In alt.religion.kibology, barbara@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> "Gregory King" <greg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >Gullibility wins!
>
> I gave money to one of those guys a few months ago. He said he needed
> cab fare because his car had broken down. Some of the folks I was
> with actually believed him or wanted to believe him and said they were
> giving him the money only because they did believe him. I said I was
> giving it even though I didn't believe it but he did a good job of
> telling us a moderately plausible story and not pressuring us. He was
> black and we were white suburban out-of-towners, so of course we had
> to give him money to show that we didn't distrust him just because he
> was black and accosting us late at night in downtown Durham.
There's a great story on this over a This American Life:
http://207.70.82.73/pages/descriptions/97/86.html
No longer available
for free, but now available at Audible.com:
http://tinyurl.com/pseu
It's the story of a guy named Nick Ward who ran this scam in Philly for
years and years, telling people that he'd gotten robbed while visiting
the city and he just wanted to go back home. He mostly went after
white, hopefully liberal well-off folks who could spare the money and
would rather, as one victim put it, be a sucker than a bigot-- Ward was
black and would play up the racism angle if a mark started to walk away.
The weird part about Nick Ward was that he would give the victim what he
claimed was his address and phone number. The address, I think, was
junk, but the phone number was the same phone number he gave to
everyone, and it happened to belong to a re****ter who was on medical
leave. She started putting all the victims in touch with one another.
As a result of this weird victim-network, they caught the guy, thanks to
an assistant district attorney who know about the case and was
approached by Nick Ward. He went through the rigamarole with Ward, even
going so far as to go to the ATM to give Ward $60 or $80. Then he
called the cops and the money was Exhibit A (with the exchange of
addresses being exhibits being the other main exhibits, because it's not
illegal to take someone's money under false pretences, apparently,
unless you promise something you don't deliever-- Ward was promising to
pay them back-- therein lies the crime, I guess). The ADA was so proud
of this, he actually keeps those bills on his mantle as a souvenir.
As for my experience, I can truly confess that the one guy I gave money
to was a guy who reminded me, in several ways, of Kibo. He was
obviously an out-of-work nerd of the engineer type, very respectful, and
he backed off when I gave him the sign. I figured I'd be him someday,
though hopefully not in his position re: housing.
On the other hand, I did not give money to the guy who was constantly
running out of gas (at one point, 3 days in a row I came across the guy
and he asked) at the same part of Seattle Center. Of course he was
lying, but if he was being honest, he was too stupid to being operating
a car.
LAN3
Sometimes I'm too stupid to operate a wallet.
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