Woman panhandles on Internet

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ^ | Aug. 14, 2002 | VIKKI ORTIZ

[kcpopps]

Woman in debt asks for cash on Net - and gets some

Desperate to pay off $20,000 in bills she racked up buying Prada shoes, Kate Spade purses and regular manicures, a 20-something New Yorker has created a Web site to do what people have done on the streets of the Big Apple for years.

She's panhandling.

So far, savekaryn.com has brought in $4,100 and counting from people from Pardeeville, Wis., to Panama City, Fla.

"I'm really excited . . . it's kind of exploded in the last couple of weeks," said Karyn, who created the site in late June after losing her job as a TV producer that paid her $100,000 a year in New York. She wouldn't give her last name, saying she was concerned for her safety.

Local contributors - who have taken to monitoring Karyn's progress daily on the Web site - say they're happy for the young Internet beggar.

"I know what it's like to have that burden of the debt and to not want to pay finance charges anymore," said the Rev. John Campbell, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Pardeeville.

Campbell sent a single dollar bill - and a note saying, "The entertainment value was at least worth a dollar" - to Karyn's post office box a few weeks ago. Donors can also make contributions directly through the Internet.

Begging on the rise

The idea of Internet begging has been around in various forms since the arrival of the World Wide Web. But the nation's sluggish economy has given the idea momentum.

Yahoo!, a popular Internet search engine, now offers a special section called Begging for Money under its Humor category. As of Tuesday, the section contained 27 different listings, with savekaryn.com marked as one of the most popular.

Savekaryn.com has also inspired a competing Web site - dontsavekaryn.com - in which two guys named Bob and Ben chastise Karyn for her frivolous spending and ask contributors to give to them instead.

Karyn understands the criticism, and in fact, gets quite a bit of it in the hundreds of e-mail messages that come in daily - many of them posted on her site. But she contends that she uses her site to be honest and upfront about her situation, even if she won't reveal her exact age or name.

article continues here

[kcpopps]

here's an excerpt from the front page of dontsavekaryn.com:

You see, there's this other website run by this chick who has no concept of 'fiscal responsibility', and wants you to pay for her bills! And people actually give her money! Lots of it! This has inspired us to create our own website...Don't Save Karyn dot com! We too are Internet panhandlers, but unlike Karyn and the guy who comes up to you on the street about how his car broke down and he has no money for gas, we make no pretenses...if you give us money, in the true spirit of Karyn, we are going to waste it all on stupid stuff!

So if you have an extra buck or two, please send it our way!

LOL...funny stuff (although credit card debt is not funny)

[Leper Messiah]

This is actually a great idea :)

LMAO