I know how this is gonna sound. I know because as I tell it to myself, that's how it sounds. It sounds like I've been duped, and should have been smarter. I know it sounds that way, but give me the benefit of the doubt here. I wholly acknowledge that this guy could have been a con artist. I'm not so deluded as to write off that possibility. It may even be more likely than not that he was one. No matter.
So I'm sitting at the bus stop, waiting for the bus that goes directly to Tsawwassen ferry terminal. It's from here that I'll catch my ferry over to Victoria for the night. Beautiful Victoria. As I sit down, another fella is there already, waiting for the bus. “Another half-hour” he says to me, as he sees me investigating the signage near the stop. “I got down the steps just in time to see the last one drive off.”
“Bummer.” I say.
I sit down. He appears to wanna chat. “Incredibly hot day, huh?” It is.
“Yeah, nothing but sun for weeks.” I'm terrible at small talk.
The man has a British accent. I ask him where he's from. “Penzance. Heard of it?”
“Only from the title Pirates of Penzance.” Which is true, though of course I knew it was actually a real place too.
“Yeah, that's where that title comes from.” He confirms. Duh.
We get into a conversation about his visit. He explains that he's been in Canada for 4 weeks, but now is having a nightmarish day, as his plane leaves in 3 hours, and he can't secure an additional 13 pounds that he needs to get his boarding pass. The story is long, and I zone in and out of listening, because it doesn't occur to me right away that this guy might ask me for money. Halfway through his story the thought pops up, so I listen more keenly for signs of con artistry I've seen before. The story involved a new tax that was added to airport fees since the time he purchased his ticket last year, and since the airport is private, they have no obligation to inform ticket-buyers of the new fee. His story involves him heading to Tsawwassen to get to some special place or something (this is where I wasn't listening) that can approve a British cheque immediately, and give him the 13 pounds he needs. Yeesh.
He gets a phone call. According to what he says, it's his parents. They had purchased his ticket way back in August apparently. Sounds genuine, I suppose.
Here's the thing. You're probably already looking at this story and saying it's an obvious con. Well, look, I've presented it that way, okay? But the bottom line to me is this: I had no way of verifying whether or not this was true. No way. It was definitely more involved and detailed than your average “I need money for the bus home” story. There was a phone call and everything, right? Also, it appeared to be with great hesitation that he finally asked if there was a way I could help him. There was a break in the conversation. It didn't go straight from “here's my story” to “can I have some money?”
All of this doesn't prove that it's true, of course. Just that it became harder and harder to clearly call it a con job. So what do I do, right? This guy could be telling the truth, or he could have this act down to a science. If so, he's very good. But then, you'd expect him to be. Anyway, 13 pounds worked out to be under 25 bucks. I thought about it. Oh, also, he offered me his iPhone as collateral. He said I could have it, then ship it to him in a few days when he had returned my money, and he'd pay the shipping too. Again, this could all be a ruse. I didn't see the thing on, so it could have been a dummy phone (the phone call he made earlier was another one – a flip phone.) But whatever. In my own way, I level with him. I say there's no way I can know if he's telling the truth, but I'll help him out anyway. 25 bucks isn't much.
Reminded me of discussions in my Law and Morality class over whether you can risk punishing innocent people. If this guy is actually telling the truth, even if the odds are less than 10% that this is the case, is the cost of giving a sociopath $25 so bad that it's worth turning my back on a person actually in a jam? I didn't have my copy of JSM's Utilitarianism to cross-reference.
And, yes, I know that from your point of view in reading this, the man is clearly a con artist. But you are in far too removed a position to evaluate this in the same way I was forced to evaluate it on the ground. You may say that your way is more objective, therefore better, but I hope you can see the moral dilemma I outlined above. Fact is, the guy was saying all the right things.
No matter.
I don't care if I gave a sociopath $25. I don't. It doesn't make a lick of difference. So long as the majority of people are good people trying to help each other out, there will always be some small minority of sociopaths to mooch off of their hard work and good deeds. That's evolutionary. It's like the creatures who evolve to look like a scary predator; they have all the benefits of being that scary predator, but they don't have to actually work to achieve it. Similarly, this guy had all the appearance of being a man in distress, even though I'll never know what he actually was.
So go on and tell me I should have been smarter. In a way, I can think of a few things I could have done to at least better ensure that I wasn't being ripped off. Taking a picture of the guy occurred to me afterward. Even if only to see his reaction to me asking him to let me take a picture of him.
I didn't take his iPhone, of course, by the way. I wouldn't do a thing like that. But maybe he knew that, and that's why he offered.
Hrmph.
Update - Same Day: As is always the case with these things, the more I think about it, the clearer it is that I've been duped. The guy wrote a bunch of information for me on a piece of paper. Email address, name, phone number, address in Penzance. I can't pull any of it up on Google.
