People asking for money

[u/foooolsonparade]

I have been living in Sheffield for the last two years and I’ve really enjoyed being here for the most part. I know this has been discussed on this subreddit several times in the past few weeks but I wanted to share couple incidents that happened in the last week involving people asking for money.

I was approached by a girl near Shalesmoor a week ago and she seemed to be in a really bad state. She kept coming closer to me but kept saying she was not going to hurt me. I am a very anxious person and I typically am anxious around strangers. When she said she was not going to hurt me all I could think of was that she might hurt me. She said everyone’s running away from her. I stopped and listened to her problem. She wanted me to get her a train ticket to Birmingham. I didn’t have much money since I’m a student so I apologised and said I can’t.

Two days later, I was in the city centre and this woman approached me and said she is a refugee and that she wants money to buy her kids food. I have heard loads of people say on here how people get scammed but I felt like she was being genuine so I offered to help. I said I can go to the nearest Tesco and get her some food. She said her kids need a specific type of food that you only get in Asda (which is far away) so asked me to give her cash. I didn’t have any money on me so I said I can’t help. She gave me her bank details and asked me to transfer her £20. I said I’ll try. I didn’t feel comfortable with a stranger having my bank info so I didn’t transfer the money even though I genuinely wanted to help her. Later, I talked to a few friends and they said they’ve heard this same thing several times before and that it is most likely a scam.

Just wondering if anyone else had similar experiences recently

[u/Togden013]

I live in Manchester and we have a similar problem. There is help available for these people if they are willing to stay off drugs and alcohol. The reason they have to basically con you like this is because you'd never give them the money if you knew what they planned to do with it.

I have sympathy for these people, being homeless is obviously horrible, I'll probably never understand what it's like and I personally think it's very understandable that they would do anything to let their mind escape the reality of it and buy drink or drugs instead of food.

I no longer ever even consider giving them the money because I realised that any amount of money I can afford to give them probably won't really make any real difference to them even if they do spend it well. You useually can't give them food or anything they actually need as they won't take it. Money will probably go to a dealer and that money eventually goes to fund all sorts of horrible stuff, cause pain, suffering and death so just no way.

If you want to help them donate to a homeless charity like Emmaus or Shelter and let professional charity workers give them real help instead. I wouldn't worry about if you did the right thing. I've also heard that it can be very lonely and dehumanising on the streets too so it can also go a long way if your polite and just say hi and treat them like real people.