MONEY MORAL DILEMMA. Would you contribute to a stranger’s train ticket?

KatieMc83 wrote: »

Funnily enough a similar thing happened to me yesterday on the bus in Leeds city centre. I was on the bus going from work to nursery to pick my daughter up and there was a woman who had got on with an invalid (previous weeks) ticket.

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So it's mad that so many people are saying oh yes without a doubt i'd hand over a tenner, when it actually happened yesterday and no one was willing to hand over 2 quid to help! I wonder if it would be different had she been English though...

guidarufino wrote: »

I actually did almost exactly this a few years ago. I was on a train coming up from London, feeling slightly delicate from a heavy weekend! The woman sitting behind me ran into trouble with the conductor as she didn't have enough money for where she wanted to go. She didn't speak a word of English and had a note which had been written by her daughter, I think, saying something like "please take me to xxx" and she had what I suppose she thought was the right money.

Evidently she didn't have enough money, I think she was £10 or £15 short. The poor woman, who was in her 60s roughly I'd say, had no idea what was going on. The conductor went away eventually and said that he'd be coming back at the stop prior to hers and kicking her off.

Naturally I didn't think he would actually do such a heartless thing and didn't think anything more about it until he came back and tried to turf her off the train. She had no idea what was going on and got really upset and refused to move.

So eventually I stepped in. I told the man that he was a totally heartless jobsworth and what difference did it make to him if this lady stayed on for one more stop? The train wasn't even full. I laid into him pretty thick, loudly enough for everyone to hear, told him he should be ashamed of himself etc etc then gave him the money. He tried to imply that she was just trying it on but that was so patently untrue, he just made himself sound like the self righteous pompous jobsworth that he was.

She still had no idea what had happened so I gave her a note to give to her relatives, explaining what had happened and giving my address if they wanted to send me the money back. Everyone said I'd never see that money again but, lo and behold, just a couple of days later, I got a cheque in the post along with a really lovely long letter saying that what I'd done was really kind and had saved this old lady from being stranded in the wrong town in a strange country with no money and no phone.

I kept that cheque on my mantlepiece for years as a testament to how lovely most people are. And a few weeks later, I won a really great digital camera in a competition I didn't even know I'd entered. I've still got the camera now, years later. If that isn't karma in action, I don't know what is! :rotfl:

Woodyrocks wrote: »

If you re-read the initial post you will see that the dilemma posed is removed from the example you have given.

Trying it on with a ticket a week old is one thing but finding yourself on the wrong train on the right route hence invalidating your ticket is a genuine mistake.

Without wanting to digress from the OP, I doubt people's, yours included, non response to the situation you witnessed was because of the woman being non English - or is this a reflection on your own attitude, would you yourself had offered to help only if she had been English? - I think it was more the fact that it was evidential that she was basically trying to pull a fast one and most probably did it everyday!