an alert

[dunmovin]

today in a cafe, a woman approched me begging for money, about a few minutes later an older woman did the same, afew minutes later a man asked me for money. The bar staff called then police, who duly turned up and took notes.

A while later, in the local supermarket, I saw the same three people, with trolleys loaded with food,alcohol. The value of what was in one of the the three trolleys was more than any family would spend in 4 months.

Angerd by the fact that the begging pitch "was help my children" i asked one of the group"is this for your children",pointing at the bottles of brandy it the cart. now the two women start shouting at me, while the man slips behind me. I turn to face the man, who tries to punch me but misses,and i defend myself by knocking him down, at this point the store manager escorts me to the checkout at the other end of the store and assures me that the whole incident was caught on the store security cameras. I am not happy with this, so went and foundnd a Guardia Civil officer.... who listened, then went after them

[sensationalfrog]

Originally Posted by dunmovin

today in a cafe, a woman approched me begging for money, about a few minutes later an older woman did the same, afew minutes later a man asked me for money. The bar staff called then police, who duly turned up and took notes.

A while later, in the local supermarket, I saw the same three people, with trolleys loaded with food,alcohol. The value of what was in one of the the three trolleys was more than any family would spend in 4 months.

Angerd by the fact that the begging pitch "was help my children" i asked one of the group"is this for your children",pointing at the bottles of brandy it the cart. now the two women start shouting at me, while the man slips behind me. I turn to face the man, who tries to punch me but misses,and i defend myself by knocking him down, at this point the store manager escorts me to the checkout at the other end of the store and assures me that the whole incident was caught on the store security cameras. I am not happy with this, so went and foundnd a Guardia Civil officer.... who listened, then went after them

beggars are everywhere,doubt the gc guy gave a toss really,good for you for having a go tho

[playamonte]

Willie do you know how stressful begging can be, well I would need a brandy after traipsing round all the bars/waiting outside Lidle's for hours on end etc etc

Well spotted though

[Leper]

A brave incident by Dunmovin but not rare. The secret is not to contribute. If you contribute, you are getting into the area of risk. The undesireables can see your purse, shopping, car etc and can make a pretty informed decision on other ways to relieve you of your hard-earned cash. You become a prospect.

Also, there are themes of the above e.g. when you leave the supermarket they may want to assist you to your car to unload your purchases. It is likely that this will lead to your handbag being taken and the culprits escape into the neighbouring area.

A word of cynicism:- The police will appear to be helpful to you, but really they couldn't care less, I kid you not.

[jojo]

Are there any genuine beggars out there tho???

Jo xxx

[xabiachica]

Originally Posted by jojo

Are there any genuine beggars out there tho???

Jo xxx

of course there are

it's just hard to know which are genuine & which aren't

[mrypg9]

I think it was Saint Theresa of Avila who said that if ten seemingly destitute beggars come to you and nine of them aren't genuine, you should give to all for the sake of the one who is.
Hmm.
I'm afraid I fall far short of that kind of saintliness.
In the UK recently I was approached by a wretched-looking youth brandishing a copy of Big Issue and asking for 'a few pennies to buy a cup of tea'.
I don't usually take much cash when I'm in the UK so I got out my purse/wallet and told him I had only about 75p to give him. To my amazement he peered into my wallet and said 'You've got a £1 coin there and lots of credit cards'. I was so taken aback that I justified myself by saying pitifully that I needed the £ for a Mars bar.
He went off rather dissatisfied and I realised he wasn't even a bona fide Big Issue seller...
Some people have more front than Harrods.

[jojo]

I had an incident in the UK when a girl begging came up and asked for money, I rummaged in my bag for my purse and she noticed I had a couple of packets of cigarettes in there - she then said to me "can I have a pack of fags instead?????" "No you cant" I said, with that she walked off without cigarettes or money, muttering at me under her breath

Jo xxx

[Stravinsky]

We were approached by various women with babies whilst in Bilbao, all begging. Later on we saw different women with the same babies, and we actually saw one of them go into a travel agency and come out with a load of brochures!

I got scammed one day up here in northern Spain. Foolish me, I agreed to sign someone's petition. Sounded good. The tricky little thing covered the "donations" line with her thumb as I scribbled my name and zip code. Once I signed, she moved her thumb and demanded a donation of 20EUR or more. RIGHT at that moment, a very nicely dressed Spanish lady comes up behind me and asks "What's this?," grabs me by the shoulder, and pulls me away commenting that I must stay away from "those people" because it's a scam. "Did they get your name?" "No, it was just scribbled." "Good." Then she disappeared.

I haven't seen her since. Bless her heart for having the courage to grab a little blonde naive country girl and literally pull her away from a scam. I am so completely thankful to this absolute stranger. If only more people would do things like that.