List of scams
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Scams and confidence tricks are difficult to classify, because they change often and often contain elements of more than one type. Throughout this list, the perpetrator of the confidence trick is called the "con artist" or simply "artist", and the intended victim is the "mark". Particular scams are mainly directed toward elderly people, as they may be gullible and sometimes inexperienced or insecure, especially when the scam involves modern technology such as computers and the internet. This list should not be considered complete but covers the most common examples.
Get-rich-quick schemes
The "Money-Box Scheme"
Victor Lustig, a con artist born in Austria-Hungary, designed and sold a "money box" which he claimed could print $100 bills using blank sheets of paper.[1][self-published source] A victim, sensing huge profits and untroubled by ethical implications, would buy the machine for a high price—from $25,000 to $102,000.[1] Lustig stocked the machine with six to nine genuine $100 bills for demonstration purposes, but after that it produced only blank paper.[2] By the time victims realized that they had been scammed, Lustig was long gone.[1][2]
Salting
This trick was featured in the HBO series Deadwood, when Al Swearengen and E. B. Farnum trick Brom Garret into believing gold is to be found on the claim Swearengen intends to sell him. This con was also featured in Sneaky Pete. In season 3 of the TV series Leverage, the team salts a mine with coltan in order to run a con on two greedy and corrupt luminaries.
Spanish Prisoner
The
Many con artists employ extra tricks to keep the victim from going to the police. A common ploy of investment scammers is to encourage a mark to use money concealed from tax authorities. The mark cannot go to the authorities without revealing that they have committed tax fraud. Many swindles involve a minor element of crime or some other misdeed. The mark is made to think that they will gain money by helping fraudsters get huge sums out of a country (the classic advance-fee fraud/Nigerian scam); hence a mark cannot go to the police without revealing that they planned to commit a crime themselves.
In a twist on the Nigerian fraud scheme, the mark is told they are helping someone overseas collect debts from corporate clients. Large
This scam can be seen in the film The Spanish Prisoner.
Persuasion tricks
Persuasion fraud, when fraudsters persuade people only to target their money, is an old-fashioned type of fraud.
Grandparent scam
A grandparent gets a call or e-mail from someone claiming to be their grandchild, saying that they are in trouble. For example, the scammer may claim to have been arrested and require money wired, or gift cards purchased for bail, and asks the victim not to tell the grandchild's parents, as they would "only get upset." The call is fraudulent impersonation, the name of the grandchild typically obtained from social media postings as well as obituaries listed either in newspapers or from a funeral home's website. Any money wired out of the country is gone forever.[4]
Romance scam
The traditional
In some cases, an online dating site
Fortune-telling fraud
One traditional swindle involves
This scam got a new lease on life in the electronic age with the virus hoax. Fake anti-virus software falsely claims that a computer is infected with viruses, and renders the machine inoperable with bogus warnings unless blackmail is paid. In the Datalink Computer Services incident, a mark was fleeced of several million dollars by a firm that claimed that his computer was infected with viruses, and that the infection indicated an elaborate conspiracy against him on the Internet.[8][9][10] The alleged scam lasted from August 2004 through October 2010 and is estimated to have cost the victim $6–20 million.[8][11]
Gold brick scams
Gold brick scams involve selling a tangible item for more than it is worth; they are named for the scam of selling the victim an allegedly golden ingot which turns out to be gold-coated lead.
Green goods
The
Pig in a poke (cat in a bag)
Pig in a poke originated in the late Middle Ages. The con entails a sale of what is claimed to be a small pig, in a poke (bag). The bag actually contains a cat (not particularly prized as a source of meat). If one buys the bag without looking inside it, the person has bought something of less value than was assumed, and has learned first-hand the lesson caveat emptor.[citation needed] "Buying a pig in a poke" has become a colloquial expression in many European languages, including English, for when someone buys something without examining it beforehand.[12] In some regions the "pig" in the phrase is replaced by "cat", referring to the bag's actual content, but the saying is otherwise identical.[citation needed] This is also said to be where the phrase "letting the cat out of the bag" comes from, although there may be other explanations.[citation needed]
In Portuguese or Spanish speaking countries, the "pig" in the phrase is replaced by a hare or jackrabbit. A victim thinks he is buying a hare, when in reality he is buying a cat, hence the expression "gato por lebre" (in Portuguese) or "gato por liebre" (in Spanish).[citation needed]
Thai gems
The Thai
A similar trick in Thailand involves lying about the presence of ivory in ornaments. Tricksters offer a non-ivory ornament for sale next to a sign in English reading "It is strictly forbidden to transport ivory into the United States, and the seller assumes no responsibility". This may make the buyer believe he or she has stumbled upon "forbidden fruit", tempting him to purchase the ornament, usually small and easy to hide, and smuggle it out of the country. The buyer would later discover that the ornament is made out of bone matter with no trace of ivory whatsoever.[citation needed]
White-van speakers
In the white van speaker scam, low-quality loudspeakers are sold—stereotypically from a white van—as expensive units that have been greatly discounted. The salesmen explain the ultra-low price in a number of ways; for instance, that their employer is unaware of having ordered too many speakers, so they are sneakily selling the excess behind the boss's back. The "speakermen" are ready to be haggled down to a seemingly minuscule price, because the speakers they are selling, while usually functional, actually cost only a tiny fraction of their "list price" to manufacture. The scam may extend to the creation of Web sites for the bogus brand, which usually sounds similar to that of a respected loudspeaker company. They will often place an ad for the speakers in the "For sale" Classifieds of the local newspaper, at the exorbitant price, and then show the mark a copy of this ad to "verify" their worth.[citation needed]
A "trade show" variation of a similar scam might involve a scammer pretending to have car troubles on the side of a highway, trying to hail passing vehicles. When a good Samaritan pulls over, the person claims to be a foreign citizen visiting the country to participate in some local trade show. The person claims that they are about to leave the country after the show (e.g., are on their way to the airport), but their car has run out of fuel and they have no local currency to refill it or hire a taxi. At the same time they demonstrate that the trunk of their car is full of goods, which they claim have been taken from their just-dismantled company booth after the show. These goods are typically compact popular items like electronics or power tools. They offer these items to the mark at a "significantly reduced" price, allegedly just to raise some local cash in order to "get to the airport". (Sometimes the scammer tries to sell a valuable personal jewelry item, like a gold ring off his finger.) In most cases the items are technically genuine, but worth incomparably less than what the scammer attempts to sell them for. In a well-prepared version of this scam the scammer is often a true foreigner, speaking with genuine accent and possessing good mastery of their respective foreign language.
People shopping for
Iraqi Dinar
Iraqi currency is sold to would-be investors with the belief that economic/financial circumstances will drastically increase the value of their investment. In fact there is no credible rationale or information to indicate that those circumstances will materialize or, if they do materialize, that they will have significant effect on the value of the currency. Moreover, the dealers sell currency to these investors at substantial mark-up such that a significant appreciation of the currency would be required just to make their investment break even.[14][15]
Noorseekee
The Noorseekee (нурсики) scam is a multiple-round variant of the gold brick scam which has entered Russian urban legends from unverifiable incidents during the Afghanistan conflict. The scam consists of multiple "seller" and "buyer" rounds, the sellers and buyers both being Soviet officers in on the con. The "sellers" initially offered a small amount of a mysterious item—small shiny gold-colored cups called "noorseekee"—at a prominent bazaar for cheap ("seller" round). The first "seller" round ended with a minor deal, as the merchants were traditionally expected to buy at least a sample of a new and unknown good "just in case". Then the "buyers" visited the same bazaar demanding any noorseekee available and credulously paying more than the "sellers" had demanded. The merchants, making easy profits, were thus much more enthusiastic toward the next "sellers". Noorseekee were small, stackable, reasonably durable, light-weight and would neither spoil nor rust, making the trade especially easy.
This went on for several rounds to build trust, form messaging pathways and establish the noorseekee as a special ware or even a Soviet-specialized secondary currency. On the pre-final round the "buyers" emptied the bazaar's collective supply of noorseekee and left with the announcement of returning soon with an exorbitant amount of money, while leaving an equally exorbitant order for more noorseekee (and even a down-payment). The "sellers" gladly agreed to provide the demanded amount of wares, but demanded a higher per-unit price citing e.g. the need to pay more hush money to their commanding officers. Then the "sellers" fulfilled the order and the merchants bought massive amounts (e.g. literal truckloads) of noorseekee expecting to make a large profit due to the size of the outstanding "order", regardless of the reduced per-unit profit and regardless of the high investment it demanded of them. The size of the final noorseekee order would usually exceed the bazaar's cash reserves, causing the merchants to access their savings and / or barter away stockpiled premium goods.
Obviously, the "buyers" would never be seen again, leaving the bazaar's merchants with truckloads of noorseekee and no means to sell them. Establishing new contacts with the Soviets would then reveal the noorseekee as worthless brass caps from Soviet gunships' unguided air-to-ground missile packs (нурсики derives from the diminutive of НУРС, i.e. неуправляемый ракетный снаряд, or unguided missile). These caps were used during shipping and discarded when the missile packs were slotted into the gunships by the millions and were essentially worth nothing.
Extortion or false-injury tricks
Badger game
The badger game extortion was perpetrated largely upon married men. The mark is deliberately coerced into a compromising position, a supposed affair for example, then threatened with public exposure of his acts unless blackmail money is paid.[16]
Bogus dry-cleaning bill scam
A
The scam's return address is a drop box; the rest of the contact information is fictional or belongs to an innocent third party. The original dry cleaning shop, which has nothing to do with the scheme, receives multiple irate enquiries from victimised restaurateurs.[17][18]
Clip joint
A clip joint or "fleshpot" is an establishment, usually a strip club or entertainment bar, typically one claiming to offer adult entertainment or bottle service, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor, or no, goods or services in return. Typically, clip joints suggest the possibility of sex, charge excessively high prices for watered-down drinks, then eject customers when they become unwilling or unable to spend more money. The product or service may be illicit, offering the victim no recourse through official or legal channels.[19]
Coin-matching game
Also called a coin smack or smack game, two operators trick a victim during a game where coins are matched. One operator begins the game with the victim, then the second joins in. When the second operator leaves briefly, the first colludes with the victim to cheat the second operator. After rejoining the game, the second operator, angry at "losing," threatens to call the police. The first operator convinces the victim to pitch in hush money, which the two operators later split.[20]
Fraudulent collection agencies
A consumer inquires about a payday loan or short-term credit online and is asked for a long list of personal information. The lender is a shell firm; the loan might never be made, but the victim's personal information is now in the hands of scammers who sell it to a fraudulent collection agency.[21][22] That agency then launches into a series of harassing phone calls at all hours (often to the victim's workplace), attempting to obtain bank account numbers (allowing the account to be drained through direct withdrawal)[23] or impersonating police (sometimes with caller ID spoofing) to threaten the victim with arrest.[24][25][26] Fake debt collectors often refuse to provide a legally required written "validation notice" of the debt, provide no evidence a debt is actually owed and demand payment using a money transfer service like MoneyGram or Western Union with poor traceability and no chargeback protection.[27] The underlying debt either does not exist, is not valid due to a statute of limitations or does not lawfully belong to the entity making the calls; in some cases, the victim is a target of identity theft.[28]
The scammers operate under multiple names, many of which are intended to be mistaken for official or government agencies.[29] The fraudulent calls often originate from abroad; any money extorted is immediately taken out of the country.[30]
Fraudulent law firms
A bogus or dishonest law firm is a valuable tool to a scammer in various ways. It can send requests for upfront payments in relation to inheritances coming from unknown relatives, a form of
In some cases, the dishonest lawyer is merely part of a larger fraudulent scheme.
Insurance fraud
Insurance fraud includes a wide variety of schemes in which insureds attempt to defraud their own insurance carriers, but when the victim is a private individual, the con artist tricks the mark into damaging, for example, the con artist's car, or injuring the con artist, in a manner that the con artist can later exaggerate. One relatively common scheme involves two cars, one for the con artist, and the other for the shill. The con artist will pull in front of the victim, and the shill will pull in front of the con artist before slowing down. The con artist will then slam on his brakes to "avoid" the shill, causing the victim to rear-end the con artist. The shill will accelerate away, leaving the scene. The con artist will then claim various exaggerated injuries in an attempt to collect from the victim's insurance carrier despite having intentionally caused the accident. Insurance carriers, who must spend money to fight even those claims they believe are fraudulent, frequently pay out thousands of dollars—a tiny amount to the carrier despite being a significant amount to an individual—to settle these claims instead of going to court.[36]
A variation of this scam occurs in countries where insurance premiums are generally tied to a bonus–malus rating: the con artist will offer to avoid an insurance claim, settling instead for a cash compensation. Thus, the con artist is able to evade a professional damage assessment, and get an untraceable payment in exchange for sparing the mark the expenses of a lowered merit class.[citation needed]
Melon drop
The melon drop is a scam similar to the Chinese version
Pèngcí is a scam originating in China in which scammers feign injury in
Gambling tricks
Baltimore Stockbroker / Psychic Sports Picks
The Baltimore Stockbroker scam relies on mass-mailing or emailing. The scammer begins with a large pool of marks, numbering ideally a power of two such as 1024 (210). The scammer divides the pool into two halves, and sends all the members of each half a prediction about the future outcome of an event with a binary outcome (such as a stock price rising or falling, or the win/loss outcome of a sporting event). One half receives a prediction that the stock price will rise (or a team will win, etc.), and the other half receives the opposite prediction. After the event occurs, the scammer repeats the process with the group that received a correct prediction, again dividing the group in half and sending each half new predictions. After several iterations, the "surviving" group of marks has received a remarkable sequence of correct predictions, whereupon the scammer then offers these marks another prediction, this time for a fee. The next prediction is, of course, no better than a random guess, but the previous record of success makes it seem to the mark to be a prediction worth great value.
For gambling propositions with more than two outcomes, for example in horse racing, the scammer begins with a pool of marks with number equal to a power of the number of outcomes, and divides the marks at each step into the corresponding number of groups, thus insuring that one group receives a correct prediction at each step. This requires a larger number of marks at the beginning, but fewer steps are required to gain the confidence of the marks who receive successful predictions, because the probability of a correct prediction is lower at each step, and thus it seems more remarkable.
The scam relies on selection bias and survivorship bias and is similar to publication bias (the file-drawer effect) in scientific publishing (whereby successful experiments are more likely to be published, rather than failures).
This particular scam received its name as a result of
Several authors mention the scam:
Ellenberg reports often hearing of the scam told as an illustrative parable, but he could not find a real-world example of anyone carrying it out as an actual scam. The closest he found was when illusionist Derren Brown presented it in his television special The System in 2008. Brown's intent was merely to convince his mark that he had a foolproof horse race betting system rather than to scam the mark out of money. However, Ellenberg goes on to describe how investment firms do something similar by starting many in-house investment funds, and closing the funds that show the lowest returns before offering the surviving funds (with their record of high returns) for sale to the public. The selection bias inherent in the surviving funds makes them unlikely to sustain their previous high returns.
Fiddle game
The fiddle game uses the pigeon drop technique. A pair of con men work together, one going into an expensive restaurant in shabby clothes, eating, and claiming to have left his wallet at home, which is nearby. As collateral, the con man leaves his only worldly possession, the violin that provides his livelihood. After he leaves, the second con man swoops in, offers an outrageously large amount (for example $50,000) for what he calls a rare instrument, then looks at his watch and runs off to an appointment, leaving his card for the mark to call him when the fiddle-owner returns. The "poor man" comes back, having gotten the money to pay for his meal and redeem his violin. The mark, thinking he has an offer on the table from the second conspirator, then buys the violin from the fiddle player who "reluctantly" agrees to sell it for a certain amount that still allows the mark to make a "profit" from the valuable violin. The result is the two con men are richer (less the cost of the violin), and the mark is left with a cheap instrument.[citation needed]
The fiddle game may be played with any sufficiently valuable-seeming piece of property; a common variation known as the pedigreed-dog swindle uses a mongrel dog upsold as a rare breed but is otherwise identical.[44]
A variant of this con was used in
Lottery fraud by proxy
Lottery fraud by proxy is a scam in which the scammer buys a lottery ticket with old winning numbers. He or she then alters the date on the ticket so that it appears to be from the day before, and therefore a winning ticket. He or she then sells the ticket to the mark, claiming it is a winning ticket, but for some reason, he or she is unable to collect the prize (not eligible, etc.). The particular cruelty in this scam is that if the mark attempts to collect the prize, the fraudulently altered ticket will be discovered and the mark held criminally liable.[
In the USSR this scam left three people dead in 1977, after a mark re-sold a fraudulent ticket and the second buyer engaged a criminal to "clear the issue", leading to the murder of the original mark and two family members. The investigations using a fake lottery uncovered a large group of marks all targeted by a single artist, a disgruntled former employee of the Mint who used his insider knowledge and skills to produce the high-quality forged tickets.
Three-card Monte
A variation on this scam exists in Barcelona, Spain, but with the addition of a pickpocket.[citation needed] The dealer and shill behave in an overtly obvious manner, attracting a larger audience. When the pickpocket succeeds in stealing from a member of the audience, he signals the dealer. The dealer then shouts the word "aguas" – colloquial for "Watch Out!" – and the three split up. The audience is left believing that the police are coming, and that the performance was a failed scam.[citation needed]
A variant of this scam exists in Mumbai, India.[citation needed] The shill says loudly to the dealer that his cards are fake and that he wants to see them. He takes the card and folds a corner and says in a hushed voice to the audience that he has marked the card. He places a bet and wins. Then he asks the others to place bets as well. When one of the audience bets a large sum of money, the cards are switched.[citation needed]
Spurious qualifications or endorsements
Diploma mill
Governmental bodies maintain a list of entities which accredit educational institutions. The US Department of Education, for instance, oversees higher education accreditation in the United States.
Most diploma mills are not accredited by such an entity, although many obtain accreditation from other organizations (such as accreditation mills or corrupt foreign officials) to appear legitimate. Graduates of these institutions risk that the qualifications gained at these institutions may not be sufficient for further study, lawful employment or professional licensure as their issuers do not hold locally-valid accreditation to grant the degrees.[citation needed]
Some diploma mills perform no instruction or examination, instead issuing credentials based on payment and "life experience".[citation needed] A few have unknowingly issued degrees and credentials to companion animals.[47]
The Doctor of Divinity title is particularly prone to misuse.[according to whom?] In the United Kingdom it is an earned postdoctoral credential which requires a string of publications, but in the United States any church may confer it as an honorary title; ordination mills readily grant this doctorate for a moderate fee and token amount of study.[48]
Vanity publications and awards
A vanity press is a pay-to-publish scheme where a publishing house, typically an author mill, obtains the bulk of its revenues from authors who pay to have their books published[49] instead of from readers purchasing the finished books. As the author bears the entire financial risk, the vanity press profits even if the books are not promoted (or badly promoted) and do not sell. The growth of print on demand, which allows small quantities of books to be printed cheaply, has accelerated this trend.[citation needed]
Vanity publishing is not the same as self-publishing, in that self-published authors own their finished books and control their distribution, relying on a print shop solely to turn camera-ready content into printed volumes. In a vanity press, the author takes the financial risk while the publisher owns the printed volumes.[citation needed]
A
Who's Who scam
Operators of
World Luxury Association
The World Luxury Association is a self-proclaimed international organisation based in China that offers "official registration" for luxury brands, and inclusion in an "official list" of luxury brands, in return for a fee.[52]
Online scams
This section needs additional citations for verification. (January 2018) |
Fake antivirus
Computer users unwittingly download and install rogue security software, malware disguised as antivirus software, by following the messages which appear on their screen. The software then pretends to find multiple viruses on the victim's computer, "removes" a few, and asks for payment in order to take care of the rest. They are then linked to con artists' websites, professionally designed to make their bogus software appear legitimate, where they must pay a fee to download the "full version" of their "antivirus software".
Phishing
A similar
Other online scams include
Fake support call
Unsuspecting computer owners and users are targeted by people claiming to be from
Bank login scam
A scammer convinces a victim to log in to a bank and convince them that they are receiving money. Some victims of the technical support scam may have their information sold or traded to a new organization that will cold-call them and tell them that they are entitled to a refund for the support they have previously paid for. Alternatively, the scammer may impersonate a security company and convince the victim that hackers are manipulating their bank account. The goal is for the scammer to transfer money between the user's accounts and to use HTML editing in the browser to make it appear as though new money has been transferred into the account by a legitimate company. The scammer "makes a mistake" and sends a larger amount of money than what he initially said he would send, then convinces the victim that they must refund the mistakenly sent extra money to the scammer via a wire transfer, money order, or gift cards.
Religion-based schemes
The Affinity Church scam
Claiming to share someone else's viewpoint is the sneaky cover many church scam artists use. Pretending to share their faith lulls members of religious organizations into thinking a scammer is genuine. Often claiming some kind of divine guidance, using religious slogans, or claiming to be raising funds for a worthy cause, church scammers invite their new friends to invest in what turns out to be nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. This is such a common crime that the state of Arizona listed affinity scams of this type as its number one scam for 2009. In one recent nationwide religious scam, churchgoers are said to have lost more than $50 million in a phony gold bullion scheme, promoted on daily telephone prayer chains, in which they thought they could earn a huge return.[54]
Other confidence tricks and scams
Bar bill scam
The bar bill scam is common in Europe, A mark, usually a man who is a tourist, is approached by an attractive woman or pair of women who start a conversation, such as asking for directions (pretending to have mistaken the tourist for a local). After a bit of conversation, the women will suggest that they go to a bar that they know of. While there, they order many entrées and drinks and encourage the mark to do the same. Either the menu does not have prices on it or the menu is later switched with one that has higher prices.
When the bill comes, it is many times larger than expected. The women have only a small amount of cash on them, and ask the mark to pay for the bill. The mark is forced to pay before leaving (sometimes with threats of violence), and directed to an ATM on the premises where they can withdraw cash. The women apologize profusely for the situation and arrange to meet the next day to pay them back, but they do not show. In truth, the women are working with the bar and receive a cut of the payment.[56]
The con can also be performed with a well-dressed man or a gregarious local rather than an attractive woman. A variation on this is to have a taxi driver recommend the bar to the passenger, who enters alone and orders, not realizing that they will be charged an exorbitant bill. The taxi driver receives a cut of the payment.[56]
Beijing tea
The Beijing tea scam is a famous variation of the
Big Store
The Big Store is a technique for selling the legitimacy of a scam and typically involves a large team of con artists and elaborate sets. Often a building is rented and furnished as a legitimate and substantial business.[61] The "betting parlor" setup in The Sting is an example.
In 2014, a rural co-operative in
Blessing scam
The blessing scam targets elderly Chinese immigrant women, convincing them that an evil spirit threatens their family and that this threat can be removed by a blessing ceremony involving a bag filled with their savings, jewelry or other valuables. During the ceremony, the con artists switch the bag of valuables with an identical bag with valueless contents and make off with the victim's cash or jewelry.
Change raising
Change raising, also known as a quick-change artist,[63] is a common short con and involves an offer to change an amount of money with someone, while at the same time taking change or bills back and forth to confuse the person as to how much money is actually being changed. The most common form, "the Short Count", has been featured prominently in several movies about grifting, notably The Grifters, Criminal, Nine Queens, and Paper Moon. For example, a con artist targeting a cashier apologetically uses a ten-dollar bill to pay for an item costing less than a dollar, claiming not to have any smaller bills; the change of over nine dollars will include either nine singles or a five and four singles. The con artist then claims to have found that he had a dollar bill, after all, and offers to change it and the nine dollars for the original ten. If the con artist can manipulate the clerk into handing over the ten-dollar bill first, the con artist can then give it back to the clerk in place of one of the singles the con artist was expected to give the clerk. The con artist then pretends to notice he has "mistakenly" given the clerk nineteen dollars instead of ten; producing another single, the con artist suggests he add this to the nineteen and let the clerk give him back an even twenty.
The scam relies on the cashier placing small bills in the register where they will be mixed with existing bills, and the cashier's failure to notice that the nineteen dollars given by the con artist included ten dollars that belonged to the store in the first place (the money that should've been given back for the $10 that was handed over early). Thus the con artist has stolen ten dollars, minus the cost of the cheap item that was purchased (effectively stealing over nine dollars). The con artist starts with twelve dollars (the original ten-dollar bill and two singles), then leaves with a twenty and also keeps one of the singles (the one that was "mistakenly" switched with the $10). (The cashier should have noticed that the con artist overpaid by $9, not $19, and thus when the con artist produces the second $1 bill, the cashier should hand back $10, not $20.) To avoid this con, clerks should keep each transaction separate and never permit the customer to take change before handing over the original payment.
Another variation is to flash a $20 bill to the clerk, then ask for something behind the counter. When the clerk turns away, the con artist can swap the bill he is holding to a lesser bill. The clerk might then make change for the larger bill, without noticing it has been swapped. The technique may work better when bills are the same color at a glance like, for instance, U.S. dollar bills. A similar technique exists when a con artist asks to use a very large denomination bill to purchase a cheap item. The con artist distracts the clerk with conversation while the clerk is preparing the change, in hopes that the clerk will hand over the large amount of change without realizing that the con artist never actually handed over the large bill.[citation needed] Sometimes cab drivers in India try a similar con, when customers require some change back. For example, they may pay $100 for a $60 ride and expect a return of $40. But the con would say that he only received $10 and in fact needs $50 more. The mark is baffled, trying to remember and of course, the con has swiftly switched the $100 bill with a $10 one, waving it to show that this was really what the mark gave to him. Since the con has now made the mark look suspicious, the mark feels guilty and pays up. This scenario can also be created in markets, when vendors sometimes team up and support each other's cons, if the mark tries to resist.
Another variant is to use confusing or misdirected language.
Dropped wallet scam
The dropped wallet scam usually targets tourists. The con artist pretends to accidentally drop his wallet in a public place. After an unsuspecting victim picks up the wallet and offers it to the con artist, the scam begins. The artist accuses the victim of stealing money from the wallet and threatens to call the police, scaring the victim into returning the allegedly stolen money. Cases have been reported in eastern Europe and major cities or railway stations in China.[citation needed]
A variation of the pigeon drop is also based around a dropped wallet.[64]
Fake casting agent scam
In this scam, the confidence artist poses as a
The fake-agent scam is often targeted against industry newcomers, since they will often lack the experience required to spot such tricks. Legitimate talent agencies advise that a genuine talent agent will never ask for money up-front, as they make their entire living from commissions on their clients' earnings.
This scam is portrayed in
Phony job offer scam
Very similar to the casting agent scam is the "job offer" scam in which a victim receives an unsolicited e-mail claiming that they are in consideration for hiring to a new job. The confidence artist will usually obtain the victim's name from social networking sites, such as LinkedIn and Monster.com. In many cases, those running the scams will create fake websites listing jobs which the victim is seeking, then contact the victim to offer them one of the positions.
If the victim responds to the initial e-mail, the scammer will send additional messages to build up the victim's assurance that they are in the running, or have already been selected, for a legitimate job. This will include asking for the victim's resume as well as assurances that a phone interview will be the "next step in the hiring process".
The goal of the job offer scam is to convince the victim to release funds or bank account information to the scammer. There are two common methods. The first is to tell the victim that they must take a test to qualify for the job and then send links to training sites which sell testing material and
In a second, more sinister variation, the scammer will tell the victim they have been hired for a job and request access to bank accounts and routing numbers in order to enter the "new hire" into the company's payroll system. This may also involve emails containing fake tax forms attempting to gain the victim's Social Security number and other
Fraudulent directory solicitations
This section possibly contains original research. (January 2018) |
In this scam, tens of thousands of solicitations in the guise of an invoice are mailed to businesses nationwide. They may contain a disclaimer such as "This is a solicitation for the order of goods or services, or both, and not a bill, invoice, or statement of account due. You are under no obligation to make any payments on account of this offer unless you accept this offer." (from
One variant sends a "Final Notice of Domain Listing" from an entity calling itself "Domain Services", which claims "Failure to complete your Domain name search engine registration by the expiration date may result in cancellation of this offer making it difficult for your customers to locate you on the web." The list of prospective victims is obtained from Internet domain
A similar scheme uses solicitations which appear to be invoices for local yellow pages listings or advertisements. As anyone can publish a yellow page directory, the promoted book is not the incumbent local exchange carrier's local printed directory but a rival, which may have limited distribution if it appears at all.[71] Instead of clearly stating audited circulation, the solicitations will confusingly claim to "offer 50000 copies" or claim "thousands of readers" without indicating whether the inferred quantity of directories was actually printed, let alone sold.
Public records listing legal owners of new
The intent is that a small fractional percentage of businesses either mistake the solicitations for invoices (paying them) or mistake them for a request for corrections and updates to an existing listing (a tactic to obtain a businessperson's signature on the document, which serves as a pretext to bill the victim).
One such vendor, World Trade Register (aka European Trade Register, World Company Register, World Business Directory, all related to EU Business Services Ltd), claims "To update your company profile, please print, complete and return this form. Updating is free of charge. Only sign if you want to place an insertion." Only later does it become clear that signing the form incurs a nearly €1000/year fee for an advertisement of questionable value.[72]
Jam auction
In this scam, the confidence artist poses as a retail sales promoter, representing a manufacturer, distributor, or set of stores. The scam requires assistants to manage the purchases and money exchanges while the pitchman maintains a high energy level. Passersby are enticed to gather and listen to a pitchman standing near a mass of appealing products. The trickster entices by referring to the high-end products, but claims to be following rules that he must start with smaller items. The small items are described, and "sold" for a token dollar amount – with as many audience participants as are interested each receiving an item.
The pitchman makes an emotional appeal such as saying "Raise your hand if you're happy with your purchase", and when hands are raised, directs his associates to return everyone's money (they keep the product). This exchange is repeated with items of increasing value to establish the expectation of a pattern. Eventually, the pattern terminates by ending the "auction" without reaching the high-value items, and stopping midway through a phase where the trickster retains the collected money from that round of purchases. Marks feel vaguely dissatisfied, but they have goods in their possession and the uplifting feeling of having demonstrated their own happiness several times. The marks do not realize that the total value of goods received is significantly less than the price paid in the final round. Auction/refund rounds may be interspersed with sales rounds that are not refunded, keeping marks off-balance and hopeful that the next round will refund. The jam auction has its roots in carny culture.
Money exchange
This scam occurs when exchanging foreign currency. If a large amount of cash is exchanged the victim will be told to hide the money away quickly before counting it ("You can't trust the locals"). A substantial amount will be missing.
In some cases, insisting on counting to make sure the money is all there is the basis for a clever scam. The scam is sometimes called the Santo Domingo Sting, after an incident that took place in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. A journalist, Joe Harkins, reported his involvement in the early 1990s.[73] It works in countries where only banks and other designated parties are allowed to hold and exchange the local currency for US dollars at an "official" rate that is significantly lower than the "street" rate. It also requires a greedy tourist who wants to beat the official rate by dealing with illegal money changers. A person posing as an illegal money changer will approach the tourist with an offer to buy dollars at an illegal rate that may be even higher than the street rate. The changer offers to buy only large US currency, typically, a 100 dollar bill. As soon as the victim (the "mark") shows his $100 bill, the changer will actually count out and clearly show the promised amount of local currency. He then will push the local currency into the hands of the "mark" and urge they be counted as he takes the $100. "See, you've got the money. I'll wait while you make sure. Count it out loud so there is no mistake." And as the mark's careful count exceeds "street" rate, the changer pretends to realise he has overpaid the mark, and he becomes irrationally agitated and angry, accusing the mark of cheating. He grabs his money back, pushes the mark's bill back into his hands and takes back the pesos. The scam has been completed. The tourist has just lost $99. The mark has been handed back a prefolded $1 bill that has been swapped for the mark's $100 bill while he was distracted counting the local currency. (Until recently, US currency was largely uniform in size and color, meaning that when folded, a $1 and a $100 bill were almost indistinguishable. Even in 2014, careful folding of a US$100 bill easily conceals the switch).[citation needed] The money changer's pretended, but very credible, anger is a ruse to confuse the mark and delay his unfolding of the single bill until the scammer has departed.
Mystery shopping
This trick, a form of
Valid mystery shopping companies do not normally send their clients cheques prior to work being completed, and their
Pay up or be arrested scam
In this scam, done by phone, the caller threatens the victim with a fictitious arrest warrant. To make this threat seem real, the
Cases have been reported in Florida, Georgia, Kansas and Oregon.[79]
Pigeon drop
The pigeon drop (also called the Jamaican Switch), which is depicted early in the film The Sting, involves the mark or pigeon assisting an elderly, weak or infirm stranger to keep a large sum of money safe for him.[80][81] In the process, the stranger (actually a confidence trickster) puts his money with the mark's money in an envelope or briefcase, with which the mark is then to be entrusted. The container is first switched for an identical one which contains no money, and a situation is engineered giving the mark the opportunity to escape, with the money, from a perceived threat (e.g., local police or rowdies). If the mark does so, he is fleeing from his own money, which the con artist will have kept or handed off to an accomplice.
Pizza delivery scam
The pizza delivery scam firstly involves the scammer, who pretends to be a person who ordered the pizza. This scammer will then claim they are unable to pay for the pizza and will ask a stranger for help. The scammer will say that the delivery driver does not accept cash and only accepts cards. When the victim offers to pay, their card is skimmed and the PIN is captured. This scam is known to happen in the Greater Toronto Area.[82]
Predatory journals
A number of
Promotional cheque
The victim is sent a document which looks, on its face, to be a coupon or a cheque for some small amount as "prize winnings".[83] Buried in the fine print is something entirely different; an authorisation to slam the victim to an alternative telephone provider or even an authorisation for monthly direct withdrawals from the victim's bank account for "services" which were neither used nor desired.
Psychic surgery
Public transport ticket control scam
In this scam, the artists pose as ticket control staff on public transport connections. They tend to look for tourists as easy marks, and therefore target train connections from the airport. They will ask to see the passenger's tickets, and once they have found a suitable mark, will claim that something is wrong with the ticket they hold. They will then claim that an instant payment is required to avoid further legal troubles. In some cases, this scam is even committed by actual public transport staff seeking to rip off tourists.[84]
In a variant on the scheme, the artists target tourists who are struggling with a ticketing machine, and offer to buy them the ticket they need. They select a relatively expensive ticket from the machine (for example a subscription) and pretend to buy that for the tourist with their own credit card, after which they ask the tourist to reimburse. However, in reality artists cancel the payment at the last moment and the ticket they 'take from the machine' is already in their hands. This ticket is usually a children's ticket, which opens the turnstiles, but will lead to the tourist running the risk of getting a fine in addition to being scammed.[85]
Rain making
Rainmaking is a simple scam in which the trickster promises to use their power or influence over a complex system to make it do something favourable for the mark.
Classically this was promising to make it rain,[86] but more modern examples include getting someone's app "featured" on an app store, obtaining pass marks in a university entrance exam, or obtaining a job. It may be a politician implying that they can use their influence to get a contract awarded to the mark.
The trickster has no actual influence on the outcome, but if the favourable outcome happens anyway, they will then claim credit. If the event does not happen, the trickster may be able to claim they need more money until the event does happen.
Recovery room
A recovery room scam is a form of
The scam involves requiring an advance fee before the payment can take place, for example a "court fee".[89]
The red flag in the 'recovery scam' is that the supposed investigative agency, unsolicited, approaches the victim.[90] A legitimate law enforcement agency would normally allow the victim to make the first contact, and will not solicit an advance fee. The recovery scam has the victim's number only because it is operated by an accomplice of the original scammer, using a "sucker list" from the earlier fraud.[91]
Rental scams
An apartment is listed for rent, often on an online forum such as Craigslist or Kijiji, at or just below market value.[92] The vendor asks for first and last month's rent upfront, sometimes also asking for references or personal information from the prospective tenants. The rent payment clears the bank, the new tenants arrive with a truckload of worldly possessions on moving day to find that the same unit has been rented to multiple other new tenants and that the supposed "landlord" is not the owner of the property and is nowhere to be found.[93] This kind of scam is often performed online on students planning to study abroad and seeking accommodation, as their means of checking the property are limited.[94]
Rip deal
The Rip Deal is a swindle very popular in
The same term is used to describe a crime where a vendor (especially a drug dealer) is killed to avoid paying for goods.[95]
Unsolicited goods
Various schemes exist to bill victims for unsolicited goods or services.[96]
A common scam targeting businesses is the toner bandit swindle; an unsolicited caller attempts to trick front-office personnel into providing manufacturer/model or serial numbers for office equipment and/or the name of the employee answering the call. Often, the call will be misrepresented as a "survey" or a "prize" award.[97] The business then receives inflated invoices for unsolicited copy paper, copy machine toner, cleaning supplies, light bulbs, trash bags or other supplies, using the name of the person who answered the call to falsely claim this person ordered the items. When the business objects, the workers are threatened with lawsuits or harassed by bogus collection agencies.[98]
Another, targeting the elderly, claims a free medical alert device has been ordered for a patient by a family member or medical doctor. An automated message says "that someone has ordered a free medical alert system for you, and this call is to confirm shipping instructions" before the call is transferred to a live operator who requests the elderly patient's credit card and identity card numbers. The device is not free; there is a high monthly charge for "monitoring". The family did not buy or order it, nor did a practitioner; the call is fraudulent.[99][100]
Wedding planner scam
Wedding planner scams prey on the vulnerability of young couples, during a time when they are most distracted and trusting, to embezzle funds for the planner's personal use. In the first type of fraud, the wedding planner company may offer a free wedding in a tie-up with a media station for a couple in need of charity, and collect the donations from the public that were meant for the wedding. In a second type of fraud, the planner asks couples to write checks to vendors (tents, food, cakes) but leave the name field empty, which the planner promises to fill in. As most vendors were never hired nor paid, the scam would then be exposed on the day of the wedding. A real life example is a Kansas TV station story of a wedding planner, Caitlin Hershberger Theis, who scammed three couples through her wedding planner consultancy, Live, Love and be Married using these two schemes.[101]
See also
- Great Reality TV Swindle
- Kansas City Shuffle
- List of criminal enterprises, gangs, and syndicates
- Manipulation (psychology)
- Psychiatry
- Scambaiting
- Sick baby hoax
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