True Crime Campfire - Patreon Upcycle: Con College

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

Since it's the holidays and we both have family to see and things to bake, we decided to give everybody another peek at one of our past Patreon-exclusive episodes. Sometimes these patron-exclusives are just regular TCC episodes—extra cases. But sometimes we like to mix things up and do something a little different. In this episode, we decided to walk our patrons through some of the most common, most classic cons and scams—we’ll give you a little history on each, tell you how they work, and how to avoid them. Just about anybody can get got, so this is good info to have. So put on your pjs, grab your snacks, and let’s hang out and talk about griftin’.Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. So, campers, this is your April patron's only special episode. As you know, sometimes these special episodes are just regular TCC episodes. extra cases. But sometimes we like to mix things up and do something a little different. This month, we decided to walk you through some of the most common, most classic cons and scams. We'll give you a little history on each, tell you how they work, and how to avoid them. Just about anybody can get got, so this is good info to have. So put on your PJs, grab your snacks, and let's hang out and talk about Gryfton. We're going to start with what's probably the most famous con game,

The Pigeon Drop, which I hope you won't be disappointed to learn, does not involve actual pigeons. I know that's a drag, but it does involve cash. Sometimes a relatively minor amount, sometimes a lot. This scam can be run in a few different ways, so the detail. details can change depending on the scammer, but the basic deal with a pigeon drop is that the scammer will end up convincing the mark, aka the pigeon, to give them some money as collateral in order to score a much bigger amount of money. Now, this is one of the oldest scams on the books. It's been around for 500 plus years, which I think is astonishing. And here's one of the ways it might play

out. You're walking to your car in the parking lot after work or running errands or whatever, and there's a guy standing next to your car. This is your scammer. Though you don't know it yet, of course. And as you approach the guy, he smiles and holds up an envelope and says, Hi, sir, I found this lying on the ground next to your car. Is it yours? And, of course, you say, oh, no, that's not mine. The guy says, oh, weird, okay.

Huh. Well, I wonder if it's got the person's name inside it or something. It's pretty thick. There must be a lot of stuff in here. And then he says, oh, wow, look at this. He holds up the envelope and your eyes get as big as silver dollars because there must be thousands of dollars in their cash. And I don't know about you,

but I get a literal buzz from seeing cash, like especially large amounts of cash. And I'm like the least capitalistic, least inquisitive person on the planet. Like I get my clothes at Target. I maybe go clothes shopping like once or twice a year. I don't spend money except on the cats, really. Right.

And on murder documentaries on Amazon. No. So literally, like I could give less of a shit. And I still get that little, from seeing cash. Because I don't carry cash either. Yeah, me neither. Like when I traveled to Japan a couple years ago, we did the whole money transfer thing. And like carrying all that yen in my hands was just like a magical experience.

Like I felt like I was just loaded. Yeah, it's super fun. Like one time, somehow we came up on, we had to get something cashed and we needed the cash for it. I forget why. But it was like $3,000. It was like the most cash I'd have. ever had in my hand at once. And I mean, it was like, wow, it was really cool. So I think that seeing like all that cash and the scammer will kind of like, you know, make sure you see it is part of the

game. Oh, sure. Absolutely. It hooks you right in, you know. So there's all this cash in there. And he says, holy moly. He's like counting the bills. He says, there's 40 grand in here. And then he says, oh, wait, hang on. There's a note too. And he takes it out and reads it. And he says, oh, my God, it says 40,000 cops have been paid off. Yeah. So holy shit, this is dirty money. Like something nefarious has gone down here and these like nasty criminals drop their envelope, the dipshit. And as you and your new buddy are standing there with your mouths hanging open, somebody else walks up.

Now, this is scammer number two, though, of course, again, you don't know that yet. And a lot of times scammer number two will be a different gender or age or ethnicity than scammer number one. And presumably this is to prevent you. from suspecting that they're working together. So Scammer 1 might be a guy who looks like your grandpa, and Scammer 2 might be like a young woman who looks like a college student or something, right? Not always, but sometimes.

And Scammer 2 says something like, hey, I'm sorry, I couldn't help but over here. Is that just an envelope full of money? What is going on? Did you just find that? And Scammer 1 explains the situation to Scammer 2. She reacts with the appropriate amount of surprise and whatnot, and then she says, hey, you know what?

My brother-in-law is an attorney, and I bet he would be able to tell you whether it's legal to keep that or if you have to turn it into the cops. His law firm's just right around the corner from here. If I go and talk to him and he says it's legal to keep it, would you be willing to cut me in? So, scammer number one kind of looks at her and looks at you and says, you mean we might be able to keep this? Damn. Well, you know what? If you'd be willing to go get us some free legal advice, I guess I'd be willing to cut you in. And he looks at you, he's like, what about you, you in?

We'd each get like $13,000 a change. Now, if the scam works, you're going to say, hell yeah, and it's on to phase two. Scammer 2 pops off, allegedly to visit her attorney-brother-in-law and get you some free legal advice. You and Scammer 1, just chill for a bit with him talking about how he's going to spend the money if you're allowed to keep it and everything. And this, of course, is part of the game, gets you all excited. And I have to say, these people who are successful at these scams tend to be very charismatic. very charming very friendly good with people and i think if you don't have those skills you're probably not going to be very good at this so they're going to be somebody that's going to be good at putting

you at your ease right so before long scammer two shows up with great news oh wow she says my brother-in-law says you are legally allowed to keep the money but the law says you have to keep it all together for 30 days so we can't split it up until then so wouldn't you know it One of you is going to have to hold on to the money for 30 days. Then you can meet back up and divide the cash into three equal shares. Generously, Scammer 1 turns to you and says, why don't you hold on to it for 30 days? And of course you agree.

You definitely feel safe for keeping it yourself, right? I sure would. But then Scammer 2 says, okay, I'm cool with that. But, I mean, I'm sorry. I'm sure you're a really nice person, but I just met you. would you be okay with giving each of us a little something as collateral just so we can be sure you're not going to like take off with all the money and that's another thing that I've seen as a trope in cons is that the con artist

will often say something to you like you know I might be a con artist or something or you might be a con artist or something there's bad people in the world you know we have to make sure we're all safe you know very clever yeah it's like that that old that old joke about you know you pick up hitchhiker and he looks over and says how do you know I'm not a serial killer and you look over and say the chances of two serial killers being in the same car are astronomical. Oh, man. So anyway, you're a nice person, right? You don't want these people, these generous, generous people who are willing to split 40 grand with a total stranger to have to worry. So you say, sure, what do you want? And Scammer 2 suggests a modest sum.

maybe like a couple thousand dollars for each of them just for peace of mind reasonable and isn't that convenient there happens to be a bank right over there it shouldn't surprise anyone to hear of course that this is the last you're going to see of these two people they're going to take your four thousand dollars and run and when you get home with your envelope full of cash you're going to find stacks of cut-up newspaper or something like that with photocopied $100 bills on top. Womp. So that's one way it can play out. It can also play out with a much smaller amount of money.

In that case, the scammer will just make off with whatever cash you happen to have in your wallet. Or maybe like with your watch or something like that. Yeah. And, you know, like the amounts of money can be very, very different. I saw a news story recently where a 70-something-year-old man had been taken for 10 grand with this scam. 10 grand. That's just bonkers. Oh, God, poor guy. Like you just said, the details can change, but the core premise is a couple of strangers are asking you to part with money in order to get money. That is a huge red flag.

Yep. But people fall for this in distressing numbers every single year. The scammers tend to prey on elderly folks who are generally a little more vulnerable to stuff like this. So that campers is the pigeon drop. Next up on our list is the 419 scam. otherwise known as the Nigerian print scam or the advanced fee scam. Yeah, and this one is old, old. It's a modern form of the Spanish prisoner scam, which dates back to the 1700s, which is so crazy. But it's been adapted to the Internet age, and it is everywhere. And if you know the least amount of information about scams, you know about this one.

Yeah, everybody's heard of the Nigerian print scam, probably. And it goes like this. You get an email from someone overseas offering you a large sum of money in exchange for a smaller processing fee. It usually involves a complex story involving international red tape that only you can help with. Yes, because they found you on Google or something. The scammer will usually compliment the target by saying that they know that they're a purse of integrity somehow. And campers, like literally less than a week ago, I actually got one of these. It went, hello dear. Why do they always start with hello dear? Because I've gotten a

before too and literally every single time hello dear or they call you dear every time because they don't know your name yeah to whom it may concern yeah that doesn't hit quite as nice as hello dear is like very friendly we have to give it that my name is miss haadima alafati i worked with vedanta resources limited the united kingdom for 25 years but i retired in the year 2013 I didn't marry, and I have no child of my own due to my health issues. Presently, I am 68 years old and suffering from chronic tract cancer. Oh, no.

I know. From doctor's indications, my condition is really deteriorating, and it is quite obvious that my death is very close to me, as I can see my life quickly ebbing away. I am bed and re... Why are you laughing? This is serious, Whitney. This poor woman. I'm just thinking of something. I'm thinking of...

joke I heard. I am bedridden and in constant pain. The stage is worst for more than two months now, and I have been hospitalized, which affected my ability to talk. I am an orphan, no parents, no brother, no sister, but my country home origin is coat de voir. I was working with Vendata Resources Limited in United Kingdom, company's headquarters here in the United Kingdom. Great sentence. I know, right. I am working with this particular company for 25 years before I was promoted as Deputy Accountant General. Now, Whitney, as a writing teacher, she already told us this information, correct? Yeah, it's very repetitive.

I can only assume that that is the tract cancer that is causing her to not be able to write very well. Correct. When I was working for Vedanta Resources Limited, the United Kingdom, I deposit. Every single time. It's always Vedanta Resources Limited the United Kingdom. I deposited the sum of 910,000 USD in a United Bank for Africa Cote d'Ivoire. This money is still with the bank, but due to my poor health condition and based on doctors' indications, I am scared that my life is almost at the end. So I have decided to donate this 910,000 USD to the charity, the charity.

The charity. I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money. Okay, so at this point, my heart is bleeding for this poor woman. I mean, damn, no husband, no children, no parents even. She's got this chronic tract cancer, which I'm not 100% sure what chronic tract cancer is, but it sounds bad. So bless her heart. What can we do to help, Katie? Is she going to tell us or what we can do?

Yeah, yeah, it looks like she's going to tell us. I'm going to keep reading. Good, good. please I want the United Bank for Africa to transfer this 910,000 USD to you so that you can help me donate 70% of the money to any charity organization in Cote d'Ivoire while you take the remaining 30% of the money as your reward for your assistance in fulfilling my heart desire any charity what if it's some horrible thing so she doesn't give a shit she's just any charity yeah so if it's a charity that like advocates for picking puppies through electric fans. Like, she's cool with that, right? Right.

She should have done, like, because she's an orphan. What, like, just donate to the orphanage that raised me. I know. This one is really phoning it in. Any charity. Like, there's not, you can Google the name of a charity in two seconds. Okay. Good God.

I know that I have never met you before. I got your email address from Google. And my confidence reposed on you. What? Yeah. If I receive your reply. I will write to the United Bank for Africa to transfer the money to you. Send your response to my private email, and I'm not going to say that out loud.

We don't want any of you doing it. Yeah. I expect your prompt reply and wish you will put me in your prayers henceforth. Thanks and God bless you, Ms. Hawadima alafati. Oh, wow. Okay, so the deal is I get almost a mill. No strings, right? In U.S. currency, for some reason, even though she's in.

Africa and she worked for a British company but you know okay sounds awesome yeah doesn't it but here's the wrinkle oh shit if you responded to that you'd get an email back saying that in order to get the money transferred into your bank account you'll need to cover some fees now usually in my experience the initial touch from Miss Hawadima she would be dead and the bank would now be dealing with you yeah and you get like an email from her solicitor or something, right? Which is part of what lures people in because they think, God, there's like six people involved in this thing. It can't be a scam, right? Yeah. And the money might start smallish, like $1,500 or something. But inevitably, it will keep going and going. There will always

be some additional red tape, some new reason why you have to pay another fee. And they'll keep going as long as you have money to send. Yep. And the thing is, the victims will often. often be totally convinced that this money they're supposed to be getting is real. The people at Western Union or MoneyGram or the manager at your bank or even the police might try to tell them, you are being scammed. But a lot of times, you can't convince them. Yeah, I mean, they've got stars in their eyes at this point. They can't see past the dream of all that money.

And, you know, this shit devastates people's lives. And it is a billions, billions of dollars per year industry. It's organized crime, essentially. And the people doing this are often also involved in online romance scams, which are even worse, because people end up losing both their money and their hearts in those. It's just bloody awful. And the romance scammers have taken people for as much as millions of dollars from one person. Because greed is one thing.

And I think there is actually an element of greed in some of these cases, or maybe even most of these cases, not just with the Nigerian print scam, but with really any con game. they're playing upon your desire for money just as much as they have a desire for money. It's just they're unscrupulous and willing to break the law and hurt people to do it. So greed is one thing. You know, you might be thinking, ooh, you know, I might be able to get a million dollars for helping this Nigerian lady donate her money to charity. But an emotional connection is quite another.

If you feel like you're sending money to help the love of your life get home to you because he's stuck in Nigeria or wherever, for whatever reason, there's no upper limit to the amount of money that you'll be willing to spend, especially if you're lonely. These guys will specifically go after people that have the word widow or widower in their profile on the dating sites. Yes. So they're looking for people who are lonely, which is just infuriating. And basically, how the romance scams work is they will find their victims on dating sites more often than not. I know Christian Mingle is a really common hunting ground so be careful if you know basically you got to watch your me mom and papaw like a hawk yes

seriously and your moms and dads because it's usually people over 50 that get victimized you know people who've maybe lost spouses or have gone through divorces and are lonely so they will find their victims on these dating sites they will reach out they will have um fake profiles usually they will use pictures of, you know, older, distinguished-looking American or British men. So they'll pose a lot of times as soldiers or businessmen, and they tend to get really, really lovey-dovey, really, really fast. And that's one of the big red flags. So they'll pretty much almost immediately, like within the first week, start saying, I think I might be in love with you. I can see a future with you, et cetera, et cetera.

And they'll try to get you off the dating site as quickly as possible. That's another red flag. So that's one of the things to watch for is if they say, hey, let's take this off Christian mingle or offmatch.com and just talk through text. That's a red flag. And they won't usually ask for money right away. They'll get you nice and emotionally invested first. So it might take a couple of weeks for the first request for money. And it'll be a smaller request.

And then it'll just keep getting more and more and more and more and more. and the money will always be to help them get home to you so you can live happily ever after together right yes they won't be able or willing supposedly to video chat sometimes not even talk on the phone and i've seen cases where people have literally been planning to marry their scammer and they've been involved heavily involved and sent you know sometimes six figures or more of money and they've actually never heard the person's voice even but they will sometimes talk on the phone but they won't usually be able to, you know, video chat because they don't match their picture, right? And if they do, it'll be too dark, you won't be able to see anything.

Another typical element of these is they'll have big, dramatic Hollywood movie-like problems come up, like car crashes and illnesses and arrests and pirates even in some cases, whatever. Like was very evident in the email that you got, the grammar is usually like hilariously bad, but then sometimes it'll be perfect English all of us. sudden because they've found some love poem on the internet and they've just copy pasted it. So it'd be an interesting combination of like awful grammar and

perfect grammar. And interestingly, scammers who have actually been interviewed about this stuff have said that they don't fix the bad English grammar on purpose. Because they know that if a mark is willing to look past that

so if you've got somebody on the line who you've told them that you were born in Michigan and that you grew up in the states and that you're over in Africa for business or whatever and you're clearly not using correct English grammar and that doesn't bother them, then you know you've got a live one. They're going to be much more likely to look past a lot of the other red flags. So they do that on purpose, which I think is just pure evil. Well, and I think obviously with the chronic tract cancer, I think that was a bad Google

translate. Oh, yeah, totally. It was colon cancer. probably or like esophageal cancer but like they didn't fix it because they didn't need to because they want they want gullible people that's the thing that's so awful about it so that's an interesting element that you see a lot and there are always lots and lots of red flags but these people are really good at what they do they're good at sweet talking and in many cases the person you're actually talking to this is horrifying will be a teenager oh god so you'll be 70 years old thinking you're talking to a 70 year old man and in fact you're sending pictures of your boobs to a 16 year old and there's been investigations where they've they've done like hidden

camera video from internet cafes where these things go down and it's a whole business like it'll be an entire cafe sometimes they even have office buildings full of and and there'll just be teenagers sitting around doing this and laughing about the pictures that they're getting sent and stuff it's just horrifying on both sides it's horrifying that they would recruit kids into this as horrifying that they would recruit kids into this is horrifying for the kids and it's obviously horrifying for the victims and by the way you can go to jail for being victimized by these scams sometimes because one of the things that they like to use their victims for if they have somebody that doesn't have as much money or they've already bled you dry they'll use you for money laundering instead so they'll send you money and then

you have to move it around for them and the victims will unwittingly launder thousands and thousands of dollars sometimes for these assholes and we're talking about an organized crime syndicate so god only knows what that money is for what they might be associated with so obviously law enforcement understandably takes that really really seriously and in these cases usually the bank will have at some point tried to talk sense into the person oftentimes the cops will have tried to warn them but again these scammers are good at what they do and they dial up the love talk and they reassure them that nothing they're doing is illegal and boom jail i mean it's happened plenty of times to people who are like somebody's sweet grandmother who didn't know she was doing

anything wrong. It's horrible. And you have to stay frosty because we should be clear with all of these details can change. Like with the Nigerian print scam, as you saw, the email I got didn't say anything about our Nigerian prince. In that example, it was a dying woman who needed help donating her estate to charity. A charity, yes. And, you know, another time it might be a man who inherited millions of dollars from his wealthy father, but he needs help getting hold of it for whatever reason, like some kind of red tape or political unrest in his home country or whatever. And there's also a common scam where the victim is told that there's an inheritance in the form of cash and jewelry and that it's all in one or two big locked steel trunks, right? And in that version of the scam,

the victim's told that they have to pay to get the trunk through customs without it being confiscated. So essentially you're paying bribes, but they don't usually, didn't put it in quite those terms. No. Like we have to get this through customs without it being stolen or confiscated, so we need to grease the wheels. And then to get it shipped across the world to them. And that'll just get dragged on and on and on.

There was this dude on Dr. Phil. He was a doctor, okay? Like an actual doctor who, so you know he's smart, you know? I mean, it's not about intelligence with this stuff. It's about emotion. And this dude had been waiting on his two boxes that were supposed to be worth about $2 million or something like that for, I think it was like six or seven years. Oh, no. And he had ended up paying like $700,000 in fees, supposedly. I mean, it's just

money down the toilet. It was just being blatantly stolen. And they don't, they, they count on you not doing the math, right? So it's, it'll be like a thousand dollars here, $2,000 there. And with the type of people they target, aren't people like, well, like me who I'm like, I don't have that kind of disposable income. Right. Well, yeah, exactly. They had a doctor on the line with this guy. They must have thought they'd struck gold. So they, they're, they're, they're counting on you to not do the math of exactly what you're contributing. Yeah, and it's like in dribs and drabs a lot of the times. I mean, people sell their homes, sell their cars.

It's atrocious. It's just flipping atrocious. So beware, oh my God, and watch your me-maws and pap-paws. Yes. Okay. So now I'm sure most of you guys are aware of this next one, the Ponzi scheme. Now, we recently covered this in our show about Mack Parker. Remember the false profit episode, which is one of my personal favorites?

And of course, the most famous Ponzi scammer in recent years is Bernie Madoff, who stole literal billions of dollars, which is just staggering from his investors slash victims, and ended up with 150 years in prison for his trouble. Basically, the way that this works is victims are lured in with promises of a big financial return if they invest in the con man's business or a real estate venture or a movie project, as in the case with Mac Parker, or whatever it is. So you go in thinking you're an investor And sometimes it's just Well, I'm a broker and I'll invest this for you I'll invest your money in the stock market for you Whereas sometimes it's like we're going to buy houses and flip them Or sometimes it's like you know

Like I said a movie project or who knows what So once they've got you Oh and they'll lure you in with like big return So you're going to get 15% you know interest You're going to get a 15% return Which is that right there is a huge red flag Yes But again people see those numbers and they get dazzled

so you know they get sucked in by wanting all that money and then the con man will use new investor money to pay the returns that he's promised the original investors and this just goes on and on with the scammer having to constantly bring in new investors so that they can pay the old ones until finally it just gets too big and everything comes crashing down and this ingenious little dollop of evil

was named after an Italian American immigrant called Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglieland Tebaldo Ponzi. Damn, good job. And for simplicity's sake, we're just kind of call him Charles Ponzi. He used something called International Reply Coupons to perform his scam. Now, these coupons, if you're not familiar, allowed an international letter recipient to exchange them for stamps to write back.

But they were priced at the cost of stamps in the country in which they were exchanged. Ponzi discovered that due to World War I, Italy's coupons cost a lot less than Americas, and they could be exchanged for a profit, which was 400% at one point. Damn. Now, I know what you're thinking, but this is completely legal, actually. In fact, you see people doing this on Amazon and other third-party sellers, buying one item cheaply and then selling it for a profit in another market.

Yeah, and here's where Ponzi earned his place in conman history, bless his heart. He was feeling a little greedy, and he started looking. looking for investors to help his quote-unquote company grow. So he promised these investors an insane 50% profit in 45 days or 100% profit in 90 days, which is bonkers and should have been a massive red flag. But as I said, people are greedy. So how did Ponzi plan on paying these insane amounts of money? Well, obviously robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Which is how a Ponzi scheme works. So eventually the Boston Globe caught wind of this and they investigated and their expose caused a run in which investor frantically tried to pull their money out and this of course caused the entire scheme to collapse. And a lot of times this is exactly what happens with Ponzi schemes. It either gets too big to support itself

and people stop getting paid their returns and get suspicious or people get suspicious for a different reason and start asking questions and boom. And if you want lots and lots of examples of Ponzi schemes with varying degrees of success and cleverness, watch the show American Greed because it will deliver like dominoes

Because like literally almost every episode of that show is about a Ponzi. Yeah. And what's interesting about Ponzi schemes and most of these scams is that there's an infinite amount of ways that you can pull them off. There's just a new story every single day. It's amazing. Yeah. And people stay happy at the beginning. And that's what's so dangerous about a Ponzi scheme is that, you know, initially you're getting your 15% returns every month.

So you're getting a fat check. You're happy. What you don't know is that it's going to collapse at some. point you're going to lose the vast majority of your money. Right. But nobody's asking any questions yet because everybody's getting paid. And then it's only when it just gets too big and the scammer can't keep bringing in money fast enough that everything falls apart and people realize that their life savings are gone or

whatever. Right. So next up is the airplane game. This scam is basically or just literally a pyramid scheme with a cute theme. It was popular in the 80s, but it's gained a research. recently on social media. So here's how it goes. You get invited to participate in a party or group in which you flip a small amount of money into a larger amount of money.

You'll be approached by a friend or acquaintance who asks if you'd like to play the playing game. And it'll be some bitch you went to high school with who bullied you and was an asshole to you and now suddenly wants to help you with this great money-making opportunity. Always. Let's go get flirtinis and talk about it. Yes, exactly. Heck off. No. Now, you show up to this party, and the party itself is just a glorified multi-level marketing pitch.

And they'd sit and talk about the fun and profit to be had while playing. And everybody helps everybody and blah, blah, blah. To play, you must purchase airfare. Now, this is not literal airfare. It is just a buy-in to the party in the form of a cash contribution. In an example I found from 1987, the cash contribution was $1,500. Now, this new person is called a passenger, and above the passenger, there are three additional levels, the crew, the co-pilots, and the pilot. In order to move from passenger to crew member, you must recruit two passengers yourself.

Then your passengers have to recruit four people to move you to co-pilot. And then finally, after those passengers recruit, you're finally a pilot. And all the money from the eight passengers that have now been recruited after you is yours. And you can retire and leave the plane. As you can imagine, the pyramid quickly becomes unstable and it's impossible to recruit enough people to keep it going. If every single one of the eight passengers in one plane is to make any kind of money, they will have to have a minimum of 64 people recruited after them. For those 64 to make any money back, 512 passengers must be recruited.

And this goes on and on and on until you run out of people on earth. Like literally babies, old people, pregnant ladies. And you can't start on your pets because they don't usually have any income. So then you're just shit out of look. So this isn't, is there a product? involved with this? Or is it literally just just moving cash around? Just moving cash around. Wow. So this isn't like the multi-level marketing where you're allegedly selling stuff. It's literally just a money game. That's really interesting.

And I don't understand because the article I found about it was from the Sun Sentinel. And it was a situation in Florida in which people were going to the police and saying, I got scammed. And the police were like, yeah, you did. Well, what you did was give a bunch of morons your money. Right. Which you chose to do. Yeah. And so it's just, it's interesting to me because, yeah, there's literally, you just sit and put in money until you get money back.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Now, this scam, like all of the ones we've talked about today, is illegal. And if you think it sounds familiar, it's because there are similar scams all over social media today. around the holidays you might see a secret Santa game where you know you buy gifts and send them to somebody random that's the airplane game and I found the following post actually recently in a Facebook group it says flip $100 to $800 the requirements invest $100 dollars promote the group

meaning recruit have patience don't be greedy and help the people come after you join our team and let's help each other get this money. Don't be greedy. Yeah. Just a reminder, these are illegal. Yeah, for good reason. And ignorance is not an excuse. You will still get in trouble with the law. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's why some of the romance scammer victims have gone to jail. They didn't know they were money laundering, but, you know, it doesn't matter. It's still illegal. And it's illegal for very good reason because sometimes that money can go to fund, like, terrorist organizations and shit. It's really, really serious. So, last but not least is probably my personal favorite, by which I mean that possibly

except for the romance scammers, these are the people I would most like to fire out of a trabusier directly into the side of a mountain. Yes. The fake psychics. Oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, I hate him so bad. So this scam involves someone posing as a psychic medium or psychic medium or psychic medium,

and they approach a victim that they have cold red supposedly as being in distress. They tell the person that they've sensed that the victim has some sort of curse placed on them and they know how to remove the curse by either giving them a worthless good luck charm or by removing the curse through magical means, both of course for a fee. So usually the psychic will prove their legitimacy supposedly by telling the target something about themselves. So if you're ever approached by someone, just please keep in mind that especially in the era of social media, there are many, many avenues that they could have used to get that information. So it could be some kind of social engineering by sending you a friend request on Facebook and just paying attention to the kinds of things that you post and that your friends post and stuff like that. They might know somebody who knows somebody who knows you.

There's all kinds of things. They could have hired a private investigator. You do not know. Okay. So, Occam's Razor, the most likely explanation is probably the right one. The most likely explanation probably ain't their psychic. Okay. Yes.

All right. So let's just remember that. So also you want to think about, is it a broad statement that could apply to anyone? Like, are they just saying something like, I sense you've been experiencing some trouble in your family relationships? Like, you could probably say that about 90% of the population. Yes. Or you've lost someone, haven't you? You know, well, most of us have either, you know, lost.

as in someone died or lost as in a breakup or something like that. So, you know, pay attention to that. Did they have to try more than once to get it right? That's another red flag. So was the first thing they said off base and then they said, oh, well, maybe it's this. And the second one was right, that's a red flag. So the second form of this scam is called the booho or bag.

The scammer will tell the mark that the curse is on their money. So not on themselves, but on their money. And that in order to remove the curse, they'll have to perform a ritual over it so they'll have the mark place the money in the bag and then using sleight of hand they'll switch the money bag with a bag full of like shredded newspaper or something there's your curse right there you just got victimized by a scammer yep now sometimes in order to confirm the curse the fortune teller will tell the mark to buy an egg and perform some kind of ritual with it.

It's usually placing it under your bed for some amount of time. And then after that amount of time is passed, bring it to the fortune teller. The fortune teller will again do a slide of hand trick to switch the Mark's egg with their own tampered with egg and crack it open to reveal something disgusting, like blood, hair, what have you. That's so gross. First of all, ew. And second of all, seriously?

I know. Who's falling for that shit? But actually, interestingly enough, the case that I'm thinking of for this one was an international student from China living in California. And so she was feeling really alone and desperate. Yeah, exactly. They're definitely always praying on people with vulnerabilities of some kind. And so I find it interesting because this woman just approached this girl at the mall and just nailed her. Just knew exactly like what to say to her.

They get really good at it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. like we say that very flippantly like who the hell is falling for this show but of course one of the things that makes these scammers so loathsome in my eyes is that they tend to pray as do most of the other scammers we've talked about on vulnerable people absolutely they may be elderly and lonely they may be very religious or superstitious and prone to believing in things like curses and demons sure they could be grieving the loss of a love of a love of one they could be feeling lonely and isolated whatever yeah like the girl you talked about she's you know in a different country and she doesn't have her family around her she doesn't have her support system so yeah i mean sometimes you'll grasp for whatever support you feel like you can get and these people again are good at what they do they have the people skills so what we're

saying campers is that these people are motherfucking scumb bags scum bags absolutely and I'm going to read you an article from The Guardian, which is the main British newspaper, about a recent case of a psychic scammer. This woman is a piece of work, and I want you to note the enormous amounts of money involved here, okay? She didn't see it coming. Psychic arrested for $800,000 fraud. And this is by Arwa Madawi. Despite her self-proclaimed clairvoyance, a New York City psychic was arrested by the NYPD

in the latest example of fortune-teller fraud. Psychic Zoe has not had a very good week. On 9th of May, the fortune teller whose real name is Ann Thompson, was arrested by the New York Police Department on suspicion of defrauding clients out of over $800,000. You'd think she might have had a premonition the police would be knocking at her door, but alas, the future isn't always crystal clear. I love that little burn on her there. The police were notified of Thompson after two of her victims contacted private investigator Bob Nygaard,

who specializes in psychic scams, which I love, I love this guy. I love Bob Nygaard so much. He's my hero. Yes, I didn't even know about him until this, but I love him. Both victims would like their names to remain anonymous. However, one is a mother in her late 40s from Canada who was defrauded of at least $740,000. Ouch. The second victim is a professional man in his 30s from the Midwest who met Thompson while on business in Manhattan last year and who was scammed out of $72,000.

But what exactly is a psychic scam, you might ask? Surely any trip to a psychic involves a large leap. of faith and no guarantees. That's certainly true. It's difficult to take a fortune teller to court because the tall, dark, handsome stranger you were told was definitely in your future never materialized. You can, however, charge a psychic for grand theft or larceny when they've taken a large fortune from someone via deception or false promises. Thompson's Canadian victim, for example, initially went to the psychic because she was having relationship problems. Why not pay $5 for psychic Zoe to read her fortune, she thought? Thompson, sensing a broken heart and a

naive nature quickly took advantage of the woman's distress and drained her life savings. She convinced the Canadian that she'd never find love again unless she bought the psychic a 9.2-carat diamond ring. Holy shitballs. Oh my God. She also convinced the victim to spend large sums of money on spells that would vanquish demons as well as on building a golden pyramid that would protect her and her loved ones from dying.

Needless to say, the golden pyramid was entirely fictitious. While Thompson is currently awaiting sentencing, Nygaard has already helped put a number of fraudulent fortune tellers behind bars. By his count, he has helped successfully prosecute 30 psychics and recovered more than $3.5 million for his clients to date. That's rare for people to actually get their money back, so that's good to hear. Despite his track record, Nygaard still finds it difficult to get law enforcement to take clairvoyant chicanery seriously. While he says he, quote, received excellent cooperation from an NYPD detective in regard to this particular case, all too often the police tend to treat psychic fraud like a joke. However, Nygaard stresses psychics conning desperate people out of large

amounts of money is a serious problem. The prevalence with which these psychic scams are occurring and the exorbitant amounts of money of which vulnerable people are being defrauded, not only in New York City but all over the USA is absolutely astonishing, Nygaard told the guardian. Police and prosecutors need to wake up and realize that these self-proclaimed psychics, are often part of organized criminal enterprises. So it's interesting that organized criminal enterprises comment because so often lately we find that these cons and scams are in fact part of organized crime.

Yeah, because to bring in that type of money that makes sense that you need to have some kind of organization behind you. Yeah, and it's also part of why the cons work so well. Because when you have that kind of infrastructure and that kind of support and those kinds of resources, you can really take people for a ride. Like with the romance scams, I have seen so many victims say things like, you know, it was just so elaborate. And it went on for so long.

And I talked to like seven different people. And, you know, they really were different people, different voices, you know, attorneys and customs agents, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, it's true. There are multiple people involved. It's a very coordinated effort. it's a billions and billions of dollars a year industry. They have incredibly sophisticated structures in place and sophisticated software to hide their location.

I mean, it's a whole big thing. You have employee handbooks. Like, that's the kind of organization we're talking about. Yeah, absolutely. They have employee handbooks. Yeah, and they take training and everything. So it's not a low rent operation by any stretch. And if you want to have a laugh, like if you want to feel better after listening to this, because sometimes it's really frustrating listening to these types of scams because, like, you start to feel hopeless because it literally could be, like, listen to that.

A businessman, a Canadian mother, there are people that are taken in. Just go online and search, like, medium, caught cold reading or something because there are people that will go in, and these are my favorite YouTube videos, where they go in and they make a fake Facebook profile. And they go into these, like, whatever, Sylvia Brown TED Talks, speeches. Oh, I've seen this. Yes, yes. And they put in this, like, fake breadcrumbs on this Facebook profile. And when it's not Sylvia Brown because she's dead. But the psychic, like, pick someone and is like, I sense that your brother is passed from us.

And the person goes, no. No, I lied about that. That was a fake profile. Yeah. Yeah, and they're getting fed this information through their little Bluetooth headset that you can't see from the stage by the person that's looking at the Facebook. This person is in row five. And, you know, exactly. It's so gross.

And it's really frustrating, especially with these, the, there's a uptick and a prevalence of psychics now. There's one gentleman. I don't want to call him a gentleman because he's a fucking fraud. He's a fucking asshole gentleman. Yeah. He's like the psychic to the stars, Hollywood side. I know exactly the little fucker you're talking about. Punchable face.

And guys, it's not hard to find information about you. It's not. I don't care how locked down your Facebook profile is. People will find you. Yeah, people will work really. I mean, these scammers, I don't want to call it work exactly, but they expend a great deal of effort. All of these people, expend a great deal of effort.

And so just because something is elaborate and detailed, it does not mean it can't be a scam. Right. And if you're making that kind of money that those like celebrity psychics make, it's well worth it to have an entire staff of people, private investigator type people and people who are willing to like fake their way into your social media and talk to your friends about you and stuff. It's well worth it. Again, Occam's Razor. What's the most likely explanation? Yeah, this dude's on fucking Good Morning America. Like we as a country are giving like screen time to this person. absolutely. So this guy was actually talking to Matt Lauer, which fuck Matt Lauer. But he like read Matt Lauer. He's like, and your dad said something about fishing. And Matt Lauer's like, I've never said anything about fishing publicly with my dad. Are you shitting me? And then somebody pulled up a like a clip from like 10 years earlier where he said and fishing with my dad was the most. So like this is how they like, especially celebrity, it's fucking easy. Also everybody went fishing.

Fishing with their dad, for God's sake. That's like the easiest guess. Yeah. So what we're saying is, yes, elaborate, like an elaborate story does not mean it's true. Just because somebody else is there does not mean it's true. Just because they know details about your life doesn't mean that there's actual psychics. And also, there's no such thing as a flipping curse on your money. No.

For God's sake. Curses don't exist. Psychics are fake. I'm sorry. That might be a little spicy for what I'm trying to say here. But I don't believe in psychics. I believe there are people who have heightened intuition. That is what I will say.

But this kind of shit is, it's a scam. Where they're telling you, give me money and I'll lift a curse. That's a scam across the board. And like, I'm sorry. If you claim to have this supernatural power, right? If you do not give it away for free, you're fucking evil. You're evil, period. Yeah, I guess I could see that.

Like, if you could help people to that, like, actually help people speak with their dead relatives or something or if like you see oh something horrible is going to happen to you if you don't give me $10,000 fuck you oh yeah if you're charging that kind of money that's pure evil absolutely if you knew somebody like if you get on that plane it's going to crash you're going to die and you say I'll give you this really important information but only if you give me five grand yeah that's evil I agree with you yeah so just I'm just saying that if somebody comes up to you as a psychic and says I just there's a dark curse on your life just ask can you just remove it for free good good faith and then I'll give you the money. Yeah, if you'll do it for free as we're rolled

and thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. So we'll close with a quick one, Campers. This is a little scam that we learned about from our favorite security expert and former Secret Service agent, Gavin DeBecker. So it goes like this. You're at the Western Union waiting for some money to be wired to you. It's almost closing time, so you're visibly nervous that it might not come in time. A friendly looking guy in soldiers fatigue starts up a casual conversation. with you. You chat a bit. You tell him you're nervous, your money might not come on time. He says he's nervous too. You shoot the breeze. It's all friendly and casual. Then the guy says, hey, you know what, if my money comes in on time and yours doesn't, don't worry, I'll spot you. You can send me a check

when you get it. Aw. Right? So thoughtful. Oh my gosh. I wish there were more people in the world like that. And fortunately for you, your money does come in on time. so you don't have to impose on this nice guy like that. As the place is closing up and you're pocketing your cash, you notice that the friendly soldier is looking really bummed out. No. Man, his money didn't come in on time. He says he's not sure what he's going to do.

He's supposed to report for duty tonight. Shit. Yeah, and now you're in a situation where this guy offered to spot you if your money didn't come in on time and his did. But as it turns out, you're in the opposite position. So what else can you do, really, but offer him the same thing? I mean, it's a sense of social pressure, right? So you offer, he gratefully accepts, you hand him $100, he asks for an address so he can send you a check,

and of course you never hear from him again, right? That one's really, really common too. So listen, campers, there are shitty people out there. Watch your ass, and watch your me-mo and papaw's ass, okay? Because a lot of times, it really is elderly people getting taken advantage of. Watch for those waving red flags. And, as always, lock your doors, light your lights, and see. stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And thank you so much for

supporting us the way you do. We appreciate you to the moon and back infinity number of times. And we've got lots more fun stuff planned for you in the upcoming months. Like, for example, our $5 and up patrons are getting a sparkly, beautiful true crime campfire enamel pin. Oh my God, guys, I can't stop staring at them. They are so cool. We can't even stand it. Those should be coming to you in the next couple weeks, obviously, with the, COVID-19 things going on. It's a little... So we will get those to you, though,

and I'm so excited for you guys to see them. They're amazing. Yeah, and we also have a contest going right now, which if you're on our social media, you already know about. And if not, you are encouraged to submit something creative that is based on the podcast. You could just do a really goofy impression

of one or both of us. You could make some fan art based on your favorite episode. You could write a song. You could do a little stand-up routine. it could be a video, it could be a picture, it could be a cross-stitch, it could be really anything you can think of, something creative and fun and true crime campfire related, and you can email those to us by, is it midnight on May 1st?

Yeah. So I guess technically it be 11.59 p.m. I believe we're probably going to extend it, actually. We're going to extend it another week. Okay, we probably should because I think right now everybody's got quarantine brain. Yes. So, you know, so it probably takes people a little longer, but we'll announce when, but think about entering that and if you're one of these folks that's already getting a pen we're going to come up

with some other cool merch for you that is similar in coolness and value so you'll went you know we're we're we're i think we're having what is it top three first place second place and third place so everybody gets something cool and true crime campfire themed and it's going to be fun so check out our social media for more info on that and everybody have a great rest of your month love you guys