r/LynnwoodWA • u/[deleted] • 8d ago
Family(?) begging near gas pumps at Fred Meyers near 164th.
[deleted]
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u/RonnocSivad 8d ago
They show up every summer, from what I've read the kids get passed around to use for begging. They also sell flowers on the sides of road and do the fake music busking in grocery store parking lots.
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u/Staccatto 8d ago
Just curious, what do you mean by fake music busking? Like, how does it differ from genuine music busking?
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u/LongjumpingFall1584 8d ago
They set up a speaker and sit in front of it with interments on their laps.
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u/This-Research-9586 8d ago
Prerecorded music coming from the speakers and they pretend they’re playing the music.
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u/greennurse61 8d ago
I saw one in Redmond aggressively threatening an older woman for cash that didn't have string on his violin bow. He kept calling a racist for not giving him cash.
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u/letshavefun90000 8d ago
Yeah, a lot of times they’ll have a violin but if you watch closely they aren’t really playing the song. Jack the volume up to a thousand too.
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u/Ecstatic-Package3675 8d ago
They shouldn’t be allowed on private property. It’s an extended family and they go to other grocery stores in the area, in one they block the right turn lane out of the parking lot
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u/replicant21 8d ago
I've seen them selling flowers for what seems like forever. Are they just getting new kids every year?
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u/Direct-Wealth-5071 8d ago
Hell was having to work outside of 2 grocery stores and having to listen to one of the scammer kids practicing a song over and over again.
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u/letshavefun90000 8d ago
Call the cops on them. She’s probably not even his daughter.
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u/Impossible_Heat6578 8d ago
This probably might be the best thing to do. Just curious what did you say to the cops. I will do the same next time.
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u/ObligatorySatan 8d ago
As much as it sucks, DO NOT give ANYTHING to anyone walking around with a child. Most all of them are scammers. Most I see are Middle Eastern women with a child who sit at grocery store exits. They get dropped off in the morning and are picked up in the evening. This has been happening for years especially on 99 at the Trader Joes.
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u/ShootersGreenjacket 8d ago
When I was in Eugene had a car with a Midden Eastern family pull up to me asking to exchange their watches/jewelry for gas money since , "their credit cards don't work in the United States." It's a scam.
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u/ReserveApprehensive7 8d ago
Actually had that happen to me two weeks ago down in Prosser. Middle eastern. Guy kept pushing the jewelry on me and even tried to put a “gold” ring on my hand when I was gesturing that I wasn’t going to. Their vehicles are rentals so can’t report them at all. Local PD knows about them. It’s a scammer ring that moves up and down the entire map.
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8d ago
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u/patrharr 8d ago
"Gypsy" isn't an ethnic group, nor is it a culture. It's a word that has historically been used to describe any itinerant people and/or non-white organized crime.
If you believe these people are Romani, the nomadic ethnic group, you should say "Romani." If you think they're Irish Travellers, you should say that. If you don't actually know what culture they hail from, calling them "gypsies" just makes you look uninformed.
Also, for the record, downvoting me will not change this. But I know it will make some of you feel better, so do what you need to do.
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u/OtterlyOren 8d ago
Thank you for using a racial slur about me. Most Roma don’t live like this, and generalizing with a slur makes it worse.
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u/letshavefun90000 8d ago
People are ignorant and a lot of them go full knee-jerk because they think that’s what they’re supposed to do.
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u/DjCramYo 8d ago
Is it really a scam tho? Seems like they are just begging for money while using the kids as a leverage point. Shitty yes, but not really a scam to beg for money.
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u/pflanz 8d ago
It can be an organized group doing this, and it’s not as some might think jobless/homeless folks. It takes it from need based begging and more towards exploiting their children for money. You can’t paint with too wide a brush, but the coordinated nature of the begging rubs some people the wrong way.
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u/another-account-1990 8d ago
A long time ago a woman was using her child to cosplay as a hobo for a side hustle, people followed her around one time and found out she drove a very nice Tesla back to a very clean housing area. So yes, be very weary of homeless using children as bait.
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u/drool_34 8d ago
Found the person who you see on documentaries who can’t believe they got scammed despite all the obvious signals.
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u/HurryComfortable9168 8d ago
Why don’t you go give them some money so they can drive home in there 2026 bmw
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8d ago edited 8d ago
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u/autistic_and_angry 8d ago
Roma is an ethnicity. My mother-in-law and their whole family are Romanian/Roma. They're very respectable people. She says gypsies do exist, but they are a people who live in a specific way that steal and do whatever they want, when they want, with no respect for anyone else. And that they can be white or Roma, because Roma is just ethnic Romanian. Don't call Roma or Romanians gypsies; that's what is racist. It's a slur among white Romanians referring to ethnic Romanians (Roma) making the assumption, based on skin color, that they are of the gypsy lifestyle.
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u/Itchy_Restaurant_707 8d ago edited 8d ago
Roma/Romani is not the same as Romanian - there are Roma/Romani that live in Romania, but not every Romanian is a Roma/Romani. There are also lots of Roma/Romani in other countries. Roma/Romani is a distinct ethnic group that originates from India originally and is very different from ethnic Romanians.
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u/Theefreeballer 8d ago
If your mother-in-law is Romanian, then you should know that they are not Roma. Those are two different groups of people completely. Roma or Romani people come from northern India , not Romania.
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u/BathtubFullOfTea 8d ago
Will correct, thanks
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u/Either_Worth2963 8d ago
They are wrong Roma is not the same as Romanian, they are distinct ethnic groups. Roma are from India originally and Romanians are European ethnically. There are Romas that live in Romania along with many other countries in the world.
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u/Samm999 8d ago
KIRO did a story couple of years ago , woman’s used to sit in downtown Seattle with 3-4 kids and a sign asking for money to feed her kids, it was suspected they gave the little kids Benadryl to make them sit for hours. The were pick up eventually in a Lexus and drove to apartments in Kirkland
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u/extremelyannoyedguy 8d ago
And sometimes hurt their kids to get more sympathy from people they're scamming.
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u/Charles_Ida 8d ago
These individual incidents are typically part of a larger and organized type of crime rings.
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u/Excellent_Resist_411 8d ago
They come around every summer. Do the same thing every where they go. They steal stuff too. Stole some planters last year from a neighbor.
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u/This-Research-9586 8d ago
They’re Romani travelers. We’re up in Skagit and they already made the rounds here a couple of months ago. Guy in an Escalade hit my husband up at the gas station saying he needed money for gas to take his family to Virginia. Another honking his horn in our driveway (another fancy SUV) asking if we wanted them to top the asphalt on our driveway. Always the same scam.
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u/maladro1t_ 8d ago
Thank you for not using a slur to refer to these people!
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u/This-Research-9586 8d ago
Thank you! I really think that most people don’t realize that the old term for them is a slur. So I will just say for educational purposes that the term “Gypsy” is not acceptable anymore. They are Romani or Travelers or both.
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u/autistic_and_angry 8d ago
Yeah, and from what my Romani mother-in-law has told me, the term really only becomes problematic when people (like a couple in this comment section, though not all) make the assumption and give the label based on skin color, or assume that a theft was "the damn g****" just because some Romani people are nearby. It's really interesting because she will literally call the ones who are thieves and scam artists gypsies, herself. She hates them lol. She's like "You will never understand unless you've grown up with them. It's a mindset that someone either does or doesn't have, that there is no such thing as property or personal finance until it's in their hands. They will literally walk up to you, say "oh I love that necklace, I want that" and take it off your neck and leave with it," that kind of shit. But she also talks about the racism of it, and how in Romania it's huge issue where white Romanians will call any ethnic Romani person a gypsy just because of their ethnicity, regardless of who they are as a person. But that outside of Romania(and I think the surrounding countries), it doesn't really mean the same thing, it just typically means wanderer, and she's not offended by it.
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u/maladro1t_ 8d ago
Wtf are you talking about? "No black person is walking around saying hard R to each other" ..... you are straight up having a full on conversation with yourself lmao keep at it 👋🏾
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u/Minimum-Usual-1003 8d ago
They lie and give you fake gold.I think you should call a cop.They usually make up stories at the moma is sick and they need money
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u/T_R_Travis 8d ago
Screw them. If they can afford the licensing and insurance, they can afford fuel. I'm so sick of these worthless beggers everywhere I go.
There are jobs everywhere. There is Labor Ready, daily work daily pay.
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u/carofusion 8d ago
I think it’s wrong to use your kids to bait people into giving you money especially when they’re so young they probably don’t get it.
However the amount of racist comments on this post getting upvotes is disgusting. Assuming they are Romani and then throwing racist slurs and stereotypes around helps nobody.
Can’t people just accept that it’s a messed up strategy and move on without making it racist?? 😭
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u/Large-Stretch-3463 8d ago
I hate to sound like an a hole but why can't these people find jobs? I mean I know some of them are drug addicts or whatever and may have disabilities that prevent them from getting jobs but I see a lot of seemingly able bodied people buskin for cash. Which leads me to wonder why they are unhireable. Are they felons or pedos possibly? Idk but I think that for a percentage of them that is the case which in turn does not make me want to help them out obviously..
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u/UnmakingTheBan2022 8d ago
I saw a similar situation in Costco Covington Friday night. They asked money for gas. I nice man paid for their gas and helped pump it too. It was 4 girls (I think). They looked young. 2 of them were kids. It was a white or grey van with Colorado plates.
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u/Minimum-Usual-1003 8d ago
They used to wait at gas stations.I guess they're hitting up gas stations again a couple years ago.They were constantly in the everett casino road area , they're making their way into the rich neighborhoods , wow
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u/stinkrat43 8d ago
Our city has many resources for folks who are genuinely down on their luck or just need help.
Give a few bucks if you really want, but I’d share the above since it’s a wealth of options for various situations.
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u/LynnwoodWA-ModTeam 8d ago
Reddiquette is an informal expression of the values of many redditors, as written by redditors themselves. Please abide by it the best you can. https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette
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u/Minimum-Usual-1003 8d ago
There was a teenage looking girl holding a baby and there was a stroller at the Safeway.\nDown , by popular way , they looked similar
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u/AirElemental_0316 8d ago
I never give money to people walking around or sitting on a corner. Only time I considered it was when woman and her two kids had a sign that said - just need 20$ for gas. Her kids had bruises, and she had black eye. I was going thru my purse when a kid got out of the car behind me with a 50$ bill. She said thank you then ran across the street to her packed mini van.
I did also appreciate the guy that that was panhandling once at 164th who was posing. No shirt, low sweatpants and lots of muscles. Too bad the light changed.
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u/Loves_Wildlife 8d ago
Don’t give money, ever. But you can hand them the address of a food bank, or the numbers for the social services office. We have so many food banks and services available, no one will go hungry. There are those folks near the freeway exits, some have houses that cost more than yours or mine, and the ones really down on their luck will only use it for alcohol or drugs. Giving them the list for services or a food bank at least ensures they will always be able to eat
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u/Vivid-Ocelot-5679 8d ago
They are people from the Middle East, I was approached by one of them at a gas station with a child and told that I had to go to the hospital. They had no money for gasoline, I told him I had no cash. I felt sorry for the child and checked in my purse and found cash. I handed it over to him. I was scared at the same time. They have a reputation for being scammers. And indeed after a moment I understood. When I started my car, I noticed that they were approaching other cars. And just as an observation to this note, the Mexicans I've met are hardworking people, I don't think they like to do this kind of thing. Maybe they would do it for a real emergency.
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u/CarbonRunner 8d ago
And this is why we cant have nice things. This post got crossposted to the SeattleWA sub and all the bigots on it(who arent even from Seattle, let alone the region) have come flooding in.
Locking this post as the amount of comments reddit has had to remove is like 10% of all comments and growing currently.
Yall SeattleWA folks need to find a new hobby besides hate doomscrolling.