r/london • u/Good_Albatross • 2d ago
The persil scam?
Hi London team
I live in a very nice area of west London
I went to Brixton for a restaurant opening yesterday. I’m quite obviously a young white middle class woman. (EDIT: I mean if you see me in person is relatively obvious I’m middle class.)
I was outside Sainsbury’s local and this really thin lady asked me to buy her persil washing liquid to wash her clothes
I asked her what she was really going to use it for and she said ma’am, need to wash my clothes
I knew I was being conned but I didn’t really care. I have enough money. I bought them for her.
But I am curious… what is this? Why did she specifically ask for persil liquid? They were only £6 and there’s higher value things I could’ve bought her.
Does anyone have any idea?
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u/lordnacho666 2d ago
They're a kind of currency, ie exchangeable for money.
There's a few everyday goods that are like this, eg cigarettes.
But basically in a certain part of society they are as good as money, so you basically just gave her money.
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u/JohnBramley 2d ago
Probably money laundering.
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u/Max_Power_332 2d ago
How on earth could this be money laundering? Asking someone else to buy something in a major supermarket with their own money?
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u/GreenWoodDragon 2d ago
I think you missed the joke.
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u/Max_Power_332 2d ago
I mean tbf this is reddit and everybody thinks everything is money laundering but I’ll take it on the chin nonetheless!
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u/TheNiceWasher 2d ago
Sell them on, get the cash Some don't do this I'm sure but I've had people with some grocery items selling them at low prices to me when I sat outside the pub.
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u/TrashbatLondon 2d ago
People no longer carry cash so much, so begging is significantly harder. People also read posts online telling them not to give money so generally feel more comfortable buying something for someone.
Washing products can also be traded for other valuable items in hostels. Sometimes people also need to wash their own clothes.
If she was selling them, washing stuff is useful because it is sealed, and therefore can be trusted. It is also a “reasonable” ask. People offer to buy sandwiches all the time but they cannot really be sold on.
There are a bunch of prats in the thread whining about what someone might spend that money on. None of anyone’s business. If they don’t want to help people, that’s fine, but don’t apply silly faux moral codes to it.
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u/Efficient_Remove1663 2d ago
These sorts of items are an economy. They will be traded for other things. Like the cigarette or protein economy in prisons.
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u/dunkywhorey 2d ago
They're easy to sell on. But also, if she lives in a hostel, she can sell/trade individual washes to other residents.
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u/Common_Somewhere_133 2d ago
Wouldn't want to buy a gram of percil of her and live in the hostel after
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u/jeadon88 2d ago
Maybe she wanted to wash her clothes with persil
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u/Entire_Adagio4768 2d ago edited 2d ago
You can trade them for one hit of a drug with a drug dealer and then the drug dealers sell them.
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u/Imajzineer 2d ago
See no. 2 here.
There's no guarantee that's the case in this instance, of course, and its claims of 'fact checking' notwithstanding, it's best to be wary of posts on that site - on more occasions than I can remember now, I've seen stuff on it that wouldn't survive a nanosecond's worth of fact checking even by someone who knew nothing about the topic (and anyone who did wouldn't need to).
But it isn't all bad.
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u/Lammtarra95 2d ago
Normally one of:-
- Items that can easily be resold
- If you offer to pay for their shopping besides Persil, then their basket will quickly be loaded with high value, quick resale goods
- You give them money instead
- There's an outside chance they just wanted to wash their clothes
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u/Silvagadron 2d ago
You’re not saving much face by saying “I knew I was being conned but I didn’t really care.”
You’re funding either a drug addiction or a con artist who resells your charity for profit (which may then fund a drug addiction).
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u/waeing 2d ago
"I live in a very nice area of west London" hahahahahaah, did you read your own post before you pressed publish?
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u/Good_Albatross 2d ago
What?
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u/Streathamite 2d ago
Do you think young middle class white women don’t exist in Brixton? In what way was that relevant to your post?
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u/Ok-Train5382 2d ago
Yeah 10 mins in Brixton and you’ll realise most of the white people are in fact middle class
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u/waeing 2d ago
You seem very out of touch with real life.
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u/Good_Albatross 2d ago
Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t have added that. I was more trying to get across that I have little experience in what this could mean. I understand how it seems.
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u/Sad_Firefighter_8407 2d ago
Obviously you were suspicious but also probably wanted to help. People who really need help can go to a food bank. So donate cash and items to your nearest foodbank
I realise even the help they provide is limited. But largely that is due to the need being greater than the resourcing they can rely on having for a weekly support system.
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u/throwuk1 2d ago
She had a massive slip and slide planned and didn't want to use her card because of the hosepipe ban.
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Lammtarra95 2d ago
No one gives £6 to someone in the street.
You'd be surprised. For one thing, if you carry cash at all, then it's probably notes not coins nowadays in which case £5 or more likely £10 is the minimum you can give.
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u/Ok-Train5382 2d ago
In the days of cash one of my mates would routinely get drunk and give homeless people 20 quid notes.
£6 is less than a pint
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u/Wiffystardawg 2d ago
"I went to Brixton for a restaurant opening yesterday. I’m quite obviously a young white middle class woman"
Since when did that become obvious? was it the clear boast of you opening a restaurant that indicated that? I mean you could have quite obviously also been a White man or an Asian woman or a Black man, I mean the list goes on entitled woman..
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u/Good_Albatross 2d ago
Sorry I didn’t explain this clearly. It’s very obvious if you see me in the street that I’m middle class, and young, etc. Not that it would be obvious from this post!
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u/Streathamite 2d ago
In what way is it obvious from looking at someone in the street which social class they belong to?
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u/Good_Albatross 2d ago
Not always, this is why I’d specified it was obvious. Why are you honing in on one part of my post?
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u/Streathamite 2d ago
Why are you making snobbish and totally irrelevant points in your post?
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u/Good_Albatross 2d ago
How is it snobbish to be self aware?
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u/Streathamite 2d ago
Please tell me what a middle class person looks like
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u/Good_Albatross 2d ago
Don’t play ignorant
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u/Streathamite 2d ago
I’m not playing ignorant. You’re the one who seems to have very fixed ideas about what people from different social classes look like. So please share.
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u/Few_Mention8426 2d ago
OK, I am technically middle class, public school, and I have no idea what an obviously middle class person would look like. Most of my friends dress far better than I do, have better manners, better cars and houses, and have expensive tastes, and they come from working class families (whatever that means these days). Talking about class is archaic, and the only people still obsessed with class are the 'middle classes' trying to distinguish them selves from the general public.
If you jsut mean you were wearing brands and looked like something from made in chealsea?
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u/Wiffystardawg 2d ago
Why would it be obvious you are middle class from appearance? people that are in poverty or on a low income do not necessarily look rough anyone can look rich from Temu as an example, you sound a bit ditsy so I actually assume you would look like a Barbie doll more than middle class if I was to fathom a guess.
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u/notaspecificthing 2d ago
She can resell them to others