5. Badger Game
The game of badgers dates back to the 19th century and is one of the most repeated handicaps of all time. One form of blackmail, in its most popular form, saw a con woman seek out a lonely married man in a bar and lure him back to his hotel room. After putting the man in a compromising position, the poachers would produce photographic or video evidence of the man clearly cheating on his wife, which could then be used to extort money from her.
Other variations include false allegations of rape or sexual harassment. One popular version from the early 1930s involved a woman accusing a male doctor of inappropriate behavior during a medical examination and then blackmailing him not to accuse her. Often the woman would work in tandem with a second thug who appeared in the middle of things and pretended to be her angry husband, which would help intimidate the sign into going along with the blackmail. Like the shaming verification scheme, the idea was always that the victim would be too ashamed of their actions to avoid paying the scammers.
4. Three Card Monte
One of the classic short cons is the three-card monte, a card game that uses sleight of hand and trickery to trick victims into small amounts of cash. This is one of the oldest cons around and refers to the "shell game", a similar scheme popular in the Middle Ages. The game itself is deceptively simple. Three cards are dealt face down on a flat surface, usually two black jacks and a red queen. The dealer shows the players the red queen and then proceeds to thoroughly shuffle the cards to make it difficult to tell where they are.
Players then bet on whether a queen will be selected from the three cards. It sounds easy enough, but the game is more or less impossible to beat because a good dealer can use sleight of hand to shuffle cards at will and easily decide who wins or loses. In more complex setups, the entire game is rigged and other supposed "players" are in on the scam. Since street gambling is clearly illegal, every time a victim starts to suspect that the game might be a scam, the scammers simply see the police arrive, pack up their game, and call it quits.
3. The False Good Samaritan
There is no simpler or more ancient trick than the so-called "False Good Samaritan." It usually involves a team of two scammers working in tandem, and the victim is usually a lone person walking down a city street at night. The first scammer approaches the person and beats them up, steals their wallet or purse, and walks down the street. The second scammer, posing as a passerby, will chase down the robber, fight them off, and retrieve the wallet. A robber, of course, always manages to escape during a fight.
The false Good Samaritan will then return the wallet or purse to the brand who witnessed the entire spectacle. The hope is that a grateful victim will pay some sort of reward for helping the scammer, which they can then share with the robber. When marketed correctly and executed on the right person, these scammers can make more money than they would from keeping a stolen wallet.
2. Spanish prisoner
Have you ever received one of those junk emails from someone claiming to be a Nigerian Prince in need of quick cash? If so, then you're familiar with the Spanish Prisoner, which is a classic form of "advance payment fraud" that tries to trick unsuspecting brands by promising them a big payday down the road. The scam dates back to the early 1900s, when it was often used against wealthy businessmen. Here's how it will happen: after gaining their trust, the scammer will realize that he is corresponding with the family of an incredibly rich person from a high social class who is in prison in Spain for a crime they didn't commit. .
Afraid of scandal, the prisoner did not reveal his name or his job to the public and relied on private means to earn money for his release. With that in mind, the sign will be told that any money it gives to help the cause will be returned with a hefty interest down the road. In some variations, it is even stipulated that the man will marry the beautiful daughter of the Spanish Prisoner. Of course, any money the victim gave would inevitably disappear, and whenever possible, the scammer would try to get more money from the victim by telling them they needed to fund a daring rescue attempt.
1. Ponzi scheme
The scheme dates back hundreds of years, but was popularized by Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant to the United States who defrauded investors out of millions in the early 1900s before he was arrested.
A modern Ponzi scheme is a form of investment fraud in which a bogus or corrupt stockbroker uses the money of new investors to pay their old investors fictitious returns. Initial investments with a fake broker can bring huge returns for people who are deceived, but in reality their money is not invested in anything - the scammer simply puts it all in a bank account. Any time someone wants to withdraw money or needs to pay back their old investors, the scammer simply uses the money they received from the new investors to do so. Nothing is actually invested, won or lost in the market.
The scammer simply creates the impression that people will keep handing over more and more money. Since it can only grow so far, any Ponzi scheme is doomed to eventually collapse under its own weight, so the scammer usually makes a move that disappears after they've raised enough money, leaving them with nothing but the fake returns they've been receiving to lure investors. in fraud. Arguably the most famous example was New York financier Bernard Madoff, who masterminded a Ponzi scheme estimated to be worth close to $65 billion. Madoff was eventually caught and sentenced to 150 years in prison, but not before pulling what was essentially the biggest fraud of all time.
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