Do you donate?

No pictures this time, only a wall of characters. Sorry. But as you read you'll understand why I didn't take any pictures. These stories seldomly get on tape. By the way, I'm curious whether you would have donated in my my stead or when you would have stopped. Please, feel free to comment!

Alright, let's start. I was on the bridge and a girl was coming up to me pointing to a piece of paper while she didn’t say anything. I thought reading couldn’t hurt that much and it turned out that she's collecting donations for deaf people. It’s interesting though why a deaf person who is not being able to speak is helping out, too, since it is harder to tell people about their goal and collect donations this way. It wasn't an individual collection, it was done for an organisation whose name I forgot by now.

Then another girl came to help her partner. She said “just write name, signature, that all.” I thought it was strange collecting only signatures. Then she asked “How much give donate? Something, not important” I thought I’ll donate 5 €. Then she showed me a note on the side that said “minimum 10€.” I thought she speaks poor English and has no idea what she said before. My patience gave her a last try and I gave her another 5 euro bill. She was looking into the depths of my wallet and even pointing to my euro bill, even moving her hands towards my wallet but I kept moving it away. She was saying “yes, that good but” but then she showed another note on the other side of the paper saying “minimum 20€”...

Meanwhile more and more of her partners were surrounding me as time passed by and as I was getting more and more annoyed. By the time of the obvious trickery all of it turned into antipathy and other negative feelings (I wonder how many other notes there were on that piece of paper or on other hidden pieces of paper). One of the girls said “oh some food, thank you!” and grabbed hold of my paper bag containing one and a half croissants. I took it back and told the girl with my two times €5 bills “You play dirty! You aren’t collecting any donations! You give my money back, now!”  Her: “But you signed” Me: “I haven’t written any amount!” I really haven’t but in this situation any number written there wouldn’t have had a significance anyway (I won’t analyse the legal part any further). Me: “You stole from me! You don’t collect any donations! You give it back, here and now!”

By the time the deaf girl being incapable to speak was magically cured by my donation and was suddenly able to speak, too. The first girl showed me one €5 bill. I took it and she walked away. I followed her while taking care that nothing is being taken from me. Even though I never keep anything of value in my back pockets I was suspecting every movement they made as being a try to take something. I stopped her by holding one of her shoulders. I said: “Hey, you give me back all of it, now!” having a very serious (maybe angry?) face. She showed me the other bill surprisingly quickly, too, and I took it back. I’m still suspicious that they stole something from me which I just haven’t realised yet and that I will be searching something tirelessly in the near future. I immediately continued my way to Notre Dame while I was thinking about telling the police about the group but I let the case be.

The second bill she gave back could have been counterfeited money but the first one didn't move anywhere out of her hands (or only so I think). Now that I'm thinking about it, there were more than enough signs that they were fake donation collectors,  it was only me who was too naive. But I took back everything I gave.

I donate €3,30 a month to WWF, which is a more reliable place to send a donation but you may never know for sure unless you're the one spending the donated money. I donated to Avaaz too but stopped donating. Don't worry, there was no scandalous reason or anything like that.

A final thought. "Dishonest people always win in an honest society" as my Game Theory and Strategic Thinking prof told me.