No Help For The Helpless - Opinions Please!

[Android Kaeli]

Call me negative or whatever, I wouldn't help them either. Sorry but I don't know them from a hole in a wall and don't know if they are faking it or not, just to rob me and take my own car home. They should've gotten someone who worked at the mall to help them, not random strangers walking to their own cars.

[Gerrinson]

Personally I suggest a well written letter to the editor pointing out that her error was not going to the mall office / security for assistance but noting that the mall does care about their customers and would be happy to be of assistance in the future if she notified them of the difficulty. The mall staff can't help if they don't know about the problem.

[jnd4rusty]

I am going to go against the flow of thought here. I read the letter in a different light. To me the letter writer was just explaining how nice everyone has been, true humanitarians and now she is a bit disappointed in the reactions she recieved on the night in question. I would be too. I don't think she was trying to make a play for a new vehicle, to me it sounds like she was just describing it and until that time they have been lucky. I would have definately helped her out as I have done so before when strangers have asked me for help, especially when a vehicle snd cold weather are part of the equation. Most of the time the car just needs a jump and I am more than willing to do so if asked. I am sort of knowledgable about vehicles as I have had way more than my share of broken down ones!! I have learned how to figure out what is wrong for the most part, just by listening or checking out certain things. Anyways, around my area it is very common for strangers to help each other with vehicle issues, that is why I would have been disappointed because I have had to ask for help and have been asked to help and it never crossed my mind to say no. I also wander why she did not ask for help from within the mall office area, but maybe she was just frustrated and agitated due to the circumstances that it just never crossed her mind to do that. I know that everyone has times where they wished they would have done something different in certain circumstances. Well that is my "two cents" worth.

[Barefootgirl]

I'm in two minds about the motives of the lady herself, but I have to say that I am one of those who would be very wary of stopping to help a couple in a large van that had "broken-down". Call me Mrs Paranoid but thats actually quite a suspicious situation to me.

If your car breaks down, surely you call the AA or the RAC (or the American equivalent), or if you don't have breakdown cover, you call out a breakdown truck. You don't stop random strangers on the off-chance that one of them might be an off-duty mechanic. As for the taxi thing, I don't know about this lady's area but in my (small) town, an awful lot of our taxis are the minibus types that are equipped to take wheelchairs.

ETA: I've read the letter again, and i think BeeMused is right. i think this is a begging letter for a new car.

[LillFilly]

I was so upset of the light she cast our mall in that I never even read between the lines; It could be a 'please help we need a new car' call. At first I thought, wouldn't it be nice if our mall did something to help her out? But now, I'm not sure. And that would just lead to begging coming out of the woodwork for help from us. It's a shame we can't seem to be more community oriented, but we get screwed enough as it is. It's a sad, disappointing situation all around.

I talked with stores in that part of the mall and NOBODY remembered ever seeing the letter writer and her family. She was pretty specific, so I don't think she got us confused with another mall (it's happened!), but that puts another hole in her story.

[RavenStarr]

NOBODY remembered ever seeing the letter writer and her family. She was pretty specific, so I don't think she got us confused with another mall (it's happened!), but that puts another hole in her story.

Hmmmm...It's possible that she could have just made the whole thing up..I'm betting dollars to doughnuts that she doesn't even have a husband who is disabled or a daughter with down syndrome...People have been known to make stuff up as a way to gain money and sympathy.

[JustaCashier]

Security tapes?

Mike

[Ben_Who]

I keep wondering what sort of help was expected, actually.

If my car breaks down at the mall, I'm not going to solicit perfect strangers and then hold it against the mall or the community when none of those strangers stop to help. If my car breaks down, I have access to resources - call a tow truck, call a taxi cab, call my garage and tell 'em to expect another delivery; old Herbert is actin' sorry again.

One sympathizes, of course, with whatever hardships she has to go through as caregiver. However, she has the same responsibility that I do - to ensure that she has access to the appropriate resources to keep this sort of thing from happening, though the resources may need to be extraordinary compared to mine.

If a stranger buttonholed me in the mall and asked me for this kind of help, what are my responsibilities here? I would have to point out that I'm not a garage mechanic, I don't own a tow truck, and I doubt that the massive wheelchair would fit in the trunk of my decrepit Chevrolet Aveo. If she then decided to indict the entire community on the basis of my inability to help, I'd feel more than a little put-out.

I am sympathetic. But where were the members of this Church when she needed help? Where were these neighbors that she said she could count on? Why did she have to grab the wrist of the nearest shopper rather than someone who might actually be in a position to help?

Love, Who?

[MoonCat]

I actually would like to give this woman the benefit of the doubt, but I've been approached so many times by panhandlers with sob stories that I probably would not have believed her if I had been there. I don't drive anyway, so I would not have been able to help with transport. I really don't get why it wouldn't occur to her to ask the mall personnel for help, to call AAA, call a cab, or as a last resort call the local police non-emergency number (it was an emergency for her family, in a way, but perhaps not as the police define it). Maybe it's just the way I think, but in her situation it would never occur to me to approach random strangers walking by for help with this.