Stuff You Should Know - How Con Artists Work

Episode Date: May 12, 2011

They say you can't con an honest man, and that's key to thwarting cons; if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Learn how to avoid everything from small-time scams to the Nigerian money transfer in this captivating episode with Chuck and Josh. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. That makes this Stuff You Should Know. Guess producer Casey in the house. Yes. It sounded like Oprah.

You did. Welcome, Casey. That was pretty good. Thank you. Yeah. Chuck. Yes. Have you ever heard of a guy named Gregor MacGregor? That's not a name. It is a name. You know, I once lived with a guy named John Johnson. Really? Yeah. In college. He was a college roommate. Gregor MacGregor had an evil sense of humor or else just was driven by greed. But at the beginning of the 19th century, he fashioned himself as the Prince of Poirot. Poirot. Did he make up that name completely? Okay. P-O-Y-O-I-S. Completely non-existent place. No. Not only was it a non-existent place as in a non-existent country, it was a non-existent island supposedly off of Honduras that he supposedly

owned because he was supposedly the Prince of this place. This is at a time when you could basically say, hey, you want to go colonize this country called Poirot that's rich with oil and well, probably not oil at the time, but rubies and gold and timber and all this stuff. And you guys will be the first settlers there. So you're going to be in on the bottom of this and you're going to make tons. And the guy basically went around selling stock, the right, to go colonize this place that didn't exist. To the English, I imagine. To the English. Two hundred and fifty settlers traveled there. Two hundred died on the journey looking for this place that didn't exist because they got the coordinates and there was nothing there and

they were all exactly bitter. Not necessarily. While these people were off, he moved, Gregor McGregor moved on to France and was doing it again. Finally, about fifty of these people came back and they so couldn't believe that this guy made this up that some of them testified on his behalf when he was finally caught and tried as a con man. Sounds like he had a lot of confidence. He got the confidence of the two hundred and fifty settlers and then some actually during his trial. This guy was so audacious that he was still selling stuff to he was still selling stock and land rights to this place to local nobility. Whoever he could get to buy it. It sounded like a skilled con man. He is a con man and like you said, con is short for confidence.

Most people knew that, but turns out that's not true. I just told Lizzie that and she went really. Well, she probably wasn't paying attention. No, you never know. Chuck. Josh. I think it's high time after all these requests that we've gotten to do how common work that we do how common work. Yeah, this was on the Facebook page the other day. I should have written down the name. Apologies to whoever put this on our Facebook wall mid April. Yes, this is for you. We've done at least one before. We've done Ponzi schemes. Yeah, and that'll pop up here. Yeah, but this is like an overview. There's a lot of different cons going on at any given time all around you in the world that you take as real and genuine.

You're actually being conned an average of eight to 12 times a day study show. Con artists, Josh are deceptive. They're liars. They're cheaters. They trick people. They're probably pretty smart. They take advantage of your weaknesses. If you're lonely, if you're not too smart, if you're like cats, if you're elderly, unfortunately a lot of times they prey on the elderly. Yes. If you're in poor health or if you're just plain ignorant and dumb. Or, and this is a very, very important point, if you're greedy. Well, yeah, greed. Well, what's the saying? You can't cheat an honest man? Yeah. That's as true as true gets my friend. It is. There's no such thing as something for nothing. And if you are greedy, you are likely going to fall

prey to a confidence scheme because you're going to go against your better judgment. And once you take that step, you've just become ensnared in one of the eight to 12 cons that are taken on you every day. Yeah, it reminds me of the movie Wall Street. Charlie Sheen got swept up in that greed and they weren't cons. Well, I thought it was Shia LaBeouf. But yeah, but there was, you know, insider trading going on. But remember Sheen's father, Martin Sheen, played his father in the movie. Yeah. And remember in hot shots, they passed one another on the river and go, I loved you in Wall Street. That's true. I forgot about that. But the father was honest. He was an honest man. He couldn't be conned. He couldn't be bought. He's like, no, no, no.

You son, you can't get something for nothing. Yeah, you got to use elbow grease and your strong back to make your money. Yes. And what happened? Charlie Sheen went to jail. Martin Sheen did not. And look at Charlie now. Yeah, he's psychotic. Let's talk about con men. So Chuck, one of the hallmarks of the confidence man is or woman or woman. That's a really good point because that's they're just as likely to be a con person as a man. Yeah. A woman will more likely play on a man's lust. Yes. To get his money. Whereas a man will do other things. Yeah. Because women are stupid enough to fall for that. That's a good point. Yeah. Although a gay con artist could still pull it pull it over. Yeah, maybe you're still working the man. Yeah,

true. Chuck, one of the hallmarks of con people is that they travel frequently, mainly because they don't like to be chased by mobs with pitchforks and torches. Yeah. Although they frequently are. Yes. So to kind of explain or excuse this frequent travel, they may say that they have a job that causes them to or they may actually have a job that gives them a reason to travel. Like you could be a traveling salesman, but really you're a con artist, but you really do have a job as a traveling salesman. Yeah. Like, have you seen Paper Moon? Your favorite movie. I have indeed seen that. Yeah. They were always just sorted from town to town, right? Yeah, Bible Salesman. Oh, that's right. Traveling Bible Salesman. Although the whole thing was a con. She was the

cutest darn little con artist I've ever seen. She was awesome. You could also be a carny, which I think partially explains why a lot of people don't trust carneys. You think? You ever see the famous Simpsons episode with, um, oh, what was the guy's Jim Varney? Yeah. As the carny. He and his son ultimately got got by Homer and Bart. They did. Yeah. Casey, can you verify that? All right. Casey always knows. They did. He's a Simpsons guy. Uh, Josh, if you want to throw some other cool 1920s style terms out there that like get on the trolley. Yeah. Uh, you could call him a flim flam man, a sham artist, a shyster, a bunco man, a grifter, a swinler, a hustler, a bamboozler. Grifter is my favorite. It's my favorite too. It's a good one. It's, it's, uh, let's call him

grifters. It sounds like you do not mess with this person. Grifter is, it sounds to me like a professional. Yes. You know, and the awesome movie, the grifters from, uh, Stephen Frears is what I think one of the top three con man movies of all time. Did you like that one? I made it halfway through the grifters. Yeah. Oh, I loved it. Yeah. We'll talk about the movie part in a minute. So there are, um, you know, we talked about Ponzi schemes before that is one of many types of cons and there's actually under the umbrella of con, uh, cons. There are sub umbrellas of types of cons and then under those are actual different cons. That's right. That is the granular level we're going to get to on this. Yeah. And there's, there's all kinds of cons, but it is funny how many of

them are just variations of the same con. Yes. The famous, for example, street cons. Yeah, let's talk about some street cons. Street cons are generally characterized by, um, the, the, the traits that they happen in public. They happen quickly. Yeah. And usually for a fairly small take a couple hundred bucks or less. Dude, if you can make a couple hundred bucks in a street con in 15 minutes, you're doing pretty well for yourself, but you shouldn't be doing that at all. No, it's illegal. That's wrong. Immoral, unethical. It really is. I mean, that's, it's, it's, yeah, it's fooling someone out of their money. Yeah. It's kind of the worst thing you could do. I almost respect the, the guy who like hits you over the head and steals your purse a little more.

I don't like that guy either. Yeah, you're right. They're both jerks. All right. So let's talk about some street cons. Okay. Uh, what about Chuck, the pedigree dog? And by the way, this article has the most superfluous illustrations of any article on how stuff works at all. Really? Yeah. There's very app descriptions and then there's some illustrations of the app descriptions. And this is written by the grabster. We should point out. Yeah. It's all the fun articles. Yes. The pedigree dog, but you can insert dog with violin or really anything of value that you can trick someone into thinking is valuable. Right. So go, let's hear it. Okay. So let's say that you are a shop owner and some guy comes in with the dog and says, Hey, can you hold this for me for a minute?

I got to go down the street and place a bet or I got to go down the street and rob another store. Just be thankful. It's not your store. And the store owner goes, sure, I'll watch your dog. I love dogs. Yeah. Uh, so the first guy comes out and it goes out and then the second con man comes in unbeknownst to the owner related to the first guy, at least in a business sense. And he goes, wow, where did you get that dog? That's like very rare pedigree dog worth thousands and thousands of dollars. Can I buy it from you? And the owner says, maybe so come back in 20 minutes. I'll see if I can buy this dog from the owner. That's the greed that they play on the bartenders thinking, Hey, I'm like, I'm gonna make a few bucks here. Exactly. Um, or the store owner.

Do I want to say bar owner? Yeah. Yeah, either way. Um, so the first guy comes back, the owner of the dog comes back and, um, finds that the owner of the store wants to buy the dog from him says, Oh, I guess so. All right. I'll sell it to you for two grand. The owner, um, pays the two grand and the second guy never comes back to buy the dog from him. And so the owner of the shop all of a sudden is out a couple of grand and they have a mutt on their hands. Yes. The dog. Yes. Was never pedigree. No, it was all lie. The dog is a real loser here too. I might point out. Yeah. Cause you know, the guys probably not gonna be like, Oh, well, I'll love them anyway. He's probably gonna kick them, put them out on the street. And plus his name is Jason. Who names

their dog Jason? That's so weird. Uh, the pigeon drop. That's another old school con. Uh, this works. Uh, let's say you're hanging out on the street and you spot something that you have placed there. Uh, let's say it's a money bag from a local vendor. Yeah. They dropped it on the way to the deposit thing. Yeah. And a good way to make this work is if you can get the other person to notice it first, that way they don't feel like they're being con because they spotted it. Right. Then you say, all of a sudden you realize, Hey, both of us are looking at this thing that says, you know, the savings in loan and it's got a little money spilling out of it. That's the most generic thing I could think of. Yeah. And they said, you know what, let's, um, let's, let's put this

up and see, here's where an honest man can't be cheated. Yeah. Comes in for sure. Because if you said, well, maybe we should also just try to take it to this bank first. The con's over. It is. But let's say you are a greedy guy and you're going to go along with it. What happens? Well, the, the second car con artists might show up and say, uh, Hey, listen, I saw this too. So I, I want my fair share. There's no easy way to solve this. So why don't in good faith? Why don't we all put some money in an envelope? Show good faith. We're all financially on the up and up. And then the money is in there. A little sleight of hand goes on and the original dude ends up with an envelope full of coupons. This one I don't get, you don't get it, but I don't like it. And

I don't get it. First of all, sleight of hand, that is not a good con. It's not solid. If it involves basically like magician ship. Well, that's what three card money is. Agreed. The other thing I don't like about it is why not just split the money up three ways? Why would you put money up to split money? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. I am actually angered by that. I agree. Another way to do it though, is if I say it's a ring, okay, something like that. Then it makes sense to put up money because one of the con men says, well, actually I do have a little training in diamond appraisal and this thing's probably worth about five grand. Um, I can't go pawn it or anything like that, or there's no way we can go pawn it right now. Right. Do you want

to buy my share or something? I'll, you know, for 500 bucks or whatever. The guy who's being conned, the target, um, says, well, yes, sure. Here I'll, here's 500 bucks and I'll take the ring and go on my merry way. That makes more sense. That does make more sense. Putting up money to split a bag of cash is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Well, it's a con. And if you have fallen for that con, that might make you one of the dumber rubes of the world. If you have, send us an email so we can come to your house and hit you in the head with a tack hammer. In the case of the ring, obviously the original person ends up with some sort of dimenoid and, uh, out whatever amount of money they're stupid enough to give up. Yeah. That's the pigeon drop. I feel mean saying stupid

and dumb, but honestly, if you give up cash like that, then on the street, we'll say naive. Okay. All right. Three card money. We mentioned that. That is more magicianship. That is, uh, my friend Jim used to do that in high school. Really? Jim was really good at three card money and he would just do it among friends in the cafeteria at school. So it's not like he hit the streets, but that's when you have three, you know, well, that's true. Uh, that's when you have the three cards and one of them, um, they said asus fades, but I've always seen it as the queen and find the red queen. You know what I mean. Exactly. Find the queen and you'll get the green. Jim did all that stuff. Black, white, candy, stripe doesn't matter to the Mac. That was one of his things

that he would say. So, you know, it's like the shell game and, uh, you're moving these cards around such, I mean, they have it on the big board at baseball games, you know, follow the braids hat and, you know, they do the quick switcheroo at one point and you can't tell. I actually know how to do that. I'm just not very good at it. Well, I know the trick though. Oh, okay. It's like you put one, both of them in one hand and do one of these and you drop the one that you're not supposed to drop. Huh. And so once you lose track of it, then unless you guess, you know, luckily you're not going to know where the queen is. I always just assumed one was sticky. No, you're just, you're just good at it. Okay. And, uh, there's also, uh, as we've mentioned,

the other cons, usually other con artists are not usually a lot of times they'll, they'll be in con working concert with you. So like they'll come up and win a couple of rounds while people are watching and they'll say, hell, well that guy just won a couple of times. I can do this. This must be a legit game of three card money. Yeah, exactly. Um, so those are just three of many examples of street cons. Nice. Which are all, um, short cons is another way to put them too. They fall under another sub umbrella of short con. That's right. There's no long street con as far as I know. I don't think so. Um, business and internet cons, these can traipse into the long con genre of confidence tricks. But for the most part, they're usually fairly quick.

For example, the pump end up scheme, right? I'd never heard of this one. Yes. Uh, pyramid schemes we covered with the Ponzi podcast. And should we get, how detailed do we need to get here with the pyramid scheme? I say we just go back and listen to Ponzi. Okay. So we should do. Yeah, you should give them another Ponzi though. It's a Ponzi scheme where you basically, there is nothing exchanging hands many times and you recruit people under you to give you money and they recruit people under them to give them money. And the only people who ever actually get a payout are the fear, very few people at the top of the pyramid. It's an unsustainable business model. If it actually is a business at all, sometimes it's like Ponzi's original scheme

wasn't a scheme. It was basically buying and selling like postage stamps because there was an exchange rate associated with the back of the time, but he started taking new investors money because the investment wasn't paying off like he thought and giving it to old investors. Right. And that's the creation of the Ponzi scheme. Yeah. It's the people on the bottom pass money upwards. So only the people in the first couple tiers actually can make money. That's right, Josh. And the way they get you in is they tell you that you're one of the top people. It's like even if you have suspicions like there's a pyramid scheme, they're like, it totally is, but you're one of the top three. So you're in. Right. Which makes you a greedy jerk. Exactly.

Playing on your greed once again. Yeah. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for

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Ensure that your resolution turns into ongoing progress. Listen to How to Money on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Multi-level marketing, Josh, a lot of times that's basically a pyramid scheme. There are some legitimate companies. Like the Pampered Chef or Tupperware or Amway. And it is legitimate. I mean, they can be. But they have a pyramid structure. They're just not, they're not a, it's not grift. Yeah. But if you start poking around and they're a little vague about the product and payouts and things like that, then it's probably not legit pyramids. Right. Not one of those companies. But yeah, if you start asking questions, if you ever start asking questions of a somebody who wants to,

to buy into their franchise and they start sweating and getting all cagey, just walk away. Yeah. It's a good sign. Yeah. Do we really need to talk about the Nigerian money transfer at this point? I would think our listeners are wise to this, but it still happens. It's an internet scam. The Prince of some country in Africa usually has this large sum of money and somehow we got your email address and you are the lucky guy that can get a portion of it. Yeah. Cause the money will be freed up. We just have some problems within our own country with customs or whatever. Yeah. We, we have a bunch of money. It's locked up. We need some of your money to unlock it. Exactly to bribe people, to pay whatever fees, all that stuff. The thing that I was surprised about is

that this, this one, the Nigerian money transfer, aka advanced fee fraud, aka a 419 scam. Yeah. Because section 419 of Nigerian, I guess federal code deals with fraud. It very frequently becomes a long con. Yeah. That's what I was. I didn't know about that either actually. Yeah. So like once you have given these people your money, they're like, Oh, okay. Well, let's see what else we can get out of you. And something got held up at the border. So we need more money for more bribes or we need your social security number because the bank is asking for it. Right. And it just keeps going on and on. And then the insidiousness of the long con is once you're, once you've bought into something and you're invested for a substantial amount, it becomes increasingly

difficult to walk away. Exactly. And it's always just tantalizingly right there. If I pay just a little more money, I'm going to get everything back and then some. And it just never pays out like that because you're being conned. Yeah. And the reason we didn't know this is because we never fell for the beginning of the Nigerian con. No. But you know, I make fun of it a little bit because I thought everybody on the planet knew about this, but it still happens, I'm sure. And it probably happens to, you know, like your grandmother. Yeah. And that's so sad and so wrong in so many ways. Yes it is. It's like, it's like stealing like half of the value of somebody's 401k or something overnight. Yeah. Or issuing a mortgage to somebody when you know they can't pay it back

because you're just going to foreclose in their house and sell it. You know what another, it's, I wouldn't call it a con, but have you ever seen that guy that sells the learn how to email with this DVD? Have you seen that dude? I think I know who you're talking about. Yeah. It's basically a trustworthy white guy with silver hair. Yeah. It's very rudimentary things like learn how to access the internet or learn how to operate email. Right. We'll send you these DVDs. They're legit. I'm sure the DVDs show you how to email someone. Sure. But it's a, it's a shipping scam, essentially. Okay. We should probably see a wait here. Like, is this an actual scam? It is. Here's what happens. How about this? I will tell you what happens and then you, the listener,

can decide whether you think it's a scam or you, the lawyers of this guy explain it to us in court while you're suing us. What you see when you see these commercials is pay $8.95 or $9.95 for the set of DVDs that teach how to email. Shipping is $7.95, money back guarantee. So what happens is, if you're not satisfied, you get your money back. You have paid $8.95 to ship a DVD. The DVD is shipped to you via media mail, which is slow and very, very cheap. You can probably ship a DVD for like $0.10 via media mail. Right. So he's making $8.85. Even if they return the thing and he gives them their money back, he's, he's made the difference of the shipping. So basically this guy's making money no matter what. Scam or not a scam? Probably not because you're getting a DVD. Well, not in

the legal sense. Yeah. The guy's providing the service that he's saying he's providing. That's right. So he's guarantee stands. I reverse my stance. I call that man the smartest man on the planet. I don't know about that. All right. He's somewhere in between and we might cut all this out even. Yeah, right. What else? Oh, Chuck. What about home improvement? Yeah, you know, man, I was just working on this house down the street. I was putting a roof on it and we got all this extra material and I'm going to have to return it, but I could give you a heck of a deal. Here's all my money. The end. You've been scammed. Yeah. That's that there are two kinds of home improvement scams. One that are perpetrated by actual like contractors where they basically

sell you shoddy work or something like that. Or another frequent one is where they do the work, get halfway through, say tear your whole roof off, put half the roof back on and say, I'm going to need more money. And what can you do at that point? You're over a barrel? Yes. That's a scam. Or they might do shoddy work and have you sign a contract that has something like some clause in where if you don't make the payments, if you don't pay them in full, they can put a lien on your house and basically take it from you. Yeah. So you have to pay them for shoddy work, no matter what. It happens. There's also scams perpetrated by people who are not contractors. Like there's one that's like they'll re asphalt your driveway and this group of guys will just

basically paint your driveway black and be like, give us our money. That's they're not actually contractors. Right. They're painters really. Yeah. And since you mentioned it, the guys who approach you in the grocery store parking lot to fix your dents, they are not auto body specialists that just happen to be there with all their materials. They have their materials and I'm really, really sorry to say that my wife fell for that. Oh really? Her old Honda Accord that I drove or I'm sorry Honda Civic that I drove until recently had two of the worst smeared Bondo jobs I've ever seen in my life because he was going into the grocery store and I was like, I can fix that for you. I saw this. Just while you're shopping. I saw him. I never mentioned him.

Yeah. She fell for it. And I try not to give her too much of a hard time, but she's like, well, they seem really honest. Nice. Well, they gained her confidence. Yeah. Awesome. That's a con right there. You could also have the fake home inspector who supposedly is an official of the city, state, municipality, county who's just dropping by and announced at your house and for a surprise inspection is going to find eight things wrong with your house that don't meet code. Right. But really do because this person's not legitimate, but has a friend. Yeah. His friend who can do it for pretty cheap. Well, it's going to be terrible work, unnecessary work and expensive work. I got one for you. Yeah. If you ever see the words

a debt removal or debt erased, yeah, just walk away. I didn't even know this exists. Oh yeah, man. You look around their signs on telephone polls that say, you know, debt removal, we can remove your debt, which means they'll hand you a document that says your debt has been erased. And that's literally all it is. It's a piece of paper that says we've erased your debt, but you bought it. Yeah. Well, you've bought that piece of paper. Wow. And imagine, and sadly, some people have probably taken that piece of paper into like a bank and said, but no, look, it says here that my debt has been erased. Not so. Yeah. I'll bet there's a lot of discomfort in that first few moments where the person's trying to convince the banker

that they don't have any debt any longer. This thing just make this whole podcast makes me feel bad. We mentioned mortgage refinance scams where basically you find somebody who has some equity, a lot of debt and not a lot of income and you issue them a refinance, a mortgage refi, and you have to be an actual banker to do that. Yeah. And they do it. They do it because they want that house. Yeah, you might be signing away your house. Yeah. And also there's bankers who have been known to slip clauses into the fine print of a home mortgage loan or a refi that says, these people can have this house, by the way, and you just sign over your house for nothing. Yeah. Which I don't understand how somebody could get away with that. I know. And then of course,

Chuck, I think we're at the public service announcement part. How to avoid the con? Yeah. First and foremost, don't be greedy. Yeah. Don't be greedy. If it looks too good to be true, then it's you're right on the money there. Don't trust anybody, especially if you're an elderly person. You never get something for nothing. That is not how the world works. It has never worked that way. It will never work that way. Yeah. If someone is promising you large amounts of money for very little, what you considered very little money, it's just that's wrong. Solicitations are usually basically that's a horrendous business model in this day and age. So if a company is still using door to door cold visits, they kind of deserve to go out of business.

So you can go ahead and assume that either one, you don't want to do business with that company that's soon going to go out of business because they're using a business model from the 50s or a marketing model from the 50s or that these guys are actually con artists. Yeah. And they're not really going to sell you a security system. Yeah. And they're actually probably just casing your house to break into it later. Yeah, maybe so. You need to look out for other signs like if you meet a nice man who's got a great deal for you and he gives the business card and it says Jim Smith, P.O. Box 14. And that's all it says on it. Hand it back to him. Yeah. Walk away. Ask for information. Ask for their driver's license. Let them see you taking down their license plate

number. Yeah. And if you're asking them all these questions and they're legit, then they're going to be like, sure, man, here, they will be. It's going to be a little uncomfortable because you're basically saying like, I don't trust you. Right. You have a little too much pain on your jeans or whatever. So I don't like the look of you, but I'm willing to see what you do when I do this to you now, Scorm. Right. And if they don't Scorm, then, you know, you might be able to trust them. Right. Right. And if they're, if they really need that decision fast, if you say something like, you know what, this sounds really good, but give me about a week or something like, no, no, no, no, this deal ends today. They just say, okay, sorry. Yeah. It's very likely there's not any deal

that ends today. Right. When there's lots of money involved. Yes. And then Chuck, if you have been conned, the point of con artists' confidence is that you'll feel too embarrassed and foolish to tell anybody. So they'll be able to keep operating in virtually the same place for a while. Yeah. Right. So you want to actually go and tell somebody, go tell the popo. Can you tell the popo? Tell, uh, call up that, that annoying guy on the local news that goes and sticks microphones in people's faces. Maybe he'll help you out. Yeah. You know, there was a guy named Count Victor Lustig who managed to sell the Eiffel Tower twice. Pretty good story. Because the first guy was too embarrassed to tell anybody that it had happened. But basically about 15 years after

the World Fair in Paris, the Paris Exposition that saw the raising of the Eiffel Tower, the city was like really having trouble paying to keep it maintained. So it was kind of, it wasn't just completely unbelievable that the city would hire an agent to secretly shop around the right to tear it down and use the steel for scrap. Yeah. It was originally supposed to be temporary, right? Yeah. It was. Who knew? I don't know. So he would take people in a limousine and make a big fancy show about it to come up to the observation deck and show them the metals that they were going to be buying. Exactly. And somebody paid out. This one guy paid out. Andre Poisson was a steel dealer who paid out for it and was too embarrassed to tell anybody. And so Lustig did it again a month

later. And it was lucrative both times. I liked the guy's first scam. He created a machine that basically turned out blank paper, right? Printing machine. He built it as a printing machine that could print $100 bills. And basically what he did was he stuck $200 bills in. The problem was the machine could only spit $100 bill out every six hours. So even if you had the time to spend 12 hours staring at this machine, you're going to see it spit out $200 bills. Yeah. And just waiting on that third. Exactly. Forever. Right. So people paid, I think, $330,000 for a machine like this. And he was a very smart man. Very smart, unethical man. Yeah. Because you'd make that $30,000 back, divide it by six hours, or divide it by 100 by six.

So $3,000 divided by six. So that's how long it would take. Or time six. Yeah. Whatever. 18 hours. Is that how long now? 1,800 hours. I think 1,800 hours or 180. It's a variation of 18. What fun would it be to get a calculator out, you know? The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely

insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How's that New Year's resolution coming along? You know, the one you made about paying off your pesky credit card debt and finally starting to save for retirement? Well, you're not alone if you

haven't made progress yet. Roughly four in five New Year's resolutions fail within the first month or two. But that doesn't have to be the case for you and your goals. Our podcast, How to Money, can help. That's right. We're two best buds who've been at it for more than five years now and we want to see you achieve your money goals. And it's our goal to provide the information and encouragement you need to do it. We keep the show fresh by answering listener questions, interviewing experts, and focusing on the relevant financial news that you need to know about. Our show is chock full of the personal finance knowledge that you need with guidance three times a week. And we talk about debt payoff. If let's say you've had a particularly spend

thrift holiday season, we also talk about building up your savings, intelligent investing, and growing your income. No matter where you are on your financial journey, How to Money has got your back. Millions of listeners have trusted us to help them achieve their financial goals. Ensure that your resolution turns into ongoing progress. Listen to How to Money on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So I guess that's it. Yeah, we should list some movies here. Yeah. Because I love a good con artist movie. Yeah. The staying classic. I've not seen it. House of Games. David Mamet. Not seen it. Classic. Catch Me If You Can. We've talked about that. Yeah. Confidence. I saw that one. I didn't see that one. It was okay. Definitely

you'd watch it on a Sunday afternoon. Eddie Burns. Yeah. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is one of the great comedy con men. One of the great movies ever. Absolutely. If you're into Mamet, of course, you got to go with the Spanish prisoner. So he wrote two, huh? He wrote the Spanish prisoner and House of Games. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And Glen Gary Glen Ross, which is not a con man movie. And State and Main. Another great movie. Yeah. I'm a big Mamet fan. Men's Stick Man. Yeah. I'd say it's slightly slicker than Confidence. Yeah. Yeah. My favorite was the Grifters Stephen Frears movie, which you didn't get through. No. And then The Hustler, which preceded the sting. And then, of course, the number one Confidence movie of all time, The Baltimore Bullet.

Have you seen it? No. Okay. I hadn't even heard of it until today. I hadn't either. But it's got a great movie poster and it starred Mr. James Coburn. Can't go wrong there. No, you can't. If you want to learn more about cons, basically you should print out this article and carry it with you at all times. So if a stranger comes up to you and you suspect they're conning you, you can use it for quick and easy reference. You just pull it out and unfold it and be like, oh, an envelope full of money. I know what's going on. Come with me, sir. I'm placing you under Citizens Arrest. You can type con artist into the handy search bar at howstuffworks.com. And by the way, Chuck, Citizens Arrest, what do you think?

We've gotten a lot of requests and I don't know how that works. Let's do it. I've tried it a bunch of times. I just get beat up. Since I said search bar, howstuffworks.com, et cetera, that means that it is time for listener math. Josh, I'm going to call this a plea for joining our show. Dear Josh and Chuck and Jerry, I've been listening to and enjoying your podcast for about a year now. I wanted to thank you for reinforcing the crumbling concrete of my sanity with your rebar of knowledge. That's why I read this one. I just like that sentence. I'm 26 years old and for the

last three years have been working in a windowless office, endlessly shuffling paperwork. Your podcast with its breadth of subjects with a D and cheerful banter has allowed me one glimmering sliver of anticipation every day. I have to drag myself into work. Despite your insistence that you have submitted clumsy podcast in the past, I found something endearing and enjoyable in every one of them. Your inclusion of pop culture references, asides, in jokes, and personal anecdotes is what distinguishes you from more mediocre podcast. So who knew? That is nice. If all this flattery didn't tip you off, I was going to suggest one minor change, however, possibly the addition of a hip young smart alec looking for a career change. I can assure you

I have a voice and face made for radio and sensibilities and overall coolness to mesh seamlessly with this new fangled medium. So he's basically saying, can I be on your show as the third team member? Okay. I thought Jerry was the third team member. Well, the third podcast or fourth team member. Okay. Thanks so much for putting out a consistently great show. I'm a loyal listener. I will upgrade myself to fanatical if you can explain open source computing in 30 minutes. Sincerely, Matthew G. So Matthew, I can say two things. We will neither explain open source computing in 30 minutes, nor will we accept your gracious offer to join us as a third podcaster. What are you saying? I should not. Do you want him on the show?

No. Okay. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm trying to break it to him easy that the position has been filled. There are no openings here. We are what's called a comic dyad. I don't know how we could ever become a triad even for a single episode if it wasn't an interview. We had Strickland in here. Oh yeah, that's right. But he's not funny. So that's no threat to our comic dyad. And he can explain open source computing. Huh. Well, let's just get Strickland in here again. No. Just give this guy to Strickland. All right. Done. Either way, though, it's just you and me, right? That's right. Okay. Thank you, Matthew G, though, for your spunk. We like that. Yes. If you have ever been conned, we'd like to hear about it, right, Chuck? Yeah. No? It's sad, but

yeah, let's hear it. Okay. Well, we can share with people. How about this? Why don't you go share your cons on the Facebook page so everybody can look out for the hottest, newest, hippest cons going on? We're at facebook.com slash stuffyschno. You can reach us on Twitter at syskpodcast and you can send us plain old fashioned email at stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The HowstuffWorks iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?

The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast, the show that presents the latest science-based strategies to help us live happier, more joyful lives. In a special

New Year season of the Happiness Lab, I'll look at the pressures we all feel to change for the better in 2023 and how, if we're not careful, those pressures can make us feel worse. If I'm honest, it's just hard, man. It's really, it's really, it's really hard to be present. Listen to the Happiness Lab on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.