Would you give this person money?

[Anonymous]

There was this woman on the train crying saying she lost her job and home and has no family/friends. She was asking everyone if they had spare change.

I understand that people are good at acting, but she seemed really distressed,

what would you do?

I’d give something small

I’d talk to her

I’d ignore it

[BungusHighFivePizza]

I once gave $500 USD to woman at airport like that. But first I rejected her. I thought she is standard panhandler type. Then I was trying to check in and caught her out of corner of my eye and she was crying and not in a showy way like she is trying to attraction, like really quiet way. So I felt so bad so I had ~$500 USD that I would have to convert anyway to Japanese Yen and that seemed like a hassle so I just gave it all to her.

[BungusHighFivePizza]

There are lots of people sometimes in US approaching us with sob stories. So I got out of shuttle bus and she approached me and said she doesn't have enough money to visit her family and get the bus fare there and I thought she is same as everyone else like this. Most of the time I ignore these people. But that one moment when I checked-in and I saw her crying so silently made me think I got a real deal. Like maybe what she actually said was true. Dunno for sure, but seemed too legit to me to ignore.

[Asker]

Yeah same, this woman actually seemed really distressed. But maybe I’m just naive

[BungusHighFivePizza]

It's hard to tell sometimes. There's a marketing aspect to American panhandlers not here in Japan. You see homeless here in Japan and they often have like 12-inch beards with no shoes and their feet are purple with horrible skin disease crawling up their ankles. They don't ask for any money so I tend to give them a lot. I like it better when people don't ask.

[BungusHighFivePizza]

Actually most Japanese homeless are so afraid. I tried to offer money and sandwiches from convenience store one time to a homeless man and he ran away from me. I think I scared him. Didn't mean to do that but very different culture here.

[Asker]

Yea exactly! Funny thing is when she was begging I was thinking of the other homeless people I’ve seen sleeping rough…they never asked for anything..

[BungusHighFivePizza]

Here standard culture is that homeless people forget their names. Even their homeless friends pressure them not to use their names. So you have homeless people a lot here who genuinely don't know their names; they blocked it out in their memories.

[HighValue]

No. I have worked hard to be where I am at in life and I don't have sympathy for others. People didn't help me when I could have used it in life. My rule is that I will only help people that I personally know AND that have helped me in the past in some way.

[Asker]

You have a point.

[Anonymous]

no. she had time to try to get things together. you don't just INSTANTLY lose your home...

[Anonymous]

I had given money to that kind of women in past lol

[David4358]

Depends on what my gut tells me, I'm kind of jaided, I used to work downtown Chicago years ago and every day for years I would see the same people right in front of the train station begging for change, that's not a guy down on his luck. That's his job at that point so I always have a view that it's probably not real..

But again it all depends on what my gut tells me

[Sparkie460]

I would talk to her and find out what her story is. If she seemed sincere I would give her money. I've done this several times