Glasgow Begging

I buy the 'Big Issue' and sympathise with the genuinely homeless - but I've observed the following in Glasgow in over ten years of commuting/working/going out in the city centre. This info could prove useful:

- A gang operate a 'begging racket' from the main Boots entrance of Central Station all along to Buchanan Street. Same face in different shifts over the past few years.

- Currently a troupe of Eastern European beggars are plying a scam around the Royal Concert Hall. I've encountered a few times in the last two months. One tall one (ringleader?) asks if you can buy him food if not money - whatever they're up to, it's weird.

- Gang working Sauchiehall street - Almost all have torn McDonalds cups as receptacles. Again, same faces, different shifts and many have been there since 1995! Some of them look better fed than me.

I know how this post must sound and read, but its just an observation - and that lot about the Royal Concert Hall are particularly in your face. Not as annoying as the "Got a moment?" c"Charity Workers" (They are on £5.25 an hour plus commission when I last looked into it.)

The Big Issue runs about five hostels and kitchens in Glasgow alone - give your money to them or recommend them to a beggar.

 

I too have noticed the same faces cropping up.

Tere also used to be a young girl that would come up to you in Central Station with a sob story about how she had her purse stolen & needs to get home etc. Glad I didn't give her anything 'cos I went in the week after & she was there again.

 

Yep - I'm beginning to sound like some vigilante Enoch Powell here, apologies - the girl (often with calculated mascara running) tries this one in and around Union Street and seems to have some connection to Union Street kebab shop 'Charcoal', or, ahem, one of the guys behind the counter.
She's crap at it though - pulls off a fairly convincing sob story act then usually is spotted guffawing with ned lassies just yards away.

 

That sounds like the one. What a trumpet.

Is it just me, or ar there about 10 times more people begging in Glasgow than there were a few years ago?

I suppose that could also be attributed to the influx of 'charity muggers'.

 

If you know what you're doing, begging is a very lucrative business

 

Are you speaking from experience?

 

No, but it gives me an idea

 

Hahaha!

 

Not begging, as such, but a few of my frieds and I compared notes and realised we have discovered a new scam.
You go into McDonald's. You order your food and sit down. Two fairly glamorous young mums with prams, but with mouths on them like hairy arsed dockers, jump up from a table nearby. The shorter brunette of the two storms pass the queue and complains - screechingly loudly - that the restaurant is a mess and she will not pay for the dirty food she, her friend and toddlers have just consumed. Much back and forthing ensues, to the point that the manager says something like "Just go, go!"
They receive a refund and walk out, usually upturning a chair or some such.
I witnessed it in the Sauchiehall Street McDonald's, while a friend experienced the same, twice, in the East Kilbride mall McDonald's.
Anyone else experienced thes latter day 'Baby Faced Finlaysons' avec meres?