Citation Needed - Common Scams and Cons

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

This list of confidence tricks and scams should not be considered complete, but covers the most common examples. Confidence tricks and scams 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 credulous and sometimes inexperienced and/or insecure, especially when the scam involves modern technology such as computers and the internet. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

It was the fucking worst. I'm telling you, you're overreacting, dude, that's just New York. People throwing shit that's on fire at you is just New York. I mean, yeah. There they are. Oh, Jesus! Come on, man. What are those?

Oh, these? These are my balls, Cecil. Oh. And I'm winning the Poonit from now on, because I'm a millionaire, bitches! Ears! Ears a millionaire? Yep, I am. Really?

Didn't even know it, but it turns out there's some guy in Nigeria, who wants to give me a 10% finder's fee, and all I have to do is give him my checking account number, which I was just about to do. Oh, Eli, it's a- Oh, what? Mr. Corrections? Is it pronounced Nigeria?

Always correcting people. Well, I'll have you know that a lot of people on the internet pronounce it both ways. And now that I'm rich, I don't have to listen to your little nit, maybe E corrections anymore, do I? Actually, Eli, you can just, Oh, actually what, Tom?

Jellis, that there's a new big man on campus? Well, too bad, Sushdash! I'm coming for your golf club! What does he even... Eli, look, here's the thing. What's your end? Here we go. Sure, years of rejection and ridicule, and now he's ready to come crawling back.

Well, you know what, Cecil? Money might not buy you love, but I'm about to find out if he can buy me a best friend for... Evers. What do you say to that? Congrats on the money. That's so cool, Eli.

So cool. So cool. Thank you. Thank you, Cecil. That's big of you. You know, you should probably give me your credit card number two, just in case. I will.

It's a good idea. Yeah, you got any Google PlayCards? Send that to him too. He asked, that's crazy. Crazy. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm no illusions and my car broke down this afternoon. I really just need bus fare to get home but don't worry, I have some trustworthy people

here that can vouch for me first up. Two men who would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today, Heath and Cecil. Okay, who orders a plain hamburger? That's a serious killer. No, fake and cheeseburgers, when I say that. Ah, and hamburger, tie-alones are the worst. My god. And of course, also joining us tonight, two men who don't want to talk about the command

performance in Nigeria Nigeria Tom and Eli Okay, not fair. I do want to talk about it Just I've got the series of restraining orders and the gag orders and those non-disclosures I don't even know how they all interact anymore You're telling me I got to be on stage with the prime minister of Canada and it's ruined it and it's ruined. I'm going to get into it. Hello, my bet. I'm saying bring up a lot of hand.

All right. So before we get the episode started, I wanted to, uh, con you into giving us money for a show you already get for free, but I'm too self-aware to do it now. So stick around to the end of the show. I'll buy then. I'll have the confidence and what the way tell us top, what person plays thing concept phenomenon or event? What will we be talking about today?

All right, no, today, Cecil is gonna be teaching us a free class on scams. I think he's calling it Khan Academy. Khan Academy, I love it. That's so good. That's so good. All right, so Cecil, you fell for most of the, I read the article.

Are you ready to, to for a warna? You know, as I was writing this, I thought Eli might have either fallen or done every single one of these. I'm just saying full, it's approximately accurate. I would imagine also spoilers for this episode. Yeah, right. Okay, so point of clarification here,

one could easily argue that our pretend to be experts and then ask for money, so you make all of our shows about common scams or confidence tricks. That's true. How else would this one be any different? I can't answer that under oath. All right, so here we go.

We've covered some of these in old episodes. He talked about two famous common in the past, William Schallener and Victor Listig. And I've covered Charles Ponzi, but these guys are all old-timey. And while I wanna be covering some cons that are from the past, we'll also be talking about some modern scams

using technology. Thank you. I swiped up no nude. You guys have to tell me how to figure this thing out. You can swipe up. Yeah. There's a mop. No, you know, I actually, I use some shutter stock images to create a fake

lady profile. Now I'm collecting dick pics into a coffee table book called Unsolicited. Assholes sent Dicks. It's the books 10,000 pages long. It took me 47. Yeah. So it's weird that one guy bound it for you. Yeah. During the gold rush, there was this trick that Godmen would use called salting. They would own a piece of worthless property with no gold and plant some there, plant some gold there to convince someone that it had a rich vein running through it. They would sometimes load a shotgun with gold dust and shoot it into the side of the mine to give it this appearance. And this was called salting the mine. They would do this with with gemstones too.

They would just load the gun with precious jewels and then sapphire it. They would sapphire. Oh, sea salt, spritz test. Spritz. What? Now, the, I believe the modern equivalent of that would be putting a good skit right up front and then just hoping they keep listening and expecting the equivalent of that would be putting a good skit right up front and then just hoping they keep listening and expecting the rest of it to be out.

And we only had a good skit in the front that wasn't Eli's but- Yeah, that was great. That was great. Yeah. I'm just pitching like some old-timey prospector lady with a buck at a gold dust. I will sell this mine today. I will sell this mine. So an old-timey version of the Nigerian print scam

is called the Spanish prisoner, which also sounds like maybe a way you could masturbate. I don't know. Anyway, both of these, yeah, okay, figured heath would be the authority on this. Both of these fall under the advanced fee category. I pay you $100 to stop. No, they call that the Louis CK, it's different.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. In the Spanish prisoner, the markets told that there's a captive in Spain that's very wealthy and once his release is secured, he can lavish those that got him out of this hellish Spanish prison with gifts. Of course, the only way to get the guy out of Topus and Ciesta jail is to come up with

some money. But don't worry, once the prisoner is in Ciesta Jail is to come up with some money. But don't worry, once the prisoner is out, he'll be sure to pay back 10 fold. Okay, you laugh, but Catalan has been falling for this scam for a century. And they run this scam as long as they can, too. Telling the market that there's some new monetary roadblock that sprung up and now they need more cash. They just keep on doing it over and over and over again until the people just fucking know about it. Yeah, they tried to run this play with Jeffrey Epstein,

but Hillary just went and murdered him eventually, so they don't ever go. The Spadges Press are similar to the Nigerian Prince who sends emails now and how he needs to transfer a million dollars out of Nigeria and all you need to do is send the wire transfer bank fees to him and he'll send it back right away. And again, there's always some new ATM fee or something that keeps the mark on the hook.

Now, by the way, amazing detail I learned while researching for this episode. The term that Nigerian internet scammers use for their mark is MAGA, M-A-G-A. That predates Trump apparently. It comes from an old, uruva word that means easily fooled white sisters. That's amazing. That's the best fact to it that's ever. Apparently it comes from a little Iruba word that means easily fooled white Reality is lazily written Kind of not atheist anymore though That's some organization of the universe. Yeah, I'm just so sad, right? So social media has created the grandparent friend

and need scam. You get a message from someone on Facebook, Messenger, posing as a grandparent or a friend, and they'll tell you that they're in some kind of trouble. Commonly, they've been arrested or they have some issue with their passport, and they need a wire transfer. Or more bizarrely, a bunch of gift cards to get them out of trouble.

I'm not gonna wonder how that plays out in their head, right? I'm telling you, this is just a misunderstanding. Sure it is, Mrs. Luzon. Sure it is. Please, I have to go meet my grandson. Okay, very well, the people of the Republic of Uzbekistan will let you go or $200 in Apple gift cards that's it you have one government mandated Facebook message show choose wisely

You guys take Verizon store credit take away. She's useless. Okay. Okay. I'm sending it. She's I'm gonna get those new air pods Those look great Whose back of Stan is fucking O's all right, so if you're listening at home folks just think secret of the ooze back to the musician Stan folks just think secret of the ooze back to the musician a stan not even i stan a stan yeah it's a stan so with the advent of dating apps throw a man scam has become very popular this is also an advanced fee scam the con will over time develop a romantic online relationship which feels

like a lot of work. And then they let the mark know that they can't leave their country without some fee that needs to be paid and they ask for the funds. Disgusting. If you wanna break a man's heart and take his money, you should divorce him like we do in a mirror, right?

But dad actually did that to my mom, except kind of in reverse. He married her and took her money. And they're like, the next one on Wikipedia is called the fortune telling fraud, which is redundant. The mark goes through a cold rating first time to see if they're duplable.

Duplable people here are normally people who are going through really hard times looking for any relief at all. And the colonel tell them that they're cursed. And in order to get the curse lifted, they need to pack up all their money into a bag. And then the con will remove the curse to the money while the mark waits outside the room. When the mark leaves, they basically stuff a bag with paper slips and then they leave with it and they don't leave with the cash.

You guys remember back in 2015 and before when you'd hear stuff like that and say, man, who'd be dumb enough to fall for that? Yeah, you know, and the thing is like the con artist has to swap the bags really fast, or else that giant, older chases them down the passageway. Carlin, it sounds. The con has two money bags in his hand, and he's like, wait, I'm gonna put some sand in the other one. I have to mention this. There's a new woke version of this fraud where they come to your house and tell you it used to be an Indian burial ground. And they need to remove their like native spirits from your land and then they just rob you. And it's been happening in New York City at Tom this year. And they sent out like a PSA.

This is on the upper left side. It was like stop letting people into your house because they tell you there's a Native American curse on it. Oh no. There's not. So a similar scam was known as the Green Good scam. In this con, the thief will say that they have genuine counterfeit currency for sale.

And they'll tell a story that the cash was made with stolen plates from the US Treasury. The mark has shown a huge bag of real cash and then they're made an offer for much less than what's in the back. They have to go for a while and then the bag is switched with one that has green paper or sawdust that then they give the, then they give real cash to the con and walk away with a bag of something worthless. Yeah, fun fact. Frank Sinatra allegedly fell for this scam twice. What? Not once.

Two times. Okay, this time, old blue eyes is going to get it. I've got to make up for that first one. Jesus. These scams are my favorite because in them, I'm all blue eyes is gonna make up for that first one. Jesus. These scams are my favorite because in them, somebody has to believe that someone wants to trade some amount of perfectly spendable money for less than that amount of money.

Right now, right now. I can get this $100 bill for $10. No, just no, yeah, always no. What is this? Why would you? In Thailand, there's a gem scam where the market's told that they can make a shit ton of money buying duty-free jewelry. I guess the part of this ceremony is being driven around in an auto rickshaw or it took

took nice. And they go to a store and they're sold real jewelry that's way overpriced and this scam is such an institution, supposedly in Thailand that it's said to be protected by police and politicians. Yeah, in the United States we call this scam the engagement ring industry. We do. And that's true. We do. You know, I just feel like as a rule of thumb just avoid all great money making opportunities

to show up all your own vacation in a country with a language you don't speak. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. up while you're on vacation in a country with a language you don't speak. I know some people who have actually fallen for the white van or the speaker scam. This scam involves a couple of regular working guys in a van with a set of boxed up speakers. The speakers, they tell the mark, are really expensive, but the dock guy accidentally loaded an extra pair under their truck. So they're willing to part with this very high quality speaker set for a fraction of the actual price.

And they'll sometimes have bogus websites with the speaker brand touting how awesome and expensive they are. And in reality, their cheap junk and you pay way too much for them. Yeah, the most prominent version of this scam today is Apple. So send your email to no illusions at. Oh, it's not your phone is frozen because it's a year and a half old.

Okay, well, we can send you email. Hey, that's true. Hey, that's true. Cecil, this is the, it fell onto the back of the truck scam. This is the last one. Scam. So, Tom, you used to work at like a high-end audio place. Didn't people come in telling you about the scam

all the time? They seriously did this constantly. They would, they would set up shop in our parking lot and people would buy shit in our parking lot. And then they, I was fucking amazing. Then they would bring that shit in. And I'd be like, you got to fucking scam. And they would be insistent.

No, no, no, no. These are dino-lucked altars or whatever. You know, they're just fucking some, cause they've just glued to like speaker names together. So they sounded vaguely familiar. I bet cool, bring them in. We bring them in and hook them up and play them next to the worst shit on the floor.

And they sounded like a bag, a rusty hammer is banging together. It's fucking amazing to watch these people's fucking hearts break was just, I never wanted that to happen. It was joy. It was joy. Okay, but let's be clear here though, then you sold a monster cables.

Right? Like, so... So, we're fucked either way. I mean, I sold a quantity of that shit Noah that would make you cry. They're the only way your TV is gonna work is if you buy the $600 HDMI cable. There's no way. So I gotta wait.

You see the way the other way. It preserves the integrity of a binary digital signal. Yeah, let's see. This is a surprise. One, zero, one. Yeah, you're really here. You want to have sharp divisions between those zeroes and one. I sold so much that I shit that the district manager gave me

his Porsche Boxster for a day to tool around in because I was like the number one salesperson in the district. So whoever one got to drive his car around for a day, I sold a plane, a capitalism. That's cool. The Porsche Boxster's like the monster cable of cars. It is.

It really is. I would have absolutely put his gear stick up my butt. I think he came from this, I would have done much, but I would have put that thing up my butt during the day. Every time he came to work, I'd just be like, firm handshake, you love it. Yeah. What?

All right, so bad to say, this is amazing. People sell Iraqi currency at a hidden markup, telling the mark that once the economy and Iraq takes off A lot of money and I have no idea how this scam works. I literally Better off giving them Sumerian Sorry, I was just buying some Halliburton stock. What was the last one? Currency like isn't this isn't this concept just true of all things? Like if you have a bunch of it and it becomes more valuable

than later it's worth more? Like except usually we're talking usually about stocks here going up and not like a sales pitch that starts with, well, they'll run out of bombs sometime in that, right? All you need is peace in the middle of the east. And cushioners on that shit, cushioners on the job, guys.

The bogus dry cleaning scam is a type of mail fraud. The con will take a dry cleaning receipt and photocopied and send it to a bunch of high-end restaurants. And the con's gonna claim that something is spilled on their clothes at the restaurant, and this is the bill to have it cleaned. Now most restaurants won't pay, but the amount is low and some places will just pay to make the problem go away.

Yeah, anyone else picturing the guy who like learns this scam wrong, they walk in, he's just pouring hot soup on his balls. Was picturing Eli, yeah. Yeah, all right. Well, there's no better mental image to dwell on than a con artist dousing his testicles and scalding liquids So we're gonna pause right there for a little apropos of nothing Hey, hey he buddy. What'swhat's the matter? Oh, hey. Hey, Seasel, I'm trying to say something really scathing.

This guy at my gym who keeps bothering me, but I don't know, you know, like insults are hard. It's tricky. I'm trying to come up with something. Well, why not try Volkaryth for charity? Volkaryth for charity? That's right, Heath. Volkaryth for charity.

Oh, you're a new tomb. Hey, hey, you in a new fundraiser. I have. Hey, you in the sketch. Hello. Today. It's our yearly fundraiser for ModestNeeds.org. What's ModestNeeds.org? Well, they do smart fundraising to help people.

Yeah, no, no, everybody's here. Really? And they do smart fundraising to help folks who aren't eligible for other services get the help they need. Wow. That sounds like a great charity. It is, Heath. Ta-da!

And this year, hey, buddy, I'm in this year. This year, a private donor is matching our first $100,000 donation, so when you give us the money, it's worth two money. Fantastic. Two monies, love that. So how do I donate? Just head over to monosneeds.org,

donate at least $50 and send the receipt along with who you want us to roast to vulgarity for charity, that's the word, not the number, at gmail.com. vulgarity for charity at gmail.com, all right, I am in. Will you guys do my gym friend? Will you roast him? You know it, he's a s**t.

Well, we'll edit most of Eli's stuff out, so. Yep, probably the best. Yep. Well, he is. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ All right, ya mooks, it's time for the skim and his official convention to begin. Mugsie, what do you got for us?

Big passports, you mulloinks. They go like gangbusters, and the dupes, two busy wearing risk cups at the border to hunt you down. Me and the dupes, you're trying to have a man. Okay, okay, okay. Here's one me and Fat Tony been doing. You put up an old wristwatch and the kitchen of kellas. You tell them mark to go up for the fat day,

and then by the time he makes the goods, you swoop in with the second ticket, by the boom, by the bing, it's all done, boom! Okay, you tell a very specific group of people what you're gonna do is you're gonna start a company, right? And then you're so shaz in that company based on how much money you think that company is gonna make. But then, you're gonna just take that money and then you never start the fucking company, ha ha ha.

Uh, when I really, I think that's, that's just a tech startup. Ah, dang, it is, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I need the rich. And we're back when we last left off. Cesar was pretty sure he'd convinced us that it was somebody else he knew they'd get rupt off by that speaker, you know what I'm saying.

Cesar, what other scams have you totally not fallen for personally? I like the dive to start out with this one too. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. expensive bottle service and then not deliver it after it's been paid for. Then the IRA cost of how does that make you feel so social with me? Makes you feel real small, especially you're standing next to a huge bouncer. Then the IRA customer is thrown out after making a scene, quote, the product or the service may be illicit offering the victim no recourse through

official or legal channels. End quote. Okay. But if you get your name on the lease when you help pay someone's rent for that month, they have to let you live there. They have to. You're welcome. I love this.

It's like, all right, fine. As a gentleman, I prefer, nay, I expect a certain integrity from the strippers who promised to blow me in the back room for 40 dollars. That is why when I was thrown out of the rear end, from the strippers who promised to blow me in the back room for 40 That is why when I was thrown out of the rear end Tuesday afternoon with not so much as a gentle whisper into my unkempt pubic hair I was a Paul one star

P.S. and L.A.P. Plumkin if you're reading this I slipped my phone number into one of your creases. If you find it, please call me. I wonder if you're just stealing my copy right now. I feel like I can sue. The next one is the Baltimore stockbroker, which also sounds like a sex act. You're gonna wind up with a turd on your chest or something. The Baltimore stockbroker is a kind of clever scam that requires the condescending,

a ton of unsolicited letters or emails that include a prediction with a binary outcome, something like a team winning or losing. Then I guess they go through really good database management and send another binary outcome to the people who got the correct prediction, et cetera. Until they have a group that got about five

or six correct predictions in a row, and then they offer the next prediction to that group for a fee. Yeah, this game is also known as every magic trick You ever saw go right on television. Well, behind I mean if you can't trust unsolicited anonymous stranger email Who can you even trust? Jesus again? I hate to interrupt but but another side note, I once watched a mutual coworker of ours explain to Noah that the way to beat this scam was just a bet on the first few sports bets they gave you.

It's the closest I've ever seen to know up next to his body. That's amazing. So the fiddle game, again, sounds like a sex act requires two con men. One will go to a restaurant and not have enough to pay the bill. They leave their priceless violinist collateral while they go out and get the cash to pay the restaurant. Another con man will go to the restaurant worker and offer a really large sum of cash

for the violin if that person doesn't come back. But then the con man violinist returns and they'll reluctantly sell the violin to the restaurant worker because the worker thinks they have an offer on the table for a lot of money. And in reality, they just purchased a worthless violin and the guy who offered to buy it never responds.

Tissel, can you know, but notice that last one isn't so much a scam as it is an asshole trap right like the yeah right. The way not to pull it is to not be an asshole. I know. No, no. Another similar scam involved having a con man who's missing an eye. What pretty small pull of applicants on this one. Look at for Con partner. Must be missing an eye or really fucking motive.

They did. So the con goes to a store and declares that they lost their glass eye in the store and offers a cool grant to anyone that finds it. No problem, sir. We'll go ahead and have a look around. Oh, sorry, incentive. Damn. I'll keep an eye out for it. Oh, shit. Con payment'll go ahead and have a look around. Oh, sorry, incentive. Damn, I'll keep an eye out for it.

Oh, shit. God damn it. Why would a glass of yours? That was $1,000. I can't do that. No idea. No idea. The next day, another con, I guess,

with a full complement of eyes, finds the eye in the store and tells the owner. The owner of the store is then supposed to want to get the $1,000 for himself and has to pay a $250 finder's feed the person found it. And then the one-eyed con man is not reachable and the store owner has a very expensive marble. This one seems like it has so much conditional shit. It's labeled citation needed in Wikipedia. Well, yeah, I mean, especially since you could do the same scam with like a lost ring with

sentimental value with all of your eyes. Literally anything worth of value. Toddler. Dave, before you plot your eye, I was thinking we just switched to ring. Oh, we were just barely out of sync today. Just like a couple seconds. Because I was thinking anything else just now. I, okay.

The next one is the lottery scam. It's where a con buys a lottery ticket with yesterday's winning numbers and then alters the date on the ticket. The con then sells the ticket claiming they aren't eligible for some reason and then the mark tries to cash it and finds out it's fake.

Wikipedia says, quote, the particular cruelty in the scam is that the mark attempts to collect the prize, the fraudulently altered ticket will be discovered and the mark will be held criminally liable. Again, citation needed end quote. Which is fucking like some guys just like, oh man, what a bummer.

I won the fucking lottery and I can actually cash it in myself. Nor can I literally just give the ticket to anyone at all in my life who I might trust. Yeah. Guess I'll have to sell it for pennies on the dollar. It's a complete stranger. It's a sickly, it's a fuck. What?

Three card Monty is another scam I've seen in person here on the L and Chicago. It requires two cons. One to do the slight a hand and one to pretend to win. The first con will do a simple card game or a shell game where the dealer mixes up the cards of the shells and then the player has to guess where a certain card or which shell something is under. I've seen it done with tops of 20 ounce soda bottles and like a crumpled up piece of paper. So the second

con comes up and bets a few times on this game and then wins. And then they leave with their money. Then the mark will just come up and bet. And then the dealer who you slide a hand to reveal another card or hide what's ever in the shell. And sometimes the con man will let the mark win a few times to up the ante and convince them to bet much more, but eventually they always lose. Yeah, super important note on this. You cannot win this game. Like, no, even if you guess randomly and just turn over a card without asking your new friend who got you to play in the first place, they're going to stab you and take your money. This is also the end.

It's not sure how anyone ever said, well, this street gambling establishment seems legit. It is. It is. And if you ever say that, you're wrong. Yeah, we actually walked past one of these and I was like, yeah, I'm totally gonna win this game right now and Eli pulls me off the side. He's like, look into my fucking eyes.

And you're not doing this. And he's like, hey, you see that Bosnian Warlord convention across the street right over there? Those guys just whistling and trying not to look at us in the game that they're all clearly guarding and I was like, oh, okay. I think I can win no stone. And we didn't fall.

And here we are on this podcast, the live one. By the way, best Monty team in New York, they're at Lexington and 53rd. They're a giant fat black guy and a tiny little old white lady wearing a fur coat. And, oh, they've been working together for years and I just want to know their story. A modern online scam is fishing. And this is where the con will send a message to the mark posing as some kind of official organization,

like a bank or a credit card company. But it can also just be an email provider and online service. And they'll tell you something's wrong with your account and you have to click a link to fix it and at the link you'll enter in real online credentials or credit card information And the website is just made to collect this information for the con a lot of super small people fall for this one Smart intelligent people Otherwise very skeptical

Yeah, a lot of them fall for it half a dozen times I told you I'll give him back his money when he learns his lesson. So we're splitting the money. I'll split the money. I haven't lost so much money since I had a live show in New York. Jesus Christ. Another modern scam is to fake a support call. Like, is it tax support call? They'll normally be a call center where the person claims that something's wrong with your computer and then they'll convince you to give them access to your computer through the internet and then they'll do some bogus check for viruses or something similar. After showing you the issues with the computer which are not actually issues, they'll often

black the screen and lock the system with a syskey and then they ransom it back to the user. Yeah. and lock the system with a syskey and then they ransom it back to the user. Yeah, to be fair though, if you think a company is gonna call you proactively to offer help with their thing, I know. That money was never yours, you didn't have that money. It is fun though, like whenever I get one of those calls, I like to pretend I'm a digital voice menu

and see how many steps I can get them to go through and what I can do. Other variants of this scam include a refund. They claim that they have a refund of several hundred dollars that they want to transfer to the mark. The con convinces the mark to let them remotely access their computer so they can log into their bank account. The con then blacks the screen out

and then alters the HTML code on the mark's bank account webpage to look like they got a refund of thousands of dollars. So then the con demands they send the money back to them, but instead they need to go out to the store and get thousands of dollars in gift cards because the account can only send money and not receive it. Oh yeah, no, it's like the one that Tom got after is divorce. And you'll need to surrender five out of nine stamps on your subway club card as part of the settlement also. Okay, I'm going to pay Alamoney only in my TCBY gift cards from now on. So I'm going to cut out the middleman.

Two similar scams here. One is called Beijing T and the other, the bar bill scam. They both have cute girls as the cons. They convince single male tourists to go to a bar or a tea house respectively. Establishment is in on the con and the menus won't have prices and everybody's gonna order.

And when the bill comes, the cost is absolutely outrageous. And the women will either just pony up their parts to the bill or they'll, they won't have enough money to cover it and they'll convince the guy to pay up with a promise to meet tomorrow to pay him back and then they never do. Now I'm pretty sure all the bars in New York are in on this one.

So I'm just gonna ask for all the bars in New York. Change rising is where the con will trick a cashier into giving more change than they should. They normally do this by buying something small and then paying with a $10 bill. The rest is a little complicated so I'll let Wikipedia explain it. Quote, the con gets back nine ones and the change, and then tells the clerk he has a one, and he will exchange the 10 ones for a 10.

This is what the scam artist is doing, getting the clerk to hand over $10 before handing over the $1 bills. Then the scam artist hands over the 9 ones and the 10, and the clerk will assume there has been another mistake and offered to swap the 10 for a 1. The con will probably just say, here's another one, give me a 20 and we're even. Okay, that's actually amazing though. They can also do something similar by paying for something small

with a large bill. And while the clerk is counting out the change, they distract them and convince the clerk that they already gave them the large bill. Look over there, it's me already having given you the money what? Why would that work? What is the?

Wabbit season, duck season, you owe me $100 bill. You owe me $100 bill. You owe me $100 now. Many scams use fake money orders or checks and they get the mark to cash their check into their account and give back less than the check amount. One of these is a mystery shopper scam where this shopper is required to use a wire transfer company as a shopper

and that they're evaluating a transfer time of the wire transfer company as a shopper and that they're evaluating a transfer time of the wire transfer company. Nothing with wire transfers is not a scam at this point, right? I like, no, no. I know. I know. I know. So they're told they can keep the fee from the cash check

and send back the rest, but after a few days, the check's gonna bounce and they're stuck with a loss and the fees. Okay, so you want me to help you time something that is inherently a timestamped process. And then you'll pay me by letting me keep some of the fee. Yeah, this checks out. Send me the right the fuck up.

I'm kidding. Yeah, another version, by the way, of this same scam is nine out of every 10 emails you get when you're an entertainer in New York City. Oh, it's true. Yeah. You're still doing birthday party? Yup, absolutely.

I'm gonna waste 900 emails at your time. Psychic surgery is on here, and it's when a con man tricks a sick person into believing they can use psychic powers to heal them, and then they palm some chicken guts or some other gross shit and then they do some slide a hand with a bit of fake animal blood to pretend to pull the chicken guts out of the patient and claim it's a tumor or some kind of malignant growth and they don't do this other kind of stuff. They're hard either they do it for a fee.

So oh yeah. Hey, you want some psychic healing? I'm not sure. Can you pull a tumor out of my body with your bare hand? Oh, you can. Nice. Okay, no, yeah, I do want that then. You see, what?

Such dirty ears, you've got some chicken. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, It just keeps pulling it out of his mouth like the, like the hanky that just keeps pulling the back of his mouth. Rainmaking is a scam where the con claims something large, quote, modern examples include getting someone's app featured on the app store, obtaining pass marks in a university entrance exam, obtaining a job or a politician implying that they can use their influence to go contract awarded to the mark and quote. And so the con really can't do what they say, but if it works, they take credit for it.

And if it doesn't, they charge more money until you stop paying or it finally does. But it didn't work. So, okay. Caesar, you scoff, but my website is now optimized for all search engines. I'm gonna be huge on being. I know.

This next one here, I actually, I've actually called up thinking that this was a real thing and then realized it was a scam when I was talking to the person on the phone. But there's this rental scam that uses sites like Craigslist to advertise for an apartment rental that seems way too good to be true because it is. The con will ask for the first month's rent and have the mark fill out all kinds of proper paperwork but they don't actually own the unit and rent it to multiple people. Yes.

Yeah. This actually happened to a friend of mine. He rented a houseboat like this. And then like two weeks later, he woke up to police raiding his boat with your gun. Oh, no! It's amazing.

Yeah. Not for him, but he was white, so he was fine. But after the incident, the guy in the next boat over walks up to the cops and he explained how the same scam probably happened to him. Oh shit. I actually turned out that the con man had rented out an entire dock of boats. I'm getting palsy. So awesome.

Like evil, but so impressive. Come on. The IRS scam is a common phone scam nowadays. The call center will call you claiming they have an outstanding tax bill and they'll close all your accounts and they'll throw you in jail if you don't pay it. Of course, IRS is not only interested in getting your money, but they'll also accept

sweet Google player iTunes give lines to clear up the debt. Jesus Christ. Interesting. Yeah, you know what? They try to con me with this one every fucking April like clock. I was like, come on, I was falling for it the last 20 times. The public transport ticket scam has the con walk public transportation looking for a

mark. They find it clearly out of town person and demand to see their ticket. They'll claim that there's something wrong with the ticket and demand that payment is required. And quote, in some cases, the scam is even committed by actual public transport staff seeking to rip off tourists. End quote. Yeah, or they'll tell you that your train isn't running

so you need to take a shuttle bus but then it turns out it doesn't. Sorry, that's the MTA, my bad. Yeah, so when you said public transport scam, I'm like, yeah, no, I've been to New York, yeah. Never get on a shuttle bus. Just never do that to scam in New York They don't mean the bus system is pretty much a scam. That's not for you That's not for you. So I didn't include other scams like multi-level marketing

But I figure we can do that in another episode soon probably and if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence What would it be? I'm now willing to give you a summary for less than $500 in Google Play cards, Eli. I'm sorry. All right. Tom will not stop masturbating until you forget $500 in Google Play cards. 20s Google Play.

I've been using these play with your self cards. Let's go on one. All right, Cecil, are you ready for the quiz? Absolutely, let's do this. All right, Cecil, are you ready for the quiz? Absolutely, let's do this. All right, Cecil. Obviously, these scams are wrong. We don't want to blame the victim. Which of these scams are clearly the victim's fault?

A, the a college education is an investment in your future scam. Wow. Or B, the real estate's the only investment that never goes down in value. Scan. Jesus. Or C, kids.

Oh, God. All three of those are a personal attack out of ELA. I love it. But I think it's secret answer E, don't tax the rich. I may be rich someday. That's the secret answer E don't text the rich. I may be rich someday Secret answer GOP

I love that you skipped over secret answer D to get there. I did Was bullshit. All right Cecil which of the following is the best Hornographic con man movie is it it a three card full Monty? B a starfish called Wanda. C VD is for Vendetta or D the Sting when you pee. They're all so good. But I like the ones that are pixelated. So secret answer E Beijing TNA.

good, but I like the ones that are pixelated, so secret answer, e-begin TNA. That was great. Alright, Cecil, why did you choose this topic for this week's episode? Was it A, to make me realize how many of these I'd fallen for and didn't notice until the episode? B, to rub in the fact that I got my credit card fished literally two weeks ago. What? See? Because everything you talked about is still better than the Patron's new creator program. Yeah.

Yeah. Or D, out of beautiful irony because- Charity. Okay. Okay, I have to add it out D. I'm choosing the censored beef that I just played right there. The censored beef that I just played right there. The censored beep is true Just just splice in Eli saying ethnic slurs from earlier. That's better than deep told you we needed that be real Well, unfortunately Cecil that's not correct because of the way this is all set up. You are in correct now

That's right and Ely gets to announce the winner. Please don't accuse us of any other felonies. HUM! Sodomy! That's not a felony. Ely, wait, wait, you went for felony and you landed on Sodomy. Depends what state you're in I would guess. Yeah, when do you live? It's a great question for me. All right well for Cecil Ely, he's the Tom. I'm Noah. Thank you for hanging out with us, well, for Cecil Eli Heath and Tom, I'm Noah, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then, Tom will be an expert on something else.

Between now and then, you can hear more from Heath and Tom by not finishing your meal right away and still having a few tasty fries left on the plate. You can also hear more from Eli and Cecil by hanging out in the white van with over-priced speakers and you can hear from me by using the wrong form of your and your Facebook status. And if you wanna help keep this show going, you can make a

per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or leave us a five-star review everywhere you can. And if you want to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citation pod dot com. Donate to vulgarity for charity. Hey guys, I want to apologize for all the stuff I said earlier today. I was just mad. I love you guys and I would never say any of that. You lose all your money?

Yeah. How much? Dozens of dollars, Tom. You know you did, buddy. We did. Lady at Chase Bank called me a noob. Lady at Chase Bank called me a noob.