I feel bad because I got asked for change.

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Panhandlers will try to target my husband, but they rarely try it on me. In fact, the few times they have, it's always been when my face is turned away. When they see my face they have apologized profusely to me.

These types are really good at picking out what kind of person you are and preying upon that. I'm sure most of them truly have some kind of a need, but it's not necessarily a need any of us should be helping with.

I remember when I first lived in this city I was at a bus stop and got a man giving me a false sob story that his mother was dying in hospital and he needed money for a train to go and see her. Because I was from the country and wasn't used to this sort of thing, I stupidly believed him but only had my card on me. He asked me to get some money out at the nearest cash point. I felt a bit awkward, until another guy came along and started yelling at him to leave me alone and to stop asking people at random to give him money. So clearly it was just a tactic to get money to fund his drug habit or something, which I don't support at all. Then I was told that he often hung around at this particular bus stop because he knew a lot of elderly people waited for a bus there and were too kind and innocent and were more likely to give him money. I guess I looked kind and innocent too. But now I've been living here for 8 years I now know who to avoid.

My partner also got fooled once when he first came to this city, many years ago. A woman was standing on a corner of the street telling people that her car had broken down and desperately needed change to get help or something, and at first my partner thought it was genuine and gave her some change. But a couple of days later the same woman approached him on the same corner with the same story, not recognising him, so he said "you don't have a good memory, do you? You had this same problem the other day and I gave you change. What gives?" She then scarpered and he never saw her again lol.