Buying out of pity...

I paid 10 dollars for a DVD once at a gas station. Instead of giving them cash I went and put my credit card in the gas pump and pumped 10 dollars worth of gas in there car. If they wanted cash for other things they did not get it from me.

You need to be aware that beggars can get up to all sorts of tricks to appeal to our sense of pity. Pregnancy is one of the easiest of things to simulate and the presence of a small child is also a big help. I don't say that this was the case with this lady but can you be sure? As someone else has said, street vendors like this are very often employed by an "entrepreneur" who is making the lion's share of the profits. Here in the UK we occasionally see young Asian 'students' going from pub to pub offering illegal DVD copies. I know for a fact (because I have seen it) that these people are dropped in an area with a list of pubs to visit and then picked up at the end of their rounds. The vehicle they come in is sometimes an old unmarked van but I have also seen them getting into a very expensive Mercedes. It is the people who operate these scams and promise 'work' to poor people, who are often illegal immigrants, who are the real criminals. When a seller of illegal goods gets caught by the police, it's the street seller who takes the rap, not the 'big boss'.

Sometimes it happened for me when im oversea;Malaysia Area.I always had this pitied feeling for those sellers who try hard to sells but no one would like to buy..be it food or what else.I have done some good deeds like you.=)Its like a donation sincerely from my heart...

Yes Aseretdd...This is quite common in our country also..Sometimes people come to sell things for a pittance but their general condition and appearance is soo pitiable that we end up buying things we dont want ,but only out of pity for them.And sometimes they are too proud to accept money from us and we end up buying what they have to offer.I always make sure to give them more than what they ask,and pretend I have no change if I feel the person is genuinely in need of help and deserves it......

We don't get that in our country yet but I would buy something off someone in that position ,we do get people buying the big issue which is a paper the homeless sell as a job I normally give them a couple of pounds but don't take the magazine in the hope they will have something hot to eat with the money.It is really sad to see these people in such distress all this money they spend on putting rockets into space while some people live in poverty beats me.I just am so gratful my life is not like that,enough to eat and somewhere nice and warm and secure to live.We have a lot of people out of work apart from being short of money compared to working our welfare system does not let anybody have to sell in the street,they get housing benefit,money depending on how many children they have and child benefit which is about £20 per child now I think.I am not saying it is anyfun and we all dread having to live like it,but people don't starve here and they are always housed even if it is bed and breakfast untill a house of flat comes along.Sad times.

i live in the states and in a small town, so there isn't really much of the black market nearby. or at least i haven't been exposed to it. but we do have the occassional "beggar" on the street corner. they're usually middle aged men, dressed shabbily (except for their shoes, somehow they are most always decent)and holding a cardboard sign explaining their current financial hardship. now i'm not unnecessarily ragging on them, but these men are regulars. they frequent the same corners on the same days each month. it makes me wonder if there's some sort of scheme going on. i've actually seen a website that teaches you how to make a living as a "homeless man" without losing anything at all. when i see these men, i give them food. i know the saying is feed a man a fish he's full for a day, teach a man to fish he's full for a lifetime... or something to that extent, but for a young single woman, that's just not feasible for me, so i feed them. my question for you is... did you watch the movie after purchase?

no i never done that actually... but i do give money to the beggar every now and then... if i see an old or disabled beggar, i will definitely give them some of my loose change as i know that they are incapable to work to earn money and nobody is taking care of them in my home country... i pity those people a lot... take care and have a nice day...

it has happened to me many times. Many times I may not exactly required to buy the thing. But out of pity we have bought it. Many people sell incense sticks here. Many are like handicapped. so many times we are buying it for pity.

Selling of pirated DVDs in here are very rampant. But, then the situation really makes everything a different situation I think. Yes poverty is indeed a great problem to handle. That is why maybe they are being forced to sell these pirated DVDs because it is one of the easiest way out of their poverty.

hi aseretdd, i have four children and i am selling dvd too but original ones. will you buy some? lol. joke. that is sweet of you. lucky you were not caught by papa edu manzano for he would not like seeing people buying pirated dvds or cds. did you enjoy watching the pirated dvd you bought. sights like that are common in our country but i would rather give food or sometimes rice (bigas)

Hello aseretdd, Sometimes, it breaks my heart too when I witness one. But I think you are kinder than me. Maybe, because they are too many here and we just can't differentiate which is genuine and which is not. I hope you understand what I am trying to say... I just do not understand one thing in life - why the rich has less kids compare to the poor? Here, there is one documentary every week to show the life of poor people and how they try to make ends meet. And, almost all of them have many kids - no less than five.

Yes, I have bought things just to help a person out. It is a tough world. It is good that you didn't just donate because that makes the person feel really bad. I sell incense bottles that I make to earn extra cash to help us get by. I also work full time at the store where I sell the burners. Once this man came in and paid for one and then didn't take it...just wanted to help me out. I felt really bad about that as if I were taking a handout. There was a young girl that wanted a bottle and did not have money so I let her pick one for free to settle the karma score.

Well since she was outside of a restaurant she was obviously going to try and feed her child and no I don't see anything wrong with it. What I would not contribute to is a single person with tattoos and piercings all over their faces. We have that here where I live. They will stand outside on the corners where you will find traffic lights, holding signs asking for spare change. Now what bothers me is this... if they can spend hundreds of dollars on tattoos and piercings then why do they actually have to be out there doing that? Have a great night

buying out of pity is one of the things that i can't escape. i don't know why but everytime i see people in the streets selling any kind of things just to go on with their lives, i feel pity but of course i also like their eagerness to fight hunger by selling things that are useful eventhough some are illegal. its normal to pity them,and i just hope that the people in the government will try really to help by giving enough works.

i bought 5 dvd's for 5 dollars, and i told myself, these don't look right, but i said, u know wut this guy looks like he needs the 5 bucks more than i do, so i gave him the 5 bucks n sure enough the dvd's had nothing on them. but i didn't care, they were all movies i had already seen.

Yeah aseretdd, it’s really sad to see there are still many people who suffer a lot of being poor and have to earn potty income by selling pirated dvd and other stuffs in busy streets, especially those ladies who do this small business carrying with them their small skinny kids. I would always pay for the stuffs which I totally don’t have any interest in them. I just want to help them by supporting them to earn money by their own effort but not to do any other things that would violet laws. Anyway I worry and don’t encourage them as well to sell pirated dvd for they might be arrested for violating the copyright law. They would be safe if they selling local made souvenirs in hot tourist sites. I hope the authority concerned will help them by providing them chances to sell souvenirs in proper places. Happy posting and have a nice day.

[i]Hi aseretdd, Truly heartbreaking to see these kids! I remember when I was in our Country, every Friday after work, friends and I love to stay in the Boulevard just to relax and unwind and we always buy peanuts or any junk food sold by these kids (8-10 years old), sometimes, we used to asked them why they are still selling even later at night and they said, they are helping their parents in that way so that they have also some "baon" in coming to school! [/i]

There are so many social service agencies around here only to willing to help people that this kind of activity is much rarer than in some other parts of the world. However, in some places we have gone there were what the locals called "Marias" on every corner. Single mothers with toddlers and babies crawling around in the gutters and the mother holding her hand out limply and looking mournful. Yes, it is heart-breaking, but we know that behind them there is usually some man who will take any money they get. Think about it, where did this woman get a pirated DVD? Surely she doesn't have high-tech electronic equipment at home to make copies. We have to ask ourselves where the money is really going. Not to the babies, I think.

I try to put out a hard face and try to harden my heart. I don't want to help someone just because I feel pity or would feel guilty after - helping someone should be about them. I know that they NEED help, but doling out isn't the best way to help them - food would be good to give, but money only perpetuates the cycle and they teach their kids that they can actually live in that similar situation. Thanks for the response on my discussion!

Well the movie is a consolation because it's good. Buy yeah, it's such a pitiful sight. Piracy is bad but if it can help at least for now, why not?