A New York advertising executive who, having been asked for spare change by a man who had lost his job and then become homeless, loaned her American Express Platinum card to the man. He spent $25.00 on deoderant, water, and cigarettes (after first checking to see if buying cigarettes would be ok with the card owner), then he returned the card to the executive. You can hear the complete story in the video below.

Inspired by the story, a journalist, without disclosing her occupation, gave prepaid Master Card and Visa cards worth $50.00 or $75.00 to panhandlers, asking each of them to use what they needed and return the card. This article contains the details, but the gist of it is, most of the people bought useful items like food, or toiletries, and then returned the card.

The most interesting thing about this story, is how people mostly returned the cards, and in one case, patiently waited several days in order to return the card. Their behavior contradicts many of the usual assumptions people make about those less fortunate. It reminds me of the fairly common practice in some Southern California towns of using a transit pass to pay for a homeless person or panhandler's bus ride, or the people who give chain restaurant gift cards away, except here, it was a loan, one that was respectful on both sides of the transaction.