Tyler Coates often uses his expired grad school ID to save money, because he is smart and thrifty (“I have no shame, because I also don’t have a lot of money”). (He is not alone!)

While in line to buy play tickets this weekend, he encountered an old-student-ID-user’s worst nightmare—a ticket clerk who actually cares about rules and regulations, ugh. Tyler made it out alive with student tickets in hand(no expiration date on his ID, so lucky ) but a woman in front of him was REJECTED.

I lost my student ID many years ago, but I would never have ever used it to for EXACTLY THIS REASON, even though this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this happening, ever ever ever. Ever.

In this installment of “What Would You Do?,” a young woman encounters a stranded family while on a day trip. Here’s Dawn:

I was on a day trip for protesting in Harrisburg Pennsylvania against medicare/medicaid cuts on a warm October day. On the way home we stopped just outside of Harrisburg at a convenience store. The four of us got some hot food and ate it outside at one of the tables.

The whole time we were eating, one particular car had pulled in and didn’t leave. There were two women and two small kids in the car. We took about an hour to eat, the car never left and the people in the car stayed put as well. As the four of us walked past the sitting car on the way to ours, the driver asked if she could use my cellphone because her battery had died. I handed it to her and stuck close to the car in case she thought about taking off.

I could hear her telling the person not to call the number back because she was borrowing a phone. After she gave the phone back and thanked me, I asked if there was something I could help with. She said no, that she was trying to get a hold of someone to bring her some gas or money because she was about an hour away from home and was on empty. I told her “good luck,” and mentioned how well behaved the two kids were in the backseat. The women both turned around and smiled at the kids and said, “they have their moments.” We finished loading in to the van.

After I thought about it for a minute or two I got a five and five ones out of my wallet and walked over to the ladies and said, “have a safe rest of your trip” as I handed them the cash. They seemed floored that a stranger was helping them get home. As we gassed up our van, they pulled up to the pump a few over from us, and put the $10 in their tank. If it was a scam to make 10 bucks, they earned it waiting in the car for the time it took for us to finish our meal.

There are scams, and there are people who are genuinely out of luck, and I would have viewed this situation in the latter. Yes, I would have given the woman my iPhone to use, and yes, I would have been a little afraid that she would have driven off with it, too. It’s human nature to feel on guard when talking to strangers. But after listening to the phone call, and seeing the kids in the backseat of the car, I would have handed the family some money—just as Dawn did. I would have been happy to see them able to put gas in their cars. And I would have saluted them before hitting the road.

Email me your WWYD experiences to me with “WWYD” in the subject line. See previous installments.

On my home from the office last night, a kid, about 10 years old or so, got on my subway car and announced that he was selling packages of cookies for a dollar to raise money to buy school supplies.

I’ve heard this song and dance before, of course: A kid gets on the subway car and announces that he or she is selling M&Ms for his or her basketball team, or so that he or she can stay off the street and go to college. It’s an easy story to fall for if you haven’t already heard it a million times, which I have, and why I’ve come to train myself to ignore the announcement, burying my head into my book, or whatever I’m reading on my phone.

I’m a sucker for children’s literary programs. Having books and great stories around me while growing up is the reason why I’m the person I am today. Books gave my introverted boyhood something to latch on to. They gave me dreams and sense of adventure—even if that sense of adventure bloomed in my imagination, and not actually in the real world. My family couldn’t afford to go on very many vacations while I was growing up, but I could go to Middle Earth or Narnia or become cast away on an deserted island any time I wanted. It’s why I give to Dave Eggers’s non-profit, and why I do a little volunteering every year.

When this kid walked around the car and politely asked straphangers to buy his cookies so he could buy school supplies and books, it got my attention—even if it was just a remix of that same song these kids perform throughout the year. So as he approached my section of the car, I waved him down.

“Kid, what do you need?” I asked.

“I’m selling these cookies to buy school supplies and books before school starts,” he repeated.

“Yes, but what do you need?”

“Uhhhhhhhhh.”

“I’m getting off in a few stops and there’s a Staples and Barnes & Noble nearby. I’ll buy you what you need.”

“Ummm. Do you want to buy all the cookies?”

A few thoughts ran through my head. The first was that, okay, fine, this kid was not trying to earn money to buy books or school supplies. The “kid selling stuff on the subway” story has been covered several times by various news organizations, including an investigation by ABC News that showed that most of these kids are exploited by adults, and are given very little in return. They’re Artful Dodgers and Charley Bates and Oliver Twists working for Fagin.

The second thing that happened was that I had a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde moment where I wanted to pull the kid aside and tell him that when a stranger offers to take you somewhere—even when it seems like the stranger has good intentions—you need to turn the stranger down because, well, for obvious reasons that our parents and teachers taught us when we’re kids: Stranger Danger.

He waited for an answer. By the look on the other subway riders’ faces, they also didn’t know what to make of me, and waited for my answer as well.

I opened my wallet and took out a five-dollar bill.

“Here.”

“Okay, you get five cookies.”

“No, I don’t need the cookies. Just take the money and try to do something good with it.”

The kid moved on to the next subway car. I got off the train a few stations later, and made my way home, shaking my head as I walked along. What a world.

Photo: qwrrty

Before long, at least half of the artwork in Howell’s shop was White’s. As White’s empire mounted with more high-profile deals—a tribute to Princess Diana and Warner Bros.’ 70th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz—so did Howell’s sales. Within several years after they had begun working together, Howell was selling upward of $60,000 of his work per month. Howell got herself a new house on a cul-de-sac in a gated community and a white BMW.

—Do you trust the painter who says his paintings were being forged by his gallery owner, or the gallery owner who says the painter hired ninjas to come attack her and steal back his art? Tricky.

I stared at this subway ad for my whole commute today and it made me really, really sad. Especially since for each ad like this (there is a series of them! One man spent $25,000 on a meaningless degree and not one of his credits is transferrable!), there are approximately 38409823 ads for for-profit schools and vocational programs promising new lives and new beginnings. Are some of them okay? Sure. Are many of them not okay? Indeed. Here are ten tips from the city on what to check out before you give any institution one cent of your money. This is the tip that I think is most relevant, because the promise of a guaranteed nursing or welding job is really, really attractive when you’re on the train going to a job you hate (I am not experiencing this at the moment, but I have historically, for sure. Why yes, I DO want an EXCITING NEW CAREER in Criminal Justice.)

Avoid schools that “guarantee employment” after you graduate.
A school can’t guarantee that you’ll get a job when you graduate. Many
times, the schools that make these types of promises don’t actually place
you in a job.

Last night I got a phone call from an unknown phone number, and because I had 45 minutes before my friend’s storytelling show started, I picked up. An automated voice welcomed me to a political survey. I was about to hang up when the computerized man voice sweetened the deal: “If you answer our 30-second survey, you will receive a free two-night, three-day cruise to the Bahamas courtesy of Caribbean Cruise Lines.”

Partly because I was killing time, partly because I’ve always curious how these “too good to be true” things actually work, and partly because I thought I deserved a relaxing cruise to the Bahamas, I stayed on the line and answered the questions. (Though it ended up taking 90 seconds, I was not offered three free cruises, as I then felt entitled to.) The voice thanked me for my participation and I was asked to press one to be connected to a Caribbean representative to claim my prize. With 43 minutes until show time, I pressed it. I had no idea what I was getting in to, but I’ll give you a hint: It was not a free cruise. 

A woman named Shirley (her name has been changed) picked up, welcomed me to Caribbean Cruise Lines, and thanked me profusely for doing my American duty of answering a political phone survey. If I was the hundredth caller she dealt with that evening, her voice gave no indication.

“What is your name?”

“Matthew.”

“Can I call you Matt?”

“Absolutely.” Things were going well.

“Can I have your email address, Matt?”

“Sure. M…H…P.”

“Okay…”

“5…0…3…0.”

“Got it…”

“At Gmail dot com.” I was not at all expecting what Shirley said next, mostly because it made no sense:

“Whoa-whoa! Someone’s living fast!”

The fact that Shirley correlated owning a Gmail account with some sort of exciting thrill-a-minute lifestyle was so unexpected and bemusing I still have no idea what to make of it. I like the idea of Shirley imagining me, a Gmail user, in an Aston Martin, my trunk full of priceless stolen art and the baron’s buxom wife in the passenger seat pouring us both glasses of champagne as we weave the hairpin turns of the Monaco coast:

“Darling,” I say through my pencil thin mustache.

“Yes, my love?” the baroness coos into my ear.

“Hand me my phone. I need to check my Gmail account.” I glance at the odometer. We are going 140 miles per hour but with the baron’s Aston Martin, it feels no more than a leisurely 40.

She stiffens. “My maniacally jealous husband has inevitably discovered the theft, we have a plane to board to Switzerland in twenty minutes, and the police have no doubt searched your villas in Paris, Moscow, and Buenos Aires. Rival spies are probably threatening your family, and are piecing together your decades of malfeasance and turncoat activities. Everyone you have ever known and loved may be dead. Why would you want to check your trifling email?”

“Because, dear,” I say through a drag of a my cigarillo, my cashmere scarf flapping indiscriminately in the cool, brine-soaked air. I know she is an assassin sent to seduce and kill me. I knew it before she even did. “Because I am trying to get a free three-day, two-night cruise in the Bahamas, courtesy of Caribbean Cruise Lines.”

Shirley asks me if I’m still on the line, and then asks me where I live. I tell her Brooklyn. She mentions how she used to live in New York, with her sister on Grand Concourse. I’m not really sure where that is, but say, “That’s great!” very enthusiastically. Later I confirm that it’s somewhere in the Bronx, the only borough I have never been to (what I was ever doing in Staten Island is another story entirely).

Shirley launches into her pitch, and even though she may be reading off a script, she totally makes it her own. When she gets to the onboard casino, she mentions that if I hit it big at bingo, I should not forget who helped me book my cruise. I laugh, and I imagine she has only ever said this to me. A fast-living Gmail man like me is no stranger to lady luck.

The offer keeps getting better. I have 18 months to book my cruise from the time I accept the offer. All entertainment and food is included. Shirley tells me that I will be sailing on the newest Caribbean cruise ship that is literally a floating resort. I will have access to a personal concierge 24 hours a day. She keeps asking me little questions to make sure I’m engaged and uses my name constantly, like, “Does that seem good to you, Matt?” and, “Do you like complimentary live comedy shows, Matt?” The answer is always yes.

There is something that Shirley keeps on mentioning, and that is just how, exactly, Caribbean Cruise Lines afford to be so generous with this offer. After all, I only listened to four questions about President Obama and punched four numbers and I’m being treated to a three-day, two-night floating buffet.

“We think the best way of advertising is through word-of-mouth. Do you know why that is?”

“Because you trust the person telling you, because you know them.” I feel like I’m being quizzed, and I want to impress Shirley.

“You’re absolutely right. I like a man who has things figured out,” Shirley says. I start to wonder if I would rather have Shirley in my Aston Martin rather than the baroness. To my knowledge, Shirley doesn’t want to kill me. At least not yet.

At this point in the conversation, I’ve interpreted the familiarity of Shirley and her kindness as a tacit approval that by being one of the few people brave enough to answer questions and stay on the line, I have scored a free cruise.

After listing the impressive amenities that my free cruise will entail, Shirley mentions the costs I must incur. She frames it as costs that Caribbean Cruise Lines can’t avoid—a customs tax levied by the federal government. She quickly explains I’ll need identification, to avoid lingering on the money.

“Do you have a passport or signed birth certificate?”

“I have a passport.”

“Wow! Look at you!” There isn’t a trace of irony in her tone. Between my Gmail account and passport, I am leading quite the rock and roll lifestyle.

“Love, do you have my passport?” I ask the baroness. We are on a large yacht, sailing for the North African coast where I have a private plane waiting. The police had cleverly scuttled our Swiss itinerary.

“Which one? You have nine different versions in your valise,” she says as she frantically looks through my bag, looking for my secret notebook, no doubt, but she won’t find it there.

The memories of my past false identities waft through my mind on cool Mediterranean air. “Glenn Vanderloon” to get into East Berlin in the early 80s, “Sergei D’Ambrogio” to fund the revolutionaries in Panama years later.

“The American one, dearest,” I say from the captain’s deck. “Jack Lawrence, I believe.”

She is flustered, and her mascara has begun to fade. “What does it matter which one?”

“I need it to get on my free three-day, two-night cruise to the Bahamas,”

“But—”

“Courtesy of Caribbean Cruise Lines,” I finish over her interruption.

“But we’re already on a beautiful yacht, perhaps the most beautiful vessel in all the world.”

I gaze out over the vast sea, knowing in twelve hours we will find her terminal in the dusky Tunisian evening where I will enjoy a fine cigar and decadent meats. “Yes, sweetheart. But this one doesn’t have complimentary live comedy shows.”

Back in the real world, Shirley launches back into how Caribbean relies on word of mouth for advertising, and how she’s confident I’ll recommend Caribbean to everyone I know and even give the cruise line repeat business myself. I have six minutes until my friend’s show. I’ve been on the phone for quite some time. She casually asks for my credit card number.

“I’m not comfortable giving that information over the phone,” I say.

“It’s completely safe. Your credit card company will not issue any funds without a verbal confirmation from you.”

“I don’t see why you need it right now, especially if I have 18 months to book.” A noted art thief and international conman can’t be too careful.

“It’s like if you were going to pick up a pair of Jordans at Foot Locker because they were 50% off during a promotion. They wouldn’t let you say you were going to come back in six months and get them for the same price. This $59 charge is to show your interest and reserve your room sometime in the next 18 months.”

“I’m still not comfortable,” I say, unable to combat her very logical reasoning. Where was suave Sergei D’Ambrogio when I needed him?

Without batting an eye or ever breaking her meticulously polite and amicable tone, she says, “Let me see if I can help you out.”

I am put on hold. Shirley is doing me a solid, subverting the system to get my free cruise. During this brief time to myself, it occurs to me that perhaps the political survey was a red herring. Would my opinions really be factored into a Time graphic or was it all just a set up, to make me feel patriotic before signing up for the ultimate American vacation? Just as I start to piece things together, I’m on the line with a manager.

“Hello this is Tim (name changed). I heard you had some questions about using a credit card over the phone?”

Tim’s voice is very polite but it’s a little more worn, perhaps because he doesn’t get to butter up potential clients but has to deal with the skeptics. He assures me it’s 100% safe. His voice is kind, and I almost believe him.

“Shirley says your from Brooklyn,” he says, and I can tell from his voice it’s not because he’s trying to angle me into payment but because he’s generally bored in his South Florida call center.

“I’m originally from Massachusetts, but now I live in Brooklyn.”

“I grew up in Brooklyn. Where do you live?”

“Clinton Hill,” I say in a slight white lie. I do technically live in Fort Greene, but literally a block away from the border.

“Oh, I grew up in Brownsville.” Tim says.

I know Brownsville is not a great area of Brooklyn, or at best, it’s remote from the bright lights of Manhattan. And I’ve never even been to the Bronx. And here I am, just $59 away from a free cruise that I don’t need or deserve. My dreams of luxury are ludicrously based in Monaco and Aston Martins and baronesses with generous cleavage. Through a 36-minute phone call for a free cruise, I’ve learned more about myself than any phone survey ever could about White House fiscal policy.

“This call is being recorded, and your bank will get a copy of this for security purposes. This is absolutely safe,” Tim reminds me.

His voice is so comforting, so assuring—I want to believe him, but something feels off. Like the fact that he claims he would send a tape of this conversation to my bank, or that hundred dollar cruises would just be given away to people burning time until a storytelling show. My mother once made me print out, read, and summarize the entirety of eBay’s terms and agreements before letting me use her credit card online. I was eleven years old and I didn’t even win the bid, making the whole explication de texte an exercise in futility, but a hard-earned lesson. How far had I strayed from her anti-scam teachings. With my wits about me, I backpedal.

“Sorry, I’m just not going to buy anything tonight. Thank you for spending all this time with me,” I say to Tim.

“Have a good night.”

“You too.” I hang up the phone. It’s two minutes until my friend’s show, and I’ve got a lot to think about. I don’t doubt that I could have booked a cruise, but there are undoubtedly sneaky charges or a mandated eight hour shift in the bilge room snuggled into the fine print would make any deal far from free. Shirley and Tim aren’t the master thieves–they are likely watching the clock as closely as I am, me until my friend’s show and those two until they can go home and stop foisting a predatory too-good-to-be-true promotion on unsuspecting housewives and bored twenty-somethings. Somehow, this makes me feel far worse than assuming Shirley and Tim are running a con out of a garage in Boca Raton. I hope they aren’t paid on commission. My fast Gmail life provides no comfort or conclusion: All is quiet somewhere in the middle of the dusky Mediterranean. My friend’s show is quite good.

Matt Powers lives in NYC. 

Something is afoot in New Zealand! Four people (at least!) in two weeks received packages from Paris containing HAIRCARE PRODUCTS and CASH. Three people received HAIR DRYERS, and an additional person received a package with HAIR CUTTING SHEERS. Two of the gifts came with identical notes: “Thank you for being a true friend.” The Guardian breathlessly brings us up to date on this truly baffling case.

Theories posited by authorities:

“Maybe they have come from someone who won the lottery over there. Or it could be that it’s a nice prank.”

Also suggested:

In a press conference in Greymouth, police suggested the apparently random acts of long-distance kindness could in fact have been a dry run for a money-laundering or drug-trafficking operation.

Sounds serious! However:

Experts had failed to find any concealed drugs in the parcels.

Well then. At least we can be thankful for this:

It was unlikely to be an elaborate marketing stunt, [Senior Sergeant Allyson Ealam said New Zealand customs and Interpol] said.

INTERPOL IS ON IT. (Also it’s totally going to turn out to be a marketing stunt.) (Either that or an art project.)

1. Steal manhole covers and sell them on the blackmarket for $30

2. Sell walrus tusks, stolen paintings, and coca plants out of your cabin in Anchorage, Alaska

3. Convince 75 children to pay you to be in the (non-existant) Olympics opening ceremony dance troupe 

Sarah Phillips wrote a column for a sports betting site called Covers and then got a gig writing for ESPN. She said she was a college student, but some people didn’t think she was who she said she was, mostly because: 1. where did she come from? and 2. her various pictures didn’t appear to be the same person. Conspiracy? Scam? WHAT IS GOING ON? Deadspin did some investigative reporting into this mystery and found a big mess and several people who she scammed out of money and social media accounts (which: these have value now, FYI). A short list of her known crimes:

1. Didn’t pay the agreed $500 for Eric Nilsen’s Twitter account.
2. Took $4,100 in payments from “Matt” for ads that never ran.
3. Stole a college-kid’s Facebook page.
4. Told at least two people they could make $1,000 per post blogging for her new site (LOL).

Photo: flickr/charlesdyer

Which: I thought we all kind of figured that? Anyway, not only is Michael Prozer (Season 2, Episode 2 — we’re going way back here) not worth the $400 million he claimed he was worth on the show, he isn’t even worth the $21 million he paid a bank employee to forge that he was worth (presumably, he did have the $25,000 he paid said employee). It’s all very complicated — fraud is always very complicated — but basically: dude faked that he had money so he could get more money, then faked that he had money so he could get a date, and then got caught and now is going to jail for up to 30 years.

The Tampa Bay Observer is all over this story. This article from today’s paper is incredible, especially considering it was read almost exclusively by grandparents over coffee and grapefruit this morning:

“Prozer appeared on ‘Millionaire Matchmaker’ in April 2009, portraying himself as a successful online entrepreneur looking for a beautiful, dark-haired life partner who would mesh with his high-flying lifestyle and help him parent his two young sons.

Prozer showed off what he said were his private plane and 33,000-square-foot mansion, all paid for, he said, with his earnings from his Internet company that facilitated credit payments for people in South America.

The star of the show, matchmaker Patti Stanger, described Prozer as ‘trailer park trash.’ She pleaded with him to let her change his bowl haircut, put him in nice clothes or get a plastic surgeon to give him a chin implant. But Prozer said no, then showed up at a dating mixer wearing what Stanger described as a ‘hick outfit’ looking like a ‘doofus clown.’

His date with ‘Elana’ went spectacularly badly and will probably be most remembered for the fact that he urinated behind some bushes and then splashed his date with water while riding a Jet Ski.

AMAZING. And yet, it’s not just entertainment. Some lessons are hidden within.

Lessons:
1. Fraud is complicated
2. If you commit fraud, you’re going to get caught
3. Especially if you go on TV and brag about being richer than you are/can be
4. The Tampa Bay Observer is a great newspaper
5. Patti Stanger knows exactly what she’s talking about

Oh, and one more thing:

“He was jailed after a judge revoked his bail when he lied about an attempt to buy two luxury cars under the corporate name, GFYS Consolidated Holdings, an acronym for ‘Go F— Yourself.’”

Photo Credit: flickr/leo!