This article is from a guy named Phil Elmore. And to get right to the point, Phil is not and never was everybody's cup of tea. Over the years (okay, decades), I have on the one hand I've liked some of his material, but on the other hand some of the rest of his stuff, well not so much. The article below is an extremely condensed version of an eBook he put out quite a few years back.
Give it a look, because it's actually well worth reading.
Article from the Substack website:
https://philelmore.substack.com/p/panhandling-ploys-and-street-cons
Panhandling Ploys and Street Cons
Friday are Free for Everyone at this Substack, 23 January 2026
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Ever been approached with an “Excuse me, sir? Excuse me, sir?” If you’ve spent any time at all in urban and even suburban environments, you know that LOTS of people approach you with “Excuse me, sir,” and then proceed to give you a song and dance that is almost always a con.
Most of the time, the people conning you just want to beg some money from you. They’re beggars or panhandlers, the typical street people or homeless types. But once in a while, the con game is part of “interviewing you” so they can distract you in order to mug you... which means getting you involved in their lengthy story is a way of distracting you so they can sucker-punch or stab you.
I’ve compiled here, therefore, a few different very common con games that happen on public streets. There are others, but you would be shocked at just how common these are. If you’d like to learn more, I urge you to pick up a copy of Street People Strategies, my book on this topic.
It goes without saying that if you can keep moving when someone approaches you, you should. Either ignore the request for money or state flatly that you have no money (even if this isn’t true). Keep walking away as you do so. Make brief eye contact to show that you are aware of the threat, then focus your attention onward as if you have someplace important to be.
Most of the hard-luck stories beggars tell you are confidence games and nothing more. How can you tell? Most beggars commit the classic error of offering too much information. The more elaborate the song and dance, the more complicated the backstory justifying the begging, the greater the probability that the whole thing is bogus.
Beggar ploys and street-people cons have one thing in common: they are all completely made up. Sure, there are people out there whose hard luck stories are actually true, but they’re much fewer and farther between than many people think.
Too Much Information
This is the big one, the ploy indicator most frequently encountered. Liars and beggars almost always fail to keep things simple. They launch into incredibly involved stories on the theory that the more detail they include, the more plausible the ruse will seem. This is not the case. A good liar keeps things simple because this leaves fewer traps to remember and avoid. A good con artist lets you fill in the details.
A young white man wearing gold chains over a muscle shirt once gave me an elaborate song and dance about needing money to make a phone call because he needed a ride to some outpatient cancer treatment center, an appointment he’d missed previously due to a number of factors (which he supplied). The whole pile of nonsense was obviously an excuse to separate me from my money.
Gas Money
Apparently we are in the grip of a nationwide epidemic of stranded motorists, all of whom just need two or maybe five dollars worth of gas to get them on their ways again. The only cure for this epidemic is the kindness of strangers, it would seem, for this army of stranded motorists is even now wandering the streets, asking passers-by for help. Almost every time you encounter this request, it’s bogus.
Alternatively, you will see this request framed as the desperate need for bus fare. Often the beggar will tell you he is from out of town, and just needs a specific dollar amount in order to get back home again. I once saw a young man offering this story to people on the street. I was told, by someone who works downtown and who sees the young man often, that he is a local who uses this lie to beg. He’s not a stranded out-of-towner at all. He’s been trying to get on that bus for years.
Lunch Money
I recall a study some time back — it might have been in USA Today or some other major media outlet — that speared a popular myth. Most of the “homeless” polled who were carrying signs saying “Will work for food” actually wouldn’t when offered the chance.
Take a good look at the next beggar who asks for money because, he tells you, he’s hungry. He doesn’t look like he’s starving, does he? He looks dirty and unkempt, sure, but is he emaciated? People who are really starving look the part.
A beggar once accosted me citing a specific sum of money and muttering about the specific breakfast he hoped to purchase at the exact establishment he sought to patronize. Ploys are like that — they sometimes come wrapped in each other. This was “Too Much Information” within “Lunch Money.”
Speak Up
I was waiting outside an urban coffee shop that is plagued by aggressive panhandlers (who, when they aren’t begging, sexually harass and intimidate the female college students who frequent the shop) when I last encountered this ploy. A disheveled white male of perhaps middle age wandered up, muttering something I could not hear. I glared at him and he gave me a wide berth as he continued to work the area, accosting everyone entering the shop. Those who did not ignore him stopped and said something like, “What?” or “Pardon?” because he muttered so quietly.
This is a deliberate, calculated decision on such a beggar’s part. Mumbling panhandlers hope to catch you off guard, counting on the cultural reflex that prompts you to ask for clarification when you do not hear what someone says. I’ve fallen for this myself without thinking.
The appropriate response to anyone who accosts you and mumbles is no response at all, though you may choose to observe silently to see if the speaker repeats his or her plea.
Help a Vet
Most of the homeless “veterans” one encounters are veterans of long begging careers and nothing more. Those holding signs proclaiming their veteran status are hoping to cash in on your gratitude to those who fight and die for our country. Some will go so far as to dress themselves in soldier costumes, wearing fatigues or boonie hats as if they’ve just gotten off the first boat from Over There — only to find themselves destitute among spitting hippie ingrates.
Despite the fact that veterans are represented among the homeless population at the same rate they appear in the population at large, the majority of “veteran” beggars are liars who have never served in the U.S. military. Your heart is in the right place, but don’t fall for this one.
The Grace of God
Ours is basically a religious society. Many people will try to invoke religion as a means of gaining trust or allaying fear. Some subtle con artists will wear crosses (which are large enough to be obvious to those whom they accost). Others will work references to God or church into their ploys.
One early morning, while walking from my car to my office, a couple in a battered and fanbelt-squealing Cadillac stopped and gave me an elaborate song and dance about losing or running out of money. They were supposedly desperate to get gas money to get home but, shrewdly, did not directly ask me for funds. Instead they wanted to know where the nearest church could be found (which was their ostensible purpose for stopping me).
The implication was, of course, that they were good Christians who only sought the support of their network of fellow believers. One supposes that, lulled by their evident religious credentials, I as the mark would be inclined simply to give them money to help them on their way.
I didn’t fall for it and neither should you. God doesn’t care if you’ve got gas in your car. That’s your responsibility. Anyone invoking God while implying a need for cash is simply using religion to mask a ploy.
Got the Time?
If you’re obviously wearing a watch, you have two choices when asked for the time. You can be rude and refuse to give it, or you can comply with the request. The problem is that when approached on the street by a stranger or a street person, there is a chance — not a great one, but a real one nonetheless — that someone who asks you for the time is trying to distract you in order to assault you. Think about it. When you look at your watch, you typically look down at your arm, making you an easy target.
If someone you don’t know comes up to you and asks you for the time, you can easily minimize your risk. Step back casually, away from the stranger, preferably blading your body as you do so. Raise your arm rather than lowering your head, keeping that arm well away from your body and between you and the other person. In this way you can read the time while keeping your guard up.
Practice doing this so it looks casual rather than confrontational. There’s no need to drop into your Daniel-san crane stance and fire off a flurry of snap kicks just to tell someone they’re late for an appointment.
Got A Light?
The answer to this question is, no, you don’t have a light. You do not, in fact, smoke, even if you do, if someone you don’t know wanders up to you on the street and asks you this question. (Now, if you’ve got a cigarette dangling from your mouth, it’s going to be harder to deny that you smoke. This scenario assumes that a stranger has approached you and you have given no public indication that you have a source of flame on your person.)
There’s simply no way to light another person’s cigarette for them on the street without incurring an unacceptable level of risk, unless you’re willing to toss someone a lighter or a book of matches. (For you smokers, that’s one option. Pick up a handful of those free books of matches people still give away here and there, or buy a box at the store. Carry a couple in your pocket in addition to your lighter. When someone asks you for a light, you can toss them a book of matches (from a safe, casual distance) and even look generous by adding, “Keep it.”
Picture standing in front of someone, holding your lighter to that person’s cigarette. At least one of your hands — possibly two, if you’re cupping one palm against the wind — is occupied. You’re also giving that stranger a burning cylinder of tobacco with which he can put out your eye, if he’s so inclined. (That’s why cops will tell you to put out your cigarette when they speak with you during a stop or arrest.)
Misplaced Compassion… or Prudent Caution?
I don’t say any of this to disparage street people, although I think a lot of the time we tend to misplace our compassion and refuse to see people as a threat because we don’t want to seem heartless or rude. The fact is, most people who approach you on the street wanting something from you want what they are asking for. They want money, or the time, or a light for their cigarette. The problem is that you don’t get to know when that’s not the case.
Even if only one in a hundred people who approach you on the street means you harm, you need to be on your guard all hundred times, because you don’t get to know ahead of time who the one in one hundred happens to be. The best example was when, in the 1980s, a couple of thugs came up to Dan Rather and said, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?” While Rather was trying to figure out what on Earth they were talking about, they sucker-punched him to mug him. (That became a famous line in an R.E.M. song, “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”)
You can see the pattern. People try to distract you, get your brain engaged, or get you to feel sorry for them, and that gives them an opening to take from you. Don’t let them take advantage of you. Take these lessons to heart and recognize the patterns they share. The ploy you hear on the street might be different or might be strangely similar, but it will FEEL like these, and that’s what matters.
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