get home to Cambridge. Most likely a scam (esp as my offer to go and buy the ticket wasn't accepted, she needed cash for some not exactly plausible reason). Good backstory about her parents being away on holiday.

I knew it was probably a scam, but she was young and crying convincingly and what if she was genuinely stranded? She said she'd send me the money, but didn't. Besides, I'd been stranded myself at a coach station when I was 16 with insufficient money, and a stranger took pity on me to get me to my destination.

You're a kind person though Boris Sprinkler. Deffo a scam though this one.

As soon as they say no to you buying the ticket for them you know it's a scam.

 

[chainsawjob]

Not a scam as such, but more likely you’d give money due to her being stranded than if it was for a bag of brown.

I'm guessing it was something like that.

 

[chainsawjob]

As soon as they say no to you buying the ticket for them you know it's a scam.

Now I think about it, it might not have been possible cos the ticket office was shut until after my coach was leaving. Something like that. Otherwise I'd agree.

 

[bimble]

On Wednesday a complete stranger gave me £1. She was sat on a bench having a fag and saw me going to get a trolley from the rack outside supermarket looking for pound coin in wallet & not having any. she refused my offer to go get change for the tenner I had on me and just gave me the quid. Absolutely brilliant, made my week, which was already a good week.
I could’ve been a scammer but think if you did that all day outside Sainsbury’s how many would you get?
Seemed like a big deal to me what she did.

 

[A380]

Ignore any messages or friend requests from people you don't know on social media.

Except for all those Eastern European 20 year old lingerie models who think I'm handsome and want to be my friend, right?

 

[Edie]

On Wednesday a complete stranger gave me £1. She was sat on a bench having a fag and saw me going to get a trolley from the rack outside supermarket looking for pound coin in wallet & not having any. she refused my offer to go get change for the tenner I had on me and just gave me the quid. Absolutely brilliant, made my week, which was already a good week.
I could’ve been a scammer but think if you did that all day outside Sainsbury’s how many would you get?
Seemed like a big deal to me what she did.

I paid for a Mum of two youngies shopping is asda yesterday cos her card declined as she’d had her hair done earlier. Gotta pay it forward and better than giving to charity cos they’re generally scammers of the worst kind!

 

[bimble]

Maybe I found it such a big deal that quid because I know very well that I’m not a deserving cause at all, it was basically just a minor inconvenience. But she chose to help me out anyway. Idk.

 

[A380]

Same. I gave £20 to a crying teenager at Oxford coach station, back in the day. She'd ' lost' her ticket and needed to get home to Cambridge. Most likely a scam (esp as my offer to go and buy the ticket wasn't accepted, she needed cash for some not exactly plausible reason). Good backstory about her parents being away on holiday.

I knew it was probably a scam, but she was young and crying convincingly and what if she was genuinely stranded? She said she'd send me the money, but didn't. Besides, I'd been stranded myself at a coach station when I was 16 with insufficient money, and a stranger took pity on me to get me to my destination.

You're a kind person though Boris Sprinkler. Deffo a scam though this one.

Sadly there was a woman doing this regularly at my old local train station. When she started she was clean, well dressed articulate and convincing. Over about eight months she got more and more unkempt, and inarticulate and also aged what looked like 10 years. Eventually she was just sitting there begging for change and then disappeared. It was very sad.

 

[Spymaster]

I paid for a Mum of two youngies shopping is asda yesterday cos her card declined as she’d had her hair done earlier. Gotta pay it forward and better than giving to charity cos they’re generally scammers of the worst kind!

I did that for someone in Morrisons, for about £18. She insisted on taking my address and about a week later I got a thank you card with a £20 note and a £20 M&S voucher.

 

[Edie]

I did that for someone in Morrisons, for about £18. She insisted on taking my address and about a week later I got a thank you card with a £20 note and a £20 M&S voucher.

Aww, she must have been minted was this in St John’s Wood?

 

[Spymaster]

Aww, she must have been minted was this in St John’s Wood?

Camden.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

No, he wasn’t. He certainly has a future in scams himself. Well played!

No Im not scamming. If anything I was gauging reaction to see if this was a worthwhile endeavor. he reckons that with this car it will be his way to earn an honest living. And I know that if you give a man a leg up…Maybe I’m too trusting of people.

 

[danny la rouge]

No Im not scamming.

I wasn’t accusing you of scamming. I was accusing you of joking about believing this scam. But joking in such a way that many here believed your tale of gullibility.

If this was Would I Lie To You?, I’d have voted “lie”. Any perhaps lost a point.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

But is it a scam if he straight up is saying if you buy me this car I can work as a taxi driver?
Maybe have him paint urban75 on the side (joke).

 

[Magnus McGinty]

But is it a scam if he straight up is saying if you buy me this car I can work as a taxi driver?
Maybe we can make him paint urban75 on the side of it?

It’s possible he’s being honest. But if folk are willing to set him up in business, what’s the point in pursuing that when a new set of folk might be willing to set him up in business again, and again?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Ignore any messages or friend requests from people you don't know on social media.

Sometimes it's people you do know. Guy I know has had a fake account in his name set up twice now, and the faker has then gone around adding all this guy's friends to it, me included.

Realised something was up when this guy who I vaguely knew from ten years back messaged me asking how I was doing. Real people don't do that. Never got as far as working out what the actual scam was.

 

[danny la rouge]

Realised something was up when this guy who I vaguely knew from ten years back messaged me asking how I was doing. Real people don't do that.

I’d like to appear real. So just checking: real people don’t get in touch with old acquaintances and ask how they are? That’s useful to know. Thanks.

 

[danny la rouge]

Do real people stop and speak to old acquaintances they haven’t seen in years in the street? Because I fear I’m committing rather a lot of faux pas. I’d hate people to realise I’m not real.

I’d like a list of things real people don’t do. If possible. Thanks.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I don’t really do any social media now apart from this, where the only money asked is for support following a poster’s death.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Do real people stop and speak to old acquaintances they haven’t seen in years in the street?

Real people know the difference between the real world and facebook. Which is how I know this question is facetious.

 

[A380]

I don’t really do any social media now apart from this, where the only money asked is for support following a poster’s death.

Do you mean my standing order to the ‘server fund’ is a scam?

Next you will tell me editor is t really Nigerian royalty…

 

[danny la rouge]

Real people know the difference between the real world and facebook. Which is how I know this question is facetious.

You didn’t mention Facebook. You said messaged. I’ve messaged old acquaintances before. And asked them how they were!

However, it’s true that I don’t have Facebook, so maybe people behave differently on Facebook. (I’d always understood it to be an updated Friends Reunited. I was on that. People from my past were always getting in touch with me).