5 thoughts on “I’ve seen that episode of Hustle

  1. And no more experienced con man to teach him the ropes? That’s truly sad – poor little sucker, turned loose on the world to find his own way or take his knocks…

    More alarming, really, is what easy prey we are, simply by virtue of kindness being our default, our go-to position, even if it’s only a nanosecond before skepticism and logic kick in. Being SMART doesn’t save us. In fact, being SMART sometimes leads us to overconfidence in our own ability to spot a con. So the smartest thing to do is harden ourselves against helping anyone at all. And THAT is where it turns truly tragic. That’s where I start to get really angry at people like that young man.

  2. That is really sad, you are right. It leads to legit people who really need help who mightn’t get it.

    This stuff happens so rarely here but it’s sad to note that we have gone from it being completely foreign to us, to experiencing it occasionally.

    A year ago, when I had some cash on me, I gave $5 to a guy who needed petrol money. But there was no story: he really (as far as I could tell) was stuck and his partner was in the car. They were really grateful for the $5.

  3. Here, they sit at Rest Areas on the highway using that “need money to get home” ploy, and I suspect most of those are into the drug trade or human trafficking. (The cops are aware of the scarier ones, and I have been warned off – I didn’t help one, but did flag down an officer who was very familiar with her and told me just to leave the area quickly – that she was not working alone.) Some are even cynical enough to bring puppies for sale. It’s big business, unfortunately. But of course they have more places to go. Like, how far is your guy gonna get in NZ on $5 worth of petrol? :)

  4. Calling the police seems to be a fine idea. With hindsight, I could have said, ‘Oh no, you were robbed? OK, first thing to do is to file a police report. Let me call the cops for you, start the ball rolling. I’m sure they can help you get home.’

    Will check your link, thank you!

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