Digital Panhandling

I had a friend ask and said she would be happy to explain why in an email. I gave her $50 and said she didn’t have to explain (and she didn’t). And then 2 months later she died from breast cancer. Assume she needed it for rent or medications. I always will give when a friend asks: no questions asked.

Everyone has their hand out and expects their friends and family to provide. Occasionally, the need is real. Most of the the time the need is actually a "want".

Go Fund Me CULTURE!!!!!!!!!

So friends of some friends?

Are some people saying it?

A lot of very important people?

Some very smart people?

The best people?

I've helped a friend out here or there when there was some unusual circumstance (given, not loaned, because that destroys friendships), but I agree that the assumption that every time you want something you should just set up a GoFundMe is repulsive to me. "My birthday is this month, here's my Venmo ID!" "I've decided to pursue and acting career in my 30s, help me move to LA!" (These are actual examples.) Are you fucking kidding me?

After I had surgery for cancer, I found out that it had spread some and I would need chemo. I had insurance but I would definitely be hitting my max payout. Behind my back, my mother set up a GoFundMe for me. I found out about it by accident and I nearly killed her over the phone, I was so angry. I insisted she take it down and return the money she had raised so far (I think it had only been up a few days) but no one would take back their money. Her heart was in the right place, but man, no one should ever do that without getting permission first from the person it's supposed to benefit.

Even THIS guy created a "go fund me" last year for a child he is not related to, and provided no proof he ever even met the child (who had lost her mother). Its posted on Twitter...By the way, this guy also went to a gay park (with his wife) and filmed guys parked there and posted it on Youtube because he wanted to "clean up the park". It was on the news. It was Trosper Park. He used to take his videos on Maury.

Some people will never stand on their own two feet if you keep giving them a comfortable bed.

OP, a woman on the fringes of my social circle frequently tweets things like, "Help out a queer broke disabled trans femme POC. Here's my Venmo: ..." Or "#reparations. If you're white, here's my Venmo: ..."

She is generally insufferable. I do wonder if anyone donates to her though.

I'm sure they do, R9. I have a friend who regularly posts those posts from the trans community and they seem to be raking it in. I wish she would realize that all the help she's giving them is just aiding their scams.

R1 you’re a far bettering person than I’ll ever be. Bless you.

I am currently unemployed, no income for months and I wouldnt dare ask for money online.

I don't have poor friends

R12 same boat here.

My MTF friend halal pig does it all the time. And yet is somewhere able to travel all over the country.

The $1400 stimulus isn’t stopping the leeches from asking for money on my social media, Shameless.

OP you need to tell whoever asshole that is to get off the fucking drugs and get real. There are a coupla lesbian junkie nurses in my neighborhood and in 12-step (supposedly) who beg for money online a lot. They kind of broke away now into their own little cell but you had to say, O shit, Pru's using again...or Susan, etc. Nurses make out pretty well with the big University medical center nearby so I have no time for them.

I follow a few friends/friends of friends on Twitter. A friend of a friend has a penchant for digital panhandling, and I don't understand 1) how people have so little shame about asking for money (this person grew up solidly upper-middle class, attended private schools, and attended Penn! and is not estranged from family), and 2) why so many people donate to her. She has a long list of afflictions and maladies (every six months or so, it's something else -- a new name, a new diagnosis, a new pronoun, a new calamity), and while I do feel sorry for her, it's mostly because I don't think I've ever known someone who so desperately, transparently craves attention.

R18, That's the title if my next book. Penchant for Panhandling: My Money-Grubbing Neighbor.

Happy to help r19!

I have friends with money and friends without, but mostly I've managed not to have friends who take to digital panhandling on behalf of themselves. There are some who will forward any appeal to raise money for someone caught in grievous medical bills or some brilliant child psychology support services center in some place I've never been. I just ignore these appeals.

In the outer orbits of acquaintances I known some people who have floated some crazy go-fund-me sort of scheme "to help Tim be his best Tim" and carry-on running the only gay-business selling cards and tacky little trinkets in some small Mid-Western city, because he's so artsy and independent of spirit and, well, Tim! These campaigns are usually terminally embarrassing; it's difficult to muster up any respect for someone whose solution to realizing that they nose deep in decades of bad decisions, fading from what picture they once occupied, and facing a grim future.

I cannot stand the with the social media posts, "For my birthday this year, I'm asking for donations to the illiterate abandoned monkeys with disabilities charity."

Bitch, I don't give birthday presents. I also don't donate money to charities that already take in millions and have insane overhead costs.

I see far fewer of those posts than I see "Donate to me DIRECTLY and here's my Venmo" r22

I lurk on NextDoor for giggles and there’s always someone asking for a handout on that site. They’re clearly grifts but there are always people who fall for it.

does anyone remember the very first person that started this?

It was a young woman who said she needed some money and if a certain amount of people would send $1 to her PayPal account she would have enough. She included her PP account email. I think it was around a few hundred dollars. She ended up with $10,000. I knew it was just the beginning of people begging for money because they would never have to leave their couch.

I am all for Gofundme and a lot of the reasons money is collected but I guess you will always have your beggars who can't be bothered to find a better way to live.

A high school acquaintance is now a homeless junkie. She can't go a day without demanding people donate tents (and they'd better be new) and supplies to her homeless village.

Mind you, she is on her phone posting this, and all I can think is, "How do you have money for your cell phone bill and not to find a place to live?"

But, apparently when someone said that on the Facebook, they were immediately shamed for their "privilege"so I quietly judge the leech.

The grifter assholes who have been encamped outside our neighborhood grocery store for a year, shooting up in public and pulling knives on people, have the gall to put up a sign with their GoFundMe address. And no doubt there are idiots who contribute.

Where are you located r27?

Our nation’s capital, r28. I expect other DL DCers will know exactly who/what I’m talking about....

Thanks r29. I was thinking San Francisco

Okay ... I cannot believe how shameless some people are. (I'm r25).

The person I referenced recently posted a Fundly (like Go Fund Me) plea to cover the cost of a piece of medical equipment. Her insurance turned her down, apparently, saying it wasn't necessary. She asked for $900 and, within a day, had raised $1,100. Then she sent out a new tweet saying, "Omg I can't believe your generosity, I'll use the excess to pay for food and rent!!"

Well, a grifter can never resist a good grift I guess. She has since tweeted, "I actually need a higher grade piece of medical equipment. Updated my Fundly!!" Now it's at $1,900.

What the everloving fuck??? WHO donates to shit like this?

It's too early. r31 is r18.

(Apologies to r25!)

r31 here. Well, she met her goal of $1900 ... actually got to $2000.

I don't understand why people donated to her.

I've had a few. The only ones that don't bother me are Indie GoGos for indie films or plays or some artistic venture. I don't always donate, but I feel for them and might even share a link a few times.

There’s a busybody cunt in our neighborhood who’s constantly posting other people’s Gofundme requests.

There was one young mother in our neighborhood whose husband had died. Busybody rather gleefully posted the news on her own FB page along with the widow’s GoFundMe. It was just so icky. I had a hard time believing this woman wanted all her businesses put out there,

I have never had a friend do a go fund me. But its not in my country's culture thank god. I have a budget of 2k a year though none of my friends know it. That's how much I give to friends who are poor for some pressing need. I'm not rich and I don't even have plush retirement ahead of me but it won't be cat food in a garret. I've been poor and I know how 500 or a 1000 bucks can make a huge crisis disappear. In fact poor people can get by on surprisingly modest sums. So when they are broke they are really penniless.

I know of a girl who did this when she couldn't pay her phone bill one month, totally due to her own fault. When someone called her out for asking others to pay her bills, so many randoms yelled at him about it. It's like, the people who are being scammed are defending the scammers and it's so weird.

Last year I was in a similar situation to R12. Didn't even occur to me to ask people for money. My friends insisted on taking me out for my birthday and I was miserable the whole time because I knew I couldn't reciprocate for their birthdays at that time. I'm making up for it now that I'm back at work. I just don't understand how people can so blithely take others' money for no good reason.

I even feel a bit uncertain about Patreon, or at least, there is a line to me where it seems legitimate and where it seems kinda dodgy.

OP if you don't like GoFundMe, don't use it. No one is forcing you to give anyone money

R37, how is anyone being "scammed" if they willingly give someone money? Maybe you're broke, but for people with money it's hardly a huge sacrifice to give $20 to someone who needs it on GoFundMe. I understand if people are lying about why they need the money (like the scammers who pretend to have cancer)....but if people are honest, what's the harm? People have the right to choose what they do with their money

R38 The topic is Digital Panhandling. At no point does OP mention GoFundMe. Please try to keep up, dear.

If a friend asks me for a "loan", I will usually give it and tell them to pay me back when I can.

If they ask me a second time, I reserve the right to say "Well, you never paid me back last time", and I have the chutzpah to say it to their faces.

A few years ago a friend who was well into her 50s and a VP at a bank started a GoFundMe for herself because her dog needed surgery! I sure as hell didn't donate. About 5 months later she was posting photos of herself on an expensive SCUBA diving trip.

This just happened a week ago, but I finally encountered a panhandler – if you could even call him that – holding up a cardboard sign at an intersection with, yep, his Venmo account name on it. He said he needed $180 to avoid his family's eviction. He was a clean-cut white guy around 40 dressed in a standard polo & khakis. Why on *earth* he couldn't do what everyone else does & post this kind of shit online is beyond me, unless it was all a scam (entirely possible).

I just can't imagine asking for actual cash.

If I was that hard up, I'd just be asking people if I could stay with them for a few months rather than asking for money. Being a "guest" obviously costs money but it just seems less crass to me than asking for a check. I can always mow the lawn, cook, do dishes, run the kids around, etc. House payments/rent are usually the biggest cash outflow. I'm single though, so if I had kids, I get how that isn't always a good option.

I wouldn't have to ask for cash if I didn't have to pay for the therapy I need caused by all you LITERAL NAZIS who won't just accept my rants as being virtuous and and keep bringing up annoying facts to discredit me!

Inside Edition exposes some of the countless scam artists.

Once, while working in an office on a particular hard day I said to my coworker, ‘I’m tired. I could do better walking the street’. My coworker said back to me, ‘then you’ll be tired and broke’!

I wonder how many are doing a fund me account instead of walking the street?

r1 gave money to a friend ... and then she died? Remind me to never ask r1 for money.

I notice the essential oil fraus are the worst for Go Fund Mes (for their myriad illnesses that the miracle oils they are trying to tell everyone to buy from them somehow don't cure ) or for passing on Go Fund Mes (of other sick folks who obviously aren't being cured by their miraculous essential oils, either).

They'll ask for money to pay for their hospital bills, school trips for their "kiddos", etc. and two weeks later go on a trip to the beach with hubby or post about all of the shit they bought at Hobby Lobby.

Trump owns this thread.

I often give money to panhandlers on the sidewalk (I know, I know).

What's interesting about things like Go Fund Me: 1) It's a lot easier to part with $20 digitally than to hand someone a $20 bill. 2) Giving money to panhandlers in person is largely anonymous. Digital panhandling is not. I assume this means people are more likely to donate greater amounts, because it's seen as a public act of generosity.

Just a theory

Former President panhandles. So why not rest of the country

The problem is not the panhandling, it's that you are on social media, and I don't believe for one minute that you only have it to keep in touch with granny. Please, you're addicted.

I don't have this exactly, but instead an ENDLESS DELUGE of would be do-gooders using their birthday as a fucking "fundraiser" for some worthy cause unknown to me! Bitch, go get a part-time job and earn your own money to donate!

The other huge group are the GoFundMe nuisances BEGGING for money for "my DREAM project", which is generally some short film or dopey one-man show they're looking to mount. Again, I say, "Support and fund your own fucking dreams and quit panhandling!"

Wasn't ANYONE raised to see begging as beneath them? I'm not on social media to be marketed to, or solicited for cash, bitches!

Social media is a scourge

It's your friends. I've seen a few acquaintances do this but rarely and the fad seems to have waned.

I do have one friend for whom a friend started a crowdsourced fundraiser because her baby was in neonatal and then pediatric ICU for about 18 months for rare disease that almost killed him, and it just got worse and worse and worse as time went on. Their medical bills totaled over a million dollars, I think, but somehow it worked out. I've never asked because I didn't want to pry but I think a foundation of some sort probably came to their rescue. I gave several hundred dollars and would give that much and much more (since I make more money now) again. Sometimes it's worthwhile. Sometimes people are kind of scammy, which is sad.

I had one very friendly acquaintance get diagnosed with a very scary condition requiring immediate treatment. He was an independent contractor and unable to work...for awhile. A friend started a GoFundMe which raised tens of thousands of dollars.

The good news is that the treatment seems to be working for now, even though it often doesn't for some people, which is heartening. The other news is.... after the treatment he took a MONTHS LONG trip abroad, giddily posting photos from one lovely country to the next...That didn't sit well with me, to be honest.

I have more of an issue with people providing twitter content and then asking followers for donations. PatriotTakes is one that comes to mind. Started out as a an account that did it for likes and followers and then one day changed it’s name to PatriotTakes and had it’s had out asking for support to keep posting information that’s freely available to anyone.

R51, I think I would rather give to sidewalk panhandlers than digital grifters…. If I can keep the drunk from getting DTs or the junkie from puking on the sidewalk from withdrawal, that’s just compassion. Not sure if all the digital grifters really need the money…

I have zero friends who would do that. If they come to me and ask for a loan, I usually give it to them, with the terms of repayment set out in a simple one paragraph loan agreement. It eliminates any questions or misunderstandings.

Just go on Chaturbate.

I think the Venn diagram of people who digitally panhandle and people who can turn a profit on Chaturbate wouldn't have much overlap r61

R57, he almost died. Could very well be dying. Let him have his fun

You pay for it then, r63

[quote] The good news is that the treatment seems to be working for now, even though it often doesn't for some people, which is heartening. The other news is.... after the treatment he took a MONTHS LONG trip abroad, giddily posting photos from one lovely country to the next...That didn't sit well with me, to be honest.

I don't know how many times in my life I have seen a dramatization of this parable, with someone giving money to a friend who needed money and then seeing that friend do something seemingly self-indulgent and resenting them for doing anything pleasurable before paying the friend back. I've seen it in countless sitcoms and other TV shows. Usually, the resolution is that 1) the person who was lent the money forgot that they needed to pay someone back and apologized and did so immediately or else 2) the person had received a gift from someone else, or won a prize, etc., and was not actually spending money but was made to feel bad by their alleged friend for participating in anything pleasurable rather than living in miserable debt and indebtedness to the friend.

The moral is always the same: if you are the type of person to police a person's lifestyle after giving them money, don't give them money. It's bad for both of you. You don't own another person by giving them a gift, and no one who accepts a gift from you does so with a promise to live a totally miserable life as thanks for your gift.

It's always possible someone he knew insisted that he go on a MONTHS LONG trip at the other person's expense given the severity of his illness and the toll it took on him. You just don't know. And you don't deserve to know. It's his life, not yours. If you care and are a kind person with resources, by all means, help your friend. If you help your friend, don't mistake that for owning your friend.

[quote] a panhandler – if you could even call him that – holding up a cardboard sign at an intersection

Returning yesterday from the dentist I passed one of those guys. Problem is he must have written his message with a ballpoint pen because it looked like blank brown cardboard.

[quote] all I can think is, "How do you have money for your cell phone bill and not to find a place to live?"

If you are a taxpayer 𝑦𝑜𝑢 are probably paying for that cell.

There's a public identity in Australia who digitally panhandles. I find it very unbecoming. Attached is their pitch from their social media pages. No one asked them to undertake the work. This person has a job, and seemingly much more disposable income than I do. Judging from their social media, they can afford to eat out and go to theatre and concerts more in the space of a few months than I can in a whole year. Maybe I'm just a jealous cunt.

I rarely give money to homeless people because I live in Washington, D.C., and I walk to work and pass at least a dozen on my walks to work and back, not to mention the dozens I pass during the day in downtown DC. Many kind of have full-time jobs as they stand outside of CVSes and serve as doormen, opening the door and asking for money. I sometimes buy a drink for someone when they ask but I would be broke if I tried to give many people cash.

I have no problems with some of my tax money buying basic cell phone plans for homeless people. Cell phones are lifelines. Homeless people live in scary environments full of mentally ill people, crimes, illnesses and so on, and homeless people are people. They are human.

Whether they are unable to get a job, unable to work at all or just unwilling, that doesn't matter to me in terms of them being treated as human beings. That's my idea of community and society and even taxing to some extent—when it comes down to it, at least for the basics in life, we should take care of one another. Paying taxes and those taxes covering services that treat people with basic decency actually makes my life easier because I can count on some services being provided to all people and not worry about doing too much by myself.

I read a lot of complaints on this message board that Republicans only care about what affects their lives personally and otherwise they are cold and cruel to people. And then I read some of those same people writing in that spirit about homeless and other poor people and realize that were it not for social issues like gay rights and women's rights, a lot of supposedly liberal people would be Republicans because their basic operating systems are just as callous and self-centered.

I don't know what there is to complain about homeless people being given a cell phone for their safety and, if they want, to speak with other human beings. Why do so many people have the attitude that if someone is homeless, they should have access to absolutely nothing but what they can dig out of trash cans? They're still people. A phone is not a vacation to Nice. And if someone were to send a homeless person on a vacation to Nice, why should that bother anyone? People being treated decently doesn't harm anyone.

I think I read decades ago that Macy Gray panhandled for years when she was young, and *I think* she said she did it because she made more money that way than wirh any part-time job she ever tried.

The Thrive and Essential Oil fraus on my socials are constantly doing GFMs for themselves and their kiddos. Yet, they can still afford vacations and new card, hmmmm.....

R70 That's an interesting angle to take.

I am fine with panhandlers who stand around and ask for money but otherwise are innocuous.

The type of 'panhandling' I really resent is online self-promotion. I know a woman who had cancer and started a foundation. She 'branded' herself overnight and began to self-promote ad nauseam, exploiting her experience. Bam. She got a book deal and speaker engagements, yada yada, and many years later, she is a one-person enterprise and all she does is talk about herself. People donate money, hire her to speak and sign autographs, etc., and her whole career is just talking about her life and receiving awards and donations for it. I find it disturbing.

Likewise, I think we all have at least one acquaintance who self-promotes (for profit or not) and posts tirelessly about their fascinating (only to them) lives online in ways that make you roll your eyes. There are so many of these people, and whether they ask for money or gifts or not, I regard it as a kind of panhandling. It's panhandling for aggrandizement and attention and affirmation and it makes me feel gross when I see it. I feel sad for these people and simultaneously resent them.

Exactly, R71. The lady you mentioned is no doubt #BossBabeGoals for all of the Thrive and Oil fraus(d)s on my socials.

A way to count spoons, sell their bullshit products, get massive amounts of attention AND make bank? Paradise!!!

[quote]I don't know how many times in my life I have seen a dramatization of this parable, with someone giving money to a friend who needed money and then seeing that friend do something seemingly self-indulgent and resenting them for doing anything pleasurable before paying the friend back. I've seen it in countless sitcoms and other TV shows.

Yeah, and in every instance, the person who REMEMBERED to borrow money but FORGOT to pay it back was kind of an eye-rolling asshole! (Roz on "Frasier").

My point was the whole funding pitch was being "too sick to work", which I guess included "not too sick to spend some if this 55G to go on holiday"!

It is a terrible optic, and regardless how your opinions a bit of an eyebrow raiser!