At the risk of sounding philosophical, I'd like to point something out, hoping this remonstrance sounds and appears as dignified as it was intended to be.

As a frequent flyer, I've seen a lot of travelers in a fair bit of distress at some point or other. It may be that they're just faking it (scamming), and sometimes, the distress is genuine and/or plain to see (eg, a 1 year old girl bandaged chest down for a dislocated hip and multiple leg fractures I met three months back). I'd like to think of it as me being in that position, and if my problem was genuine, what would I be thinking if people told me I was scamming...for this reason alone, I prefer to reach out and provide aid if I can. While I'm usually a cynic, I completely buy Jenniparks' story, and even assuming she was scamming, where's the problem? If someone wants to help, they go right ahead, and if they don't want to, they should probably stop getting involved. Is there much to lose?

Am not in the habit of preaching, but in this case, I think reading about the Ethic of Reciprocity might just help.

Go Jenniparks!