God Sent Me To You
Yes, that is what she said when I opened the door. I looked at her and I instinctively knew what was coming.
I listened to her sad story about the husband being out of a job, the hungry children at home and the perils of sleeping under a bridge for two weeks now. This girl, I decided, was too young to have three hungry children, too neatly dressed to have slept under a bridge and too smartly made up. Not asking for food; a cash donation, she said, will be appreciated. If she had left God out of the equation I may well have helped her.
You know what, I said, I have just spoken to Him – true – and He did not mention anything about sending you to me.
She left with a God bless you in order to make me feel bad and I stood in the door watching her leaving without closing my gate. I walked out to close the gate and noticed the strange man lurking at the corner, watching the girl. As I went back inside I saw the girl knocking on by my neighbor's door.
When she left a few minutes later I phoned my neighbor and asked him if God sent the girl to him too. How did you know that, he gasped and I told him. The resentment in his voice told me that he had fallen for her scam.
We quickly alerted the other neighbors and all agreed to phone the other people in the neighborhood to warn everybody.
A while ago I saw the girl, very red in the face, walking back to her partner on the corner. The fella who lives around the corner reported that they had a neat little Mazda parked there in front of his house. He had taken the number of it.
Surely this must be an illegal practice. The police said it is not but these people are obtaining funds under false pretenses. It really sounds like a form of fraud to me.
Comments (59)
Where do you get all these funny pics?
Then they should have said so. I would certainly have helped. But they drove off without any problems. No, I believe they are professional beggars. and doing very well by the looks of it.
I'm not upset with my money either and I like it very much. I do not mind helping somebody who is really in trouble but I will not buy a bottle of booze for a chancer.
@ Welela,, I'm thinking of renaming you to : Ms. Scrooge..
This girl was just too confident, too smartly dressed and her makeup was perfectly applied. And she established eye contact almost immediately. No shame as what you would expect from a woman in distress.
Im sure people look after you and have given you alot.
There are many poor people in our country and we get to see them quite often. They stand in the streets, at traffic lights and they come knocking on our doors from time to time. You get to know what they look like after a while.
What have you been smoking?
It is sad to know that there are so many poor people in the world.
Yes, luckily we have a small, very closely knit neighborhood and we all know each other. More people could have been ripped off. I should not have waited until she left. I should have phoned him immediately. There was time to prevent it.
It is disgusting.
A few years ago I read somewhere that it is perfectly legal to beg in the USA if you have the necessary permit. Such a permit - if I remember rightly - was obtainable at US$100.00 at the time.
But now I wonder; do these pros have to issue receipts for their received earnings. Surely they have to pay tax on it.
How does Joburg treat its beggars?
July 26 2012 at 09:00am
That we get here very often. The come with fake lists but generally you spot them a mile off. You can see that the names had been removed with tippex and had been photostatted a thousand time. Or the donation form is home made without a letter head. Sometimes with a bogus letterhead but without the institution's rubber stamp.
In such cases we just say no thank you and call the police the moment the door closes. That is outright fraud and is dealt with very quickly.
I think begging could be a very lucrative pastime now that I am retired.
They will probably tell you it is hard work.
I once asked a very well dressed beggar if he is not ashamed of himself and he said no, that was his job.
Yes it is disgusting that these fund raising organizations take a healthy percentage of the funds the raise.
Or maybe stop using bait and beg the fish to bite.
so, I went into the bush and killed the farmers sheep instead.
then I got arrested, but I was happy, cause they gave me a bowl of porride, and some bread.
Although it was pretty rough and intense in there.
but I got bigger plans these days,
going to deal in weapons instead.
She chose the wrong house, didn't she? Happy you didn't fall for it!
Here the knock at our doors. And not just the needy; the lazy too. And if you give to them one they are back the next day.
Exactly. These are suppose to be NGOs but it is easy to show no profit if the salaries and the benefits are high enough.
According to them there is only place for 144,000 people in heaven. So what chance do we stand?