Warning for Golf del Sur/Amarilla Golf Tenerife

[cynophilia]

We just had a Spanish man at our gate begging for money and telling how sad his situation was...He got tears in his eyes....My daughter who just game home was with him on the same bus he stept out by the medical centre... Yes maybe he is poor and maybe he needs money but it can also be a new round of burglary going on this week...

[karinagal]

We just had a Spanish man at our gate begging for money and telling how sad his situation was...He got tears in his eyes....My daughter who just game home was with him on the same bus he stept out by the medical centre... Yes maybe he is poor and maybe he needs money but it can also be a new round of burglary going on this week...

Thanks for the warning - I take it it was the Excellent Medical Centre he came from?

[princessmonika]

yes thank you, times are bad--

[Nic]

Slightly off topic but this is happening in the Golf area (and in town too). There is a man going round the bars on the Golf putting stuff on tables with a card to say he's deaf. Well the other day while Frank was playing a child burst a balloon behind him and he shot up in the air (the man that is, not Frank!). Frank stopped playing and the guy quickly picked everything up and ran out. He mentioned it to the bar owner and he said he was sure he'd seen the supposed deaf man talking on a mobile phone during the week so just beware of these guys too. Maybe some of them are deaf but I think a lot of them are playing on it.

[karinagal]

Slightly off topic but this is happening in the Golf area (and in town too). There is a man going round the bars on the Golf putting stuff on tables with a card to say he's deaf. Well the other day while Frank was playing a child burst a balloon behind him and he shot up in the air (the man that is, not Frank!). Frank stopped playing and the guy quickly picked everything up and ran out. He mentioned it to the bar owner and he said he was sure he'd seen the supposed deaf man talking on a mobile phone during the week so just beware of these guys too. Maybe some of them are deaf but I think a lot of them are playing on it.

Yup, know the guy you're talking about! We were there in April and sitting outside the Wild Geese having lunch. The guy came around and put his stuff on the tables. There was a family sitting across from us with a young boy. The music playing on the sound system was 'Wipeout' and the guy started dancing along to it!! I was shocked when the family still gave him money!! :whistle:

[Indigo]

We just had a Spanish man at our gate begging for money and telling how sad his situation was...He got tears in his eyes....My daughter who just game home was with him on the same bus he stept out by the medical centre... Yes maybe he is poor and maybe he needs money but it can also be a new round of burglary going on this week...

I had a guy knock on my door in silencio doing the same about 6 months ago. He said he was from up north with his children but he was very poor and couldnt even get back up there to them. He was pulling out electricity bills to show me and was crying and showing me the few euro's he had in his pocket which wasnt enough for the bills. No idea if he was genuine but seemed very strange to me.

[dotty1]

I have to say I fell for the trick and bought something like a plastic a light cost me £5. thanks for the warning once bitten twice shy

[casabonny]

I had a guy knock on my door in silencio doing the same about 6 months ago. He said he was from up north with his children but he was very poor and couldnt even get back up there to them. He was pulling out electricity bills to show me and was crying and showing me the few euro's he had in his pocket which wasnt enough for the bills. No idea if he was genuine but seemed very strange to me.

I had a guy do the same in Silencio but maybe just a few months ago.He had an uneclo bill had his DNI to show and seemed genuine( not that I gave him anything ) .Imagine though if the guy had got the 12 euros for his " electric bill from 50% of thre houses he called on in a day he wouldnt be doing bad would he.

[granny57]

:thanx: read this with interest will need to keep my eyes open for this

rose

[bonitatime]

I find this really hard it is so difficult to know what is real and what is fake.
The deaf and dumb are as far as I know all part of a Rumanian con. I have been in a restaurant where deaf and dumb people were eating. You can picture the senario cant you. Again the lighter seller ran away.

As to people begging it is much harder to tell. Across my path this morning came a young man who had commited himself to doing something for this winter for next to nothing. He has now been offered 300 € a month for the same thing. It breaks his heart to have to do this elsewhere but neither he nor his wife nor either of his parents are working (all live together) and the 300 euros is the difference between eating or not for all of them. Things right now are not easy so try not always to feel that people are on the con. Difficult enough to go out and beg without someone laughing at you.

[Lynne & Lee]

The help you carry your shopping comes to mind ...friends of ours got caught in cark park ,2 women, while one helped the other one opened her bag and got her purse ,she had no idea ,so quick, mercadona underground car park

[chifleta]

A couple of years ago a man came into shop where I worked in Las Galletas asking where the local police station was, as he thought he'd got off wrong bus... long story short he told me he'd had wallet and car keys stolen, had left his wife in Callao Salvaje (well that sort of direction) and needed to get back to Puerto de la Cruz and could I lend him 12 euros for a bono bus... anyway, as I speak Spanish, I kindly told him where police station was, but that it was probably closed, and I couldn't give him 12 euros, but I could give him enough to catch the bus to the Guardia Civil in Las Americas, as I'm sure (well that's what I said to him) that they must have some way that they can get you back to Puerto so that he could go get his spare keys, and that they may even pick up his wife and child who were left in Callao ... i also offered him the use of shop phone, both of which he declined - anyways, I'm sure a lot of women do the same, I'd actually looked at his shoes, and as i'd looked back up (LOL) I saw a lump in his pocket, looking suspiciously like keys and such...... and low and behold about an hour later I saw the same man getting into a berlingo type van and driving off.. I wonder how many people gave him the 12 euros for a bono bus...hmmm another good afternoons work for this guy huh?

Another one... there is a woman that used to beg outside Lidl, Romanian at a guess... and her husband does the rounds in Cristianos, sits on cardboard on ground, pretending to be more disabled than he is... well the two of them live in Fraile as i've seen them many a time getting on the bus to go to "work" ... I always wonder ... if they get e.g. during the course of the day, 20 people to give them a 1€... each ... 5 days a week .... between them that's 800 a month... and just say that they do get the Ayuda (Government benefits), well that's another 400+ a month......... makes you sit and think next time you give someone money doesn't it... I sound a right cynic, oh wait, that's because I am :D

Added after 2 minutes:


I'm sure a lot of women do the same, I'd actually looked at his shoes, and as i'd looked back up (LOL) I saw a lump in his pocket, looking suspiciously like keys and such......
i'm laughing at my own words........ oh my oh my ....

[cheery]

Saw a similar thing in Brighton a few years ago. We were sat in a side street outside a bar having a drink. Across the road was a cashpoint machine. A little while afterwards a disheveled bloke comes waltzing alog laughing and joking into his mobile phone. He ended the call and, as if a switch had been pulled, his demeanour was one of sorrow and pity. He sat next to the cash machine asking people for change. These people are scum and only serve to harden people good nature for genuine cases.

As to the deaf and dumb beggars, they have been doing the rounds in Greece for years. I always ignore them but OH is a sucker for a sob story and usually buys a lighter which has stopped working before she has finished the packet of fags!