I've had people approach me to ask for a dollar to make an emergency long distance phone call, or $20 to buy a Greyhound bus ticket home. Sometimes I've then offered to go with them to the phone and pay for their entire call, or to the bus station and purchase the ticket to go home that they claimed they needed to buy. It's remarkable how rapidly they lose interest in speaking to me at that point.

hersheymom, it would be so easy for you to demonstrate your situation is genuine. Call Dan at WebFlyer or anybody else at WebFlyer. Give your name, your mom's name, the hospital, phone number of the doctor, etc. You can ask for total confidentiality from Dan that he not release any of the information to anybody on this board. It's hardly asking a lot of you.

My previous company had a program where employees who needed emergency time off in order to provide medical care or just be with close relatives who were dying could get vacation time donated to them by other employees to reduce the financial burden on them. But it was critical to me that such a program be administered by HR, who can be relied upon to maintain confidentiality but at the same time verify the facts. That's just the way life works in the real world....

To those who say that they are disappointed at fellow FTers' responses: I think that actually most everybody has remained rather civil. The most uncivil tone has been in those messages accusing the rest of us of being angry toward hersheymom, in my opinion. Skepticism is a healthy thing, and it's not the same thing as always assuming the worst about human nature.