Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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Has anyone ever attempted to take advantage of you in everyday transactions or do you find people are mostly good and there is still honor amongst thieves? (self.Blind)
submitted by nomadbynature120
Terry_Pie 8 points 6y ago
I had a taxi driver short change me 25c the other week. Obviously I didn't care because it's 25c and he probably just miscalculated. I usually card, but for whatever reason I didn't that day.
The only time someone has really tried to take advantage of my sight (or lack thereof) wasn't a financial transaction. I caught a staff member at Sydney airport who was assisting me through the terminal rifling through my wallet after I passed through the security check between the international and domestic terminals. He tried to cover it up with a bollocks excuse, and I checked afterwards and nothing was taken. I only had $20 in AUD in there, but there was something like $100-$150 in JPY (which I later destroyed in a wine related accident, I hate paper money) he probably didn't realise the value of.
The only time someone has really tried to take advantage of my sight (or lack thereof) wasn't a financial transaction. I caught a staff member at Sydney airport who was assisting me through the terminal rifling through my wallet after I passed through the security check between the international and domestic terminals. He tried to cover it up with a bollocks excuse, and I checked afterwards and nothing was taken. I only had $20 in AUD in there, but there was something like $100-$150 in JPY (which I later destroyed in a wine related accident, I hate paper money) he probably didn't realise the value of.
nomadbynature120 [OP] 1 points 6y ago
I've heard the blind fold their paper money in different ways to keep track of what's what. Is that true?
Terry_Pie 3 points 6y ago
No idea mate, I'm from Australia and we use polymer notes of different sizes and colours here. The next generation of notes are being rolled out now and also include tactiles on them indicating their value (I'm not sure if they're actual Braille, Australia's not big on it so the tactiles possibly aren't). That said, I've still enough vision that I can tell the value of notes by sight anyway.
snow671 7 points 6y ago
No, but I use a card so I don't have to worry about this. There are also apps that will tell you what denomination of bills you're pointing your camera at.
I have had plenty of other items stolen, such as my phone.
I have had plenty of other items stolen, such as my phone.
nomadbynature120 [OP] 8 points 6y ago
The ability to go electronic seems to have helped blind people more than I would have realized.
fastfinge 5 points 6y ago
Never been short changed or anything like that. I've been in cabs that have taken the long way, though. These days I run my GPS while I'm in a cab, so I know the rout the drivers taking, and can complain if it's stupid.
nomadbynature120 [OP] 3 points 6y ago
Once again Im seeing that smartphones are helping people in ways I never would have thought.
fastfinge 7 points 6y ago
Smartphones have caused the largest ever increase in the quality of life for blind people. Not only can they do GPS, they can read printed text with OCR, identify money, read ebooks, play music, manage basic tasks like email/calendars, control devices that we could never use before (like thermostats), and help us stay in touch with sighted friends via messaging apps and social networks. Unfortunately, smart phones are still expensive enough that they're out of reach of a lot of blind people. A lot more work needs to be done to make them available to everyone.
zerosledge 2 points 6y ago
Absolutely. Non-rideshare cabbies try that surprisingly often. Though to be fair they do this to my sighted friends too so at least they don't discriminate. :-)
fastfinge 3 points 6y ago
On the other hand, ride share drivers seem to see you have a cane or a dog, and just drive away. The ride sharing companies have no interest in enforcing the access laws, and won't discipline drivers for ignoring them. So pick your evil, I guess.
tymme 2 points 6y ago
I worked in retail and the store was in a semi-crappy neighborhood (always high theft at the store, they rarely had any security, etc). One evening a handful of people bought $1800 worth of stuff with forged bills. We didn't have the bill markers to check and it was subtle enough I didn't see the difference.
No security cameras, so all they had to go on was my poor descriptions. The group knew what they were doing, too, with a good bit of distraction and stuff that I feel could have happened to someone else, but was pretty sure I was targeted.
No security cameras, so all they had to go on was my poor descriptions. The group knew what they were doing, too, with a good bit of distraction and stuff that I feel could have happened to someone else, but was pretty sure I was targeted.
nomadbynature120 [OP] 1 points 6y ago
Awe that's just mean. I hope you didn't get in any trouble.
tymme 2 points 6y ago
The store was insured against that kind of thing. I got written up, but was already looking for something else and didn't bother protesting. We got the bill markers the following week, though.
[deleted] 1 points 6y ago
[deleted]
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