re: Have you ever busted a panhandler?

A guy told me his sob story about needing money for a bus ticket home (Beaumont) while at a corner Exxon station. I told him I could help him, but he needed to come by my office the next day at 8:00am and I'd put him to work cleaning up as a day laborer. I said I'd pay him 12 bucks an hour.

Well that was the last I thought I would see if him, but a few minutes before 8:00am the next day he shows up. I put him with my regular guy and he works all day. Half arse, but he worked.

At the end of the day I offered to have him come back and work the next day. He declined and I paid him.

I wondered about his story, but I never could prove if he was lying. He even knew the exact amount of a bus ticket to Beaumont. I googled it and he was right to the penny.

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I found that if you offer to pay directly for what they are asking for, you get almost a 100% effective rate of not giving any money at all. If they want gas, I'll offer to pay for some gas.

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I've lived in DC for nearly 3 years and this is a true story. Went home to Louisiana last month. I'm at a gas station and this guy yells at me to buy him some gas. He just trying to get home...I hate going to gas stations in Louisiana. It's like bum and scam city.

Now, I'm a burly looking fella. I tell him, sure I'll buy you some gas. Let me look at the tank. If it's on E, you get free gas. If it's not, I punch you right in the face.

Guy sped off quick. So much for needing gas.

At 6:00AM last week some guy came asking for money in the gas station parking lot. I told him no of course.
When I went into the store I told the owner that the guy was harassing customers. He just laughed and said he sees that guy all the time. Once he gets a few dollars he heads into the bar across the street.

When I drove off I called the guy an a-hole.

i threw a bunch of canadian pennies at one guys feet once.

he probably didn't know until he tried to spend them

Recently had a youngish decent looking girl in a beat up white car stop me in a grocery store parking lot in Jefferson Parish with a story about how she lost everything in the flood and that her car insurance was due (she offered to show me her bill) blah blah and that she needed $65.00. I smelled a rat and passed. A week later, my daughter told me that a woman with a different description and different car approached her in New Orleans with the same song and dance. Hate being so cynical, and like to help when legit but those kind of people make it hard to help.

Racetrac on Seigen has a pair that camp out all day behind it under the trees across from the wal mart.

They don't even remember who tells them to frick off because I have told them multiple times and they keep coming.

Last time, I stepped out out so people could hear me while pumping gas and yelled "don't give this guys money" and pointed at him.

He ran behind the station.

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It's amazing people will sit there and listen to this bullshite for that long.

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I just say NO loudly when they start walking up to me. 99% of the time they just change direction and go find someone else to hit up. I figure I am doing them a favor and saving them time and effort because there isn't a thing they can say or do that will convince me to give them money. I don't begrudge them the fact that they are scam artists. It's a profession that has been around since before the Pyramids. I just don't want to play.

The 1% that try to give me their story after I say no or the ones that get aggressive, those are the ones that piss me off. Had a guy at the Office Depot on College keep coming at me after I said no and he backed me into the open door of my car and the car parked next to me. It surprised him when I want hands on and knocked him on his arse in the parking lot. I'm no internet bad arse by any stretch but I am certainly not going to let a guy like that physically intimidate me either. After I put him on his arse, I told him that his physical aggression coupled with the demands for money equaled Simple Robbery and he ran off.

LOL
That white car bitch hit me up a few weeks ago at the gas station with that same story about the hotel bill.

There are panhandlers in the area where I take train photos in Shreveport, but I never give to them (I learned the hard way that once you give, they will stalk you).

I give money to two old guys who pick up cans. They aren't beggars so they never ask. I also used to give money to an old black guy who lived under Common St. overpass in Shreveport. He would do military drills with great precision, so I assume he was ex military. He clearly had some major mental health issues - he'd never talk and would either do drills or lay on his bed and tap his chest repeatedly.

I'd hand him a five and he'd wave - never spoke a word. He was probably in his 60's, and was very bowed up.

One morning, I was taking train pictures when three meth head types confronted me - panhandling but very aggressively. No dog, gun in trunk, and I'm thinking "this is not good." The military drill guy quietly walks over and stands by me, and the meth heads move on. When I thanked him, he waved and went back to his bed.

He was down there for about three years, but I haven't seen him in quite a while.