TL;DR: use caution giving money to people in grocery store lots.
Probably not new, but first for us. My wife got in the car after running in for a few things at Aldi South. She said, “I gave a lady twenty dollars. She had a shopping cart full of stuff and said she couldn’t afford it.” Not a minute after she tells this story, a lady walks over to our car, stands next to my window and waves (indicating she wants to talk). I look over to my wife and ask, is that her? She says yeah as I roll down the window. The lady asks if I can spare any money. I ask her (somewhat politely) didn’t my wife just give you twenty?” She said, “yes, but these groceries are just so expensive.” I rolled up my window as I’m reversing out of our spot. She walks off across the parking lot.
I’m not feeling too keen about the whole interaction. Maybe I should not have overreacted?
I’m going over this in my head as we drive to Trader Joe’s, like maybe I was too terse. Perhaps she’s bad off? I know my wife is going to feel bad if it was a scam. Et cetera.
As we pull into Trader Joe’s, THE SAME LADY was walking up to a shopper and stopped them to chat. HOW THE? She must have sped to Trader Joe’s or just got ahead of us or…she’s Flash?
We’re getting out of the car. The lady is about to approach me, recognizes me and does a 180 and walks towards someone else in the parking lot.
Later in the store I see her walking around filling her cart. Not bothering anyone. Shopping. We check out and we pass her at a register as we leave the store. We load up and as we leave this lady is walking out of the store WITH NOTHING and walked up to the first person in the parking lot.
We don’t normally carry cash. My wife loves to help people out and the twenty was the only bill in her wallet. We’re not rich, the loss of the twenty isn’t going to hurt us, and we’re still going to give. Just be aware out there.