Street cons to make money
Kacey Henley June 28, Con artists are a wily bunch. They fool the rest of us honest citizens through sleight of hand, lies, and trickery. Even with all the advanced knowledge and technology we have today, old-fashioned cons still work. Any good person who bumped into a stranger and broke an expensive possession would offer to pay them for it.
This scam gets its name from cons who originally used melons at a time when melon prices were at a record high in Japan. The cons would bump into Japanese tourists, drop melons, and demand payment. The tourists would pay jacked-up prices without question.
The modern version of this scam involves throwing worthless broken glass in a box and wrapping it up to look nice. They may even produce a receipt to prove its value. Believe it or not, most scams are a little more subtle than the whole Nigerian prince fraud.
The pigeon drop is simple, complicated, illogical, and makes perfect sense all at the same time. As you discuss the possibilities, they hint at splitting the profit with you. You are giving them advice, after all. Eventually, the con will seek counsel from an authority figure, who will advise allowing time for someone to claim the cash. Until then, one person, an attorney, or a joint account can hold the cash.
Swindlers then convince you to put up cash as a good faith deposit for the larger sum later. With visions of shopping sprees and paid-off bills, you comply. In a more dramatic variation shown in the movie The Stinga scammer poses as an injured person who needs to get a large sum of cash somewhere quickly.
The poor victim begs you to make the delivery.
10 Most Devious Street Cons (And How to Avoid Them)
As a sign of good faith, you leave something valuable with them, and the helper demonstrates the best way to conceal the money using your money. Afterward, you scurry off to deliver the cash, but once you unwrap the package, you discover only bits of paper.
If a stranger offering you large amounts of cash sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In this scam that was featured in the movie Zombielanda pretty girl pretends to have lost her engagement ring.
The cons are counting on you to offer money for the ring either to secure the larger reward or out of the goodness of your heart. Scammers using rings for this con or variations of it have a stack of cheap costume rings at the ready. They can sell you jewelry all day, so inspect any found rings carefully.
See this scam in action! In the lottery scamcon artists convince their intended victim to buy a worthless piece of paper. Before the popularity of cell phones, cons provided forged newspapers as proof of the winning numbers, but these days, a fake hotline or website is used to seal the deal. This con requires masterful story-spinning and an inside man who befriends the mark.
List of confidence tricks - Wikipedia
In the original version of the scam, the winners are scared illegal immigrants without ID or legal papers. The con will ask for opinions and help, then they have the victim call a hotline to verify the numbers. Once the story is spun, the con offers to street cons to make money the ticket at a discount.
The inside man convinces the victim to buy the ticket. Unfortunately, when they try to claim their winnings, they find out that the only winner was the con artist. The Spanish prisoner con is one of the oldest tricks in the bookoriginating around the 16th century. The scammer claims to be an aristocrat who is being held in a faraway land under a false name. Complications soon arise, and the poor soul needs more money. Victims hand over john deere trading symbol until they get suspicious or run out of money.
This scam is more popularly known today as the Nigerian prince. In this version, a person posing as a relative of an African royal or diplomat pretends to need money for an expensive item being kept in a warehouse. The item will be extremely valuable and worth more than the fee to recover it. The scammer promises to reward your generosity by depositing a significant amount of money into your account. Before that happens, you have to pay fees so that they can pay bribes or ransom to officials.
Ignore these stories—just leave those rich prisoners in Spain. They rope you into this con by posing as investigators and asking for your help. In this con, scammers convince helpful teletech work at home pay patrons to withdraw money and hand it over to be examined under the guise of matching serial numbers, marking bills, or auditing a teller.
Variations of this scam include claiming a teller is suspected of passing counterfeit bills and they need to examine your money for the operation. To prevent becoming a victim of this scam, refuse to cooperate with any bank examiners that come calling.
If you want to help catch a thief or sort out your account, go into your bank and speak with a real service representative. The overpayment scam evolved from several peaks for binary options strategy 60 seconds and street cons to make money active forms of bank fraud that allow con artists to write bad checks, skate off with the goods, and even get cash back.
The main forms these frauds take are counterfeiting, paper-hanging, and check-kiting. Counterfeiters forge checks, paper-hangers pay with checks written on closed accounts, and check-kiters write bad checks and get cash back to cover a previous bad check. In all cases, the checks 43 binary options trading system download bounce.
These schemes forex night trading systems that works affect banks and businesses, but the popularity of online shopping has opened athens stock exchange open hours new opportunities for swindlers.
Now, they counterfeit or paper-hang checks as payment and stick you with the bill. These are the cons that made Frank Abagnale Jr. Anyone looking for work, selling on an auction site, renting property, or selling a car is a target.
The seller is instructed to deposit the check and then wire the difference back to the buyer. In the meantime, federal regulations require funds to be available the next day. This loophole makes the con possible and profitable, leaving the account owner liable for checks they deposit. To avoid this con, never wire funds to a stranger or accept checks for more than the agreed-upon amount.
If you have to deposit a check, wait more than a few days to let the check clear. In the workmen scam, con artists posing as gas, water, or electric company employees come to your house to check on a suspected leak or shortage.
They instruct you to turn on some control panel in the basement or go outside and tell them when something changes, but this is simply a distraction, allowing them to loot your house. Ask for a number to call before letting unexpected workers into your home. If they complain or insist on entering, lock your door and alert the police.
That helpful stranger is also removing your wallet and any other expensive possessions in your coat or pockets. Most cons rely on distraction, shame, and confusionand in the case of the mustard dip, confusion is key. If a stranger points out some gooey substance on your clothes, thank them, decline their help, and clean it yourself.
They would then either demand compensation immediately or go to the hospital. An examination would reveal the old injury, and the insurance company paid out.
Five quick and simple scams that could happen to you today
The modern version nets less money but is safer for the hustler. The only feasible way to get out of this scam is to insist on calling an ambulance or police to report the accident and avoid future legal trouble. The scammer will probably make up an excuse and leave. Kacey is a freelance writer who appreciates the classics. She is an avid traveler and film buff who specializes in SEO, travel, blogging, copywriting, and other business writing.
In her downtime, she writes poetry, watches House Huntersand dances like no one is watching. She blogs about less illegal ventures most of the time at www. Lists in your inbox Submit. Follow us on Facebook or subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter so you don't miss out on our latest lists. Recommended For Your Pleasure.
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