In Reply to: Please dont cry, and please just take posted by Charliebalibear on Monday, 28. May 2012 at 19:32 Bali Time:
Roz, you are a kind, generous person. However just the fact that this girl is asking you for help puts her firmly in the scammer corner for me. It is almost a certainty that you are not the first person she has asked, and you will not be the last. Please, do not start sending her money.
Don't send her any money, not even a one-off.
Why not? because it encourages the behavior. If you were living on minimum wage in Australia, would you even dream of asking a client for money? No, of course not. And it is harder to live on minimum in Australia than Indonesia.
Even in the unlikely chance this is her first time asking for money, by her getting a hand out from you, you do her no favours.
As CharlieBaliBear has explained, there is a minimum wage and it is adequate. Even if she earned less than minimum - 700,000 is around $80 by the way - that is also enough to live on for a young girl.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen and heard your story. And unfortunately not one single time has it turned out that the person doing the asking is genuine. That is because genuine people rarely ask for money.
I have however met many very poor Indonesians who make way less than your massage girl, who struggle to feed themselves and their family, but who would never dream of asking for help.
If you want to help, work with a good charity that supports the truly poor. Those who desperately need your help. You can set up child sponsorship for example. You can lend $25 through Kiva and re-lend the same amount over and over as it's paid back. Many other options exist.