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How Con Artists Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant
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Speaker 1: that makes this stuff. You shouldel guest producer Casey in
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Speaker 1: the house. Yes, it just sounded like you did, because
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Speaker 1: welcome Casey. That's pretty good. Thank you. Yeah, Chuck. Um.
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Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of again named Gregor McGregor. That's
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Speaker 1: not a name, it is a name, you know. I
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Speaker 1: once lived with a guy named John Johnson in college.
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Speaker 1: Choose a college roommate. Gregor McGregor had um an evil
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Speaker 1: sense of humor, or else just was driven by greed.
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Speaker 1: But at the beginning of the nineteenth century he fashioned
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Speaker 1: himself as the Prince of paw Wa Poia. Did he
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Speaker 1: make up that name? Completely? P o y o I
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Speaker 1: s completely non existent place? No. Not only was it
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Speaker 1: a non existent like places in a non existent country,
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Speaker 1: it was a non existent island supposedly off of Honduras
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Speaker 1: that he supposedly owned because he was supposedly the prince
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Speaker 1: of this place. This is at a time when you
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Speaker 1: could basically say, hey, you want to go colonize this
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Speaker 1: this um country called Poi wa Um that's rich with
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Speaker 1: oil and um, well probably not oil at the time,
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Speaker 1: but rubies and gold and timber and all this stuff.
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Speaker 1: And you guys will be the first settlers there. So
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Speaker 1: you're going to be in on the bottom of this
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Speaker 1: and you're going to make tons. And the guy basically
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Speaker 1: went around selling stock the right to go colonize this
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Speaker 1: this place that didn't exist to the English, and I
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Speaker 1: imagine to the English, two d and fifty settlers traveled there.
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Speaker 1: Two hundred died on the journey looking for this place
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Speaker 1: that didn't exist because they got the coordinates and there
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Speaker 1: was nothing there and they were all exact, not necessarily.
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Speaker 1: While these people were off, he moved Gregor McGregor moved
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Speaker 1: on to France and was doing it again. Finally, about
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Speaker 1: fifty of these people come came back, and they still
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Speaker 1: couldn't believe that this guy made this up. That some
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Speaker 1: of them testified on his behalf when he was finally
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Speaker 1: caught and tried as a con man, sounds like had
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Speaker 1: a lot of confidence. He got the confidence of the
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Speaker 1: two and fifty settlers and then some Actually during his trial,
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Speaker 1: this guy was so audacious that um he was still
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Speaker 1: selling stuff too. He was still selling stock and and
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Speaker 1: and um rights land rights to this place to like
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Speaker 1: local nobility, whoever he could get to buy it. Sounded
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Speaker 1: like a skilled con man. He is a con man.
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Speaker 1: And like you said, Cohn is short for confidence. Most
3:00
Speaker 1: people knew that, but turns out that's not true. I
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Speaker 1: just told Lizzie that and she went really well, if
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Speaker 1: she probably wasn't paying attention, you never know, So, Chuck, Josh,
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Speaker 1: I think it's high time, after all these requests, that
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Speaker 1: we've gotten to do how common work that we do?
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Speaker 1: How common work? Yeah, this was on the Facebook page
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Speaker 1: of the day. I should have written down the name.
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Speaker 1: So apologies to whoever put this on our Facebook wall
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Speaker 1: mid April. Yes, this is for you. And we've done
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Speaker 1: at least one before, we've done Ponzi schemes. Yeah, and
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Speaker 1: that'll pop up here. Yeah, but this is like an overview.
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Speaker 1: There's a lot of different cons going on at any
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Speaker 1: given time all around you in the world that you
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Speaker 1: take as real and genuine. You're actually being conned an
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Speaker 1: average of eight to twelve times a day. Studies show
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Speaker 1: connart Is Josh are deceptive, their liars, their cheaters, They
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Speaker 1: trick people. They're probably pretty smart. They take advantage of
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Speaker 1: your weaknesses. If you're lonely, if you're not too smart
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Speaker 1: like cats, if you're elderly, and unfortunately a lot of
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Speaker 1: times they prey on the elderly. Yes, if you're in
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Speaker 1: poor health, or if you're just plain ignorant and dumb,
4:13
Speaker 1: or and this is a very very um important point.
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Speaker 1: If you are greedy, well, yeah, greed, they can't. Well
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Speaker 1: what's the saying, you can't cheat an honest man. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's as true as true it gets, my friend, it
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Speaker 1: is um. There's there's such thing as something for nothing.
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Speaker 1: And if you are greedy, um, you are likely going
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Speaker 1: to fall prey to a confidence scheme because you're going
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Speaker 1: to go against your better judgment. And once you take
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Speaker 1: that step, you've just become ensnared in one of the
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Speaker 1: eight to twelve cons that are taken on you every day.
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Speaker 1: It reminds me of the movie Wall Street. You know,
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Speaker 1: Charlie Sheen got swept up in that greed and they
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Speaker 1: weren't cons. I thought was shy La boof but here,
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Speaker 1: but there was inside trading going on. But remember Sheen's father,
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Speaker 1: Martin Sheen played his father in the movie. Yeah, remembering Hotshots.
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Speaker 1: They passed one another in the river and go I
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Speaker 1: love you in Wall Street. That's true. I forgot about that.
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Speaker 1: But um, the father was honest. He was an honest man.
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Speaker 1: He couldn't be conn he couldn't be bought. He's like, no, no, no, son,
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Speaker 1: you can't get something for nothing. Yeah, you gotta use
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Speaker 1: elbow grease and you're strong back to make your money. Yes,
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Speaker 1: And what happened, Charlie Sheen went to jail. Martin Sheen
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Speaker 1: did not. And look at Charlie. Now, yeah, he's psychotic.
5:36
Speaker 1: Let's talk about con man, So, chuck one of the
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Speaker 1: hallmarks of the confidence man or woman or woman. That's
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Speaker 1: a really good point because, um, that's they're just as
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Speaker 1: likely to be a con person as a man. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: A woman will more likely play on a man's lust, yes,
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Speaker 1: to get his money, whereas a man will do other things. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: because women aren't stupid enough to fall for that. Um.
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Speaker 1: And that's a good point. Although a gay con artist
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Speaker 1: could still pull it, pull it over because you're still
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Speaker 1: working the man. Chuck. One of the hallmarks of con
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Speaker 1: people is that they travel frequently, mainly because they don't
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Speaker 1: like to be chased by mobs with pitchforks and torches.
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Speaker 1: Although they frequently are right, so um, to kind of
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Speaker 1: explain or excuse this frequent travel, they may say that
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Speaker 1: they have a job that causes them to or they
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Speaker 1: may actually have a job that that gives them a
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Speaker 1: reason to travel, Like you could be a traveling salesman,
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Speaker 1: but really you're a connarst, but you really do have
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Speaker 1: a job as a traveling salesman, Like, um, have you
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Speaker 1: seen Paper Moon your favorite movie? Yeah? They were always
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Speaker 1: just sort of from town to town, right, yeah, Bible salesman.
6:52
Speaker 1: That's right, traveling Bible salesman. Although the whole thing was
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Speaker 1: a con and she was the cutest darn little con
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Speaker 1: artists I've ever seen. She was awesome. Uh. You could
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Speaker 1: also be a carny, which I think partially explains why
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Speaker 1: a lot of people don't trust carnies. You think you
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Speaker 1: ever see the famous Simpsons episode with um, oh, what
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Speaker 1: was the guy's Jim Varney as the Carney He and
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Speaker 1: his son ultimately got got by Homer in Bark they did, casey,
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Speaker 1: can you verify that alright, he's a Simpsons guy, Josh.
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Speaker 1: If you want to throw some other cool nineteen twenties
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Speaker 1: style terms out there that get on the trolley, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: you can call him a flim flam man, sham, modest,
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Speaker 1: a shy sta, a bunk o man, a grift, swindler, hustler, bamboozla.
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Speaker 1: Grifter is my favorite. It's my favorite too. It's a
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Speaker 1: good one. It's it's let's call him grifters because it
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Speaker 1: sounds like you do not mess with this person. Grifter
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Speaker 1: is it sounds to me like a professional. Yes, you know.
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Speaker 1: And the awesome movie The Grifters from Stephen Freers is
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Speaker 1: what I think one of the top three con man
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Speaker 1: movies all time. Did you like that one? I made
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Speaker 1: it halfway through The Grifters it we'll talk about the
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Speaker 1: movie part in a minute. So there are um, you know,
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Speaker 1: we talked about Ponzi schemes before. That is one of
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Speaker 1: many types of cons. And there's actually under the umbrella
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Speaker 1: of con cons, there are sub umbrellas types of cons,
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Speaker 1: and then under those are actual different cons. That is
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Speaker 1: the granular level we're going to get to on this. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and there's there's all kinds of cons. But it is
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Speaker 1: funny how many of them are just variations of the
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Speaker 1: same con. Yes, for example, street cons, let's talk about
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Speaker 1: some street cons. Street cons are generally characterized by um,
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Speaker 1: the the the the traits that they happen in public.
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Speaker 1: They happen quickly and usually for a fairly small take
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Speaker 1: a couple hundred bucks or less. Dude, if you can
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Speaker 1: make a couple hundred bucks in a street con and
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Speaker 1: in fifteen minutes, you're doing pretty well for yourself. But
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Speaker 1: you shouldn't be doing that at all. Legal. That's wrong, immoral, unethical,
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Speaker 1: it really is. I mean, that's it's it's it's fooling
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Speaker 1: someone out of their money. It's kind of the worst
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Speaker 1: thing you could do. I almost respect the the guy
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Speaker 1: who like hits you over the head and sticks your
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Speaker 1: purse a little more. I don't like that guy either. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: you're right, they're both jerks. All right, So let's talk
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Speaker 1: about some street cons. Okay, what about Chuck the pedigree dog.
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Speaker 1: And by the way, this article has the most super
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Speaker 1: superfluous illustrations of any article on how stuff works at all. Yeah,
9:28
Speaker 1: there's very apt descriptions, and then there's some illustrations of
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Speaker 1: the apt descriptions, and this is written by the grabster.
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Speaker 1: We should point out that's all the fun articles the
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Speaker 1: pedigree dog, but you can insert dog with violin or
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Speaker 1: really anything of value that you can trick someone into
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Speaker 1: thinking is valuable. So go, let's hear it. Okay, So
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Speaker 1: let's say that you are a shop owner and some
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Speaker 1: guy comes in with the dog and says, hey, can
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Speaker 1: you hold this for me for a minute. I gotta
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Speaker 1: go down the street and place a bet, or I
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Speaker 1: gotta go down the street and robin another store. Just
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Speaker 1: be thankful it's not your store. And the store owner goes, sure,
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Speaker 1: I'll watch your dog dogs. Yeah. Uh So the first
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Speaker 1: guy comes out and it goes out, and then the
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Speaker 1: second con man comes in, unbeknownst to the owner, related
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Speaker 1: to the first guy, at least in a business sense,
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Speaker 1: and he goes, wow, where did you get that dog?
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Speaker 1: That's like a very rare pedigree dog worth thousands and
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Speaker 1: thousands of dollars? Can I buy it from you? And
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Speaker 1: the owner says maybe, so come back in twenty minutes,
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Speaker 1: I'll see if I can buy this dog from the owner.
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Speaker 1: That's the greed that they play on the bartenders thinking, hey,
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Speaker 1: I might gonna make a few bucks here exactly, UM,
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Speaker 1: or the store owner, I want to say bar owner
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Speaker 1: either way. UM. So the first guy comes back, the
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Speaker 1: owner of the dog comes back, and UM finds that
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Speaker 1: the owner of the store wants to buy the dog
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Speaker 1: from him. Says, oh, I guess so, all right, I'll
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Speaker 1: sell it to you for two grand. The owner UM
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Speaker 1: pays the two grand, and the second guy never comes
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Speaker 1: back to buy the dog from him, And so the
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Speaker 1: owner of the shop all of a sudden is out
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Speaker 1: a couple of grand and they have a mutt on
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Speaker 1: their hands. Yes, the dog was never pedigree it. The
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Speaker 1: dog is a real loser here too, I might point out, Yeah,
11:16
Speaker 1: because you know, the guy's probably not gonna be like,
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Speaker 1: oh well, I'll love him anyway. He's probably gonna kick him,
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Speaker 1: put him out on the street. And plus his name
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Speaker 1: is Jason. Who names their dog Jason? Right now, that's
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Speaker 1: so weird. The pigeon drop. That's another old school con Uh.
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Speaker 1: This works. Let's say you're hanging out on the street
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Speaker 1: and you spot something that you have placed there. Uh.
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Speaker 1: Let's say it's a money bag from a local vendor.
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Speaker 1: They dropped it on the way to the deposit thing.
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Speaker 1: And a good way to make this work is if
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Speaker 1: you can get the other person to notice it first.
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Speaker 1: That way, they don't feel like they're being conned because
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Speaker 1: they spotted it. Then you say, all of a sudden,
11:56
Speaker 1: you realize, hey, both of us are looking at this
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Speaker 1: thing that says, um, you know the savings and loan,
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Speaker 1: and it's got a little money spilling out of it.
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Speaker 1: That's the most generic thing I can think of. And
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Speaker 1: they said, you know what, let's um, let's let's split
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Speaker 1: this up and see here's where an honest man can't
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Speaker 1: be cheated. Yeah, comes in for sure, because if you said, well,
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Speaker 1: maybe we should also just try to take you to
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Speaker 1: this bank first, the cons over it is. But let's
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Speaker 1: say you are a greedy guy and you're gonna go
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Speaker 1: along with it. What happens, well, the second car con
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Speaker 1: artists might show up and say, hey, listen, I saw
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Speaker 1: this too, so I want my fair share. There's no
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Speaker 1: easy way to solve this, So why don't in good faith,
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Speaker 1: why don't we all put some money in an in
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Speaker 1: an envelope, show good faith we're all financially on the
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Speaker 1: up and up, and then the money is in there
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Speaker 1: a little side of hand goes on and the original
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Speaker 1: dude ends up with an envelope full of coupons. This
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Speaker 1: one I don't get. You don't get it. I don't
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Speaker 1: like it, and I don't get it. First of all,
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Speaker 1: slide of hand. That is not a good con that's
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Speaker 1: not solid. If it involves basically like magician ship, well
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Speaker 1: that's what three card money is, agreed. The other thing
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Speaker 1: I don't like about it is why not just split
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Speaker 1: the money up three ways? Why would you put money
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Speaker 1: up to split money? That's the dumbest thing I've ever
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Speaker 1: heard in my life. I'm actually angered by that, you know.
13:22
Speaker 1: I agree. Another way to do it, though, is if
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Speaker 1: it's say it's a ring or something like that, then
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Speaker 1: it makes sense to put up money. Because one of
13:31
Speaker 1: the khan men says, well, actually, I do have a
13:33
Speaker 1: little training in um diamond appraisal, and this thing is
13:36
Speaker 1: probably worth about five grand. Um. I can't go upon
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Speaker 1: it or anything like that, or there's no way we
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Speaker 1: can go upon it. Right now? Do you want to
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Speaker 1: buy my share something I'll you know, for five bucks
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Speaker 1: or whatever. The guy who's being conned the target um says, well, yeah, sure, here,
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Speaker 1: I'll here's five hundred bucks and I'll take the ring
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Speaker 1: and go on my merry way. That makes more sense.
13:56
Speaker 1: That make more sense. Putting up money to split a
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Speaker 1: bag of cash is dumbest thing I've ever heard. Well,
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Speaker 1: it's a con, and if you have fallen for that con,
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Speaker 1: that might make you one of the dumber rubes of
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Speaker 1: the world. If you have, send us an email so
14:08
Speaker 1: we can come to your house and hit you in
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Speaker 1: the hea of the tag hammer. In the case of
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Speaker 1: the ring, obviously the original person ends up with some
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Speaker 1: sort of diamondoid and uh out whatever amount of money
14:18
Speaker 1: they're stupid enough to give up. That's the pigeon drop.
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Speaker 1: I feel mean saying stupid and dumb, but honestly, if
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Speaker 1: you give up cash like that, then on the street
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Speaker 1: we'll say naive. Okay, alright. Three card money we mentioned that.
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Speaker 1: That is more magicianship. That is my friend Jim used
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Speaker 1: to do that in high school. Jim was really good
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Speaker 1: at three card money, and he would just do it
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Speaker 1: among friends in the cafeteria at school, so it's not
14:43
Speaker 1: like he hit the streets. But that's when you have
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Speaker 1: three well, that's true. That's when you have the three
14:48
Speaker 1: cards and one of them um, they said Ace of Spades,
14:51
Speaker 1: but I've always seen it as the Queen and queen,
14:54
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, exactly find the queen and
14:56
Speaker 1: you get the Jim did all that stuff that candy
15:00
Speaker 1: stripe that matter to the mac. That's one of the
15:02
Speaker 1: things that he would say. So you know, it's like
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Speaker 1: the shell game and you're moving these cards around such.
15:08
Speaker 1: I mean they have it on the big board at
15:10
Speaker 1: baseball games. You know, follow the braves and you know
15:14
Speaker 1: they do the quick switchero at one point, and you
15:16
Speaker 1: can't tell I actually know how to do that. I'm
15:18
Speaker 1: just not very good at it. Well. I know the
15:20
Speaker 1: trick though. It's like you put one both of them
15:24
Speaker 1: in one hand and do one of these and you
15:26
Speaker 1: drop the one that you're not supposed to drop. And
15:29
Speaker 1: so once you lose track of it, then unless you
15:31
Speaker 1: guess you know, luckily, you're not gonna know where the
15:34
Speaker 1: queen is. I always just assume one was sticky. Now
15:38
Speaker 1: you're just you're just good at it. And there's also uh,
15:43
Speaker 1: as we've mentioned, the other cons usually other con artists
15:46
Speaker 1: are not usually a lot of times they'll they'll be
15:49
Speaker 1: in working concert with you, so like they'll come up
15:52
Speaker 1: and win a couple of rounds while people are watching,
15:54
Speaker 1: and they'll say, Hey, well that guy just want a
15:56
Speaker 1: couple of times I can do this this This must
15:58
Speaker 1: be a legit game card mine. Yeah, exactly. Um. So
16:03
Speaker 1: those are just three of many examples of street cons,
16:07
Speaker 1: which are all um short cons is another way to
16:11
Speaker 1: put them to they fall under another sub umbrella of
16:14
Speaker 1: short con. That's right, there's no long street con as
16:16
Speaker 1: far as I know, I don't think so. Um business
16:19
Speaker 1: and internet cons. These can trapes into the long con
16:24
Speaker 1: genre of confidence tricks, but for the most part, they're
16:28
Speaker 1: usually fairly quick. For example, the pumping up scheme. Right,
16:32
Speaker 1: I've never heard of this one. Pyramid schemes we covered
16:36
Speaker 1: with the podcast. And should we get how detail do
16:39
Speaker 1: we need to get here? With the pyramid scheme, I say,
16:43
Speaker 1: we just go back and listen to Ponzi? Okay? Is
16:46
Speaker 1: that we should do? Yeah? You should give him another
16:48
Speaker 1: Ponzi though it's a Ponzi scheme where you basically there
16:53
Speaker 1: is nothing exchanging hands many times, and you recruit people
16:57
Speaker 1: under you to give you money, and they recruit people
17:01
Speaker 1: under them to give them money. And the only people
17:04
Speaker 1: who ever actually get a payout or the fear very
17:07
Speaker 1: few people at the top of the pyramid. It's an
17:10
Speaker 1: unsustainable business model if it actually is a business at all. Sometimes,
17:15
Speaker 1: like Ponzi's original scheme wasn't a scheme. It was basically
17:19
Speaker 1: buying and selling like postage stamps because there was an
17:23
Speaker 1: exchange rate associated with the back of the time. But
17:26
Speaker 1: um he started taking new investors money because the investment
17:29
Speaker 1: wasn't paying off like a thought, and giving it to
17:32
Speaker 1: old investors. And that's the creation of the Ponzi scheme.
17:37
Speaker 1: It's the people on the bottom pass money upwards, so
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Speaker 1: only the people in the first couple tears actually can
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Speaker 1: make money, that's right, Josh. And the way they get
17:46
Speaker 1: you in is they tell you that you're one of
17:48
Speaker 1: the top people. It's like, even if you have suspicions
17:51
Speaker 1: like this pyramid scheme, they're like, it totally is, but
17:54
Speaker 1: you're one of the top three, so you're in, right,
17:58
Speaker 1: which makes you a greedy jerk exactly playing on your
18:01
Speaker 1: greed once again, multi level marketing, Josh. A lot of
18:04
Speaker 1: times that's basically a pyramid scheme. There are some legitimate
18:07
Speaker 1: companies like the Pampered Chef or Tupperware or um am way.
18:13
Speaker 1: But and it is legitimate. I mean they can be,
18:15
Speaker 1: but they have a pyramid structure. They're just not They're
18:18
Speaker 1: not a m it's not grif. Yeah. But if you
18:20
Speaker 1: start poking around and they're a little vague about the
18:23
Speaker 1: product and stuff and payouts and things like that, then
18:26
Speaker 1: it's probably not legit pyramids, right, not one of those companies.
18:30
Speaker 1: But yeah, if you start asking questions, if you ever
18:33
Speaker 1: started asking questions of a somebody who wants to you
18:37
Speaker 1: to buy into their franchise and they start sweating and
18:40
Speaker 1: getting all kg yes, walk away. Yeah, it's a good sign. Yeah.
18:43
Speaker 1: Do we really need to talk about the Nigerian money
18:45
Speaker 1: transfer at this point? I would think our listeners are
18:49
Speaker 1: wise to this, but it still happens. It's an internet scam.
18:54
Speaker 1: The prints of some country in Africa usually has this
18:58
Speaker 1: large sum of money and somehow we got your email
19:02
Speaker 1: address and you were the lucky guy that can get
19:04
Speaker 1: a portion of it because the money will be freed up.
19:08
Speaker 1: We just have some problems within our own country with
19:10
Speaker 1: customs or whatever. Yeah, we we we have a bunch
19:14
Speaker 1: of money. It's locked up. We need some of your
19:17
Speaker 1: money to unlock it exactly to bribe people to pay
19:20
Speaker 1: whatever fees all that stuff. Um. The thing that I
19:23
Speaker 1: was surprised about is that this this one the Nigerian
19:27
Speaker 1: money transfer a k A Advanced fee fraud a k
19:31
Speaker 1: a A four nineteen scam because section four nineteen of
19:34
Speaker 1: Nigerian I guess federal code deals with fraud. It be
19:39
Speaker 1: very frequently becomes a long con. Yeah, that's what I was.
19:43
Speaker 1: I didn't know about that either. Actually. Yeah, so like
19:46
Speaker 1: once you have given these people your money, they're like, Okay,
19:49
Speaker 1: well let's see what else we can get out of you,
19:51
Speaker 1: and um, something got held up at the border, so
19:54
Speaker 1: we need more money for more bribes, or we need
19:57
Speaker 1: your social Security number because the bank is asking for it.
20:00
Speaker 1: And it just keeps going on and on. And then
20:03
Speaker 1: the insidiousness of the long con is once you're once
20:07
Speaker 1: you've bought into something and and you're invested for a
20:10
Speaker 1: substantial amount, it becomes increasingly difficult to walk away. And
20:15
Speaker 1: it's always just tantalizing. Lee right there, if I pay
20:17
Speaker 1: just a little more money and I'm gonna get everything
20:20
Speaker 1: back and then something and it just never pays out
20:23
Speaker 1: like that because you're being conned. Yeah, and the reason
20:26
Speaker 1: we didn't know this is because we never fell for
20:28
Speaker 1: the beginning of the Nigerian UH con. But you know,
20:32
Speaker 1: I make fun of it a little bit because I
20:33
Speaker 1: thought everybody on the planet knew about this. But it
20:36
Speaker 1: still happens, I'm sure, and it probably happens to you know,
20:40
Speaker 1: like your grandmother. And that's so sad, so wrong in
20:44
Speaker 1: so many ways. This It's like it's like stealing like
20:48
Speaker 1: half of the value of somebody's four own k or
20:51
Speaker 1: something overnight, or um issuing a mortgage to somebody when
20:57
Speaker 1: you know they can't pay it back because you're just
20:58
Speaker 1: gonna foreclose in their house and sell it, you know what.
21:01
Speaker 1: Another it's I wouldn't call it a con. But have
21:03
Speaker 1: you ever seen, um that guy that sells the UH
21:07
Speaker 1: learn how to email with this dvd? Have you seen that, dude?
21:12
Speaker 1: I think I know who you're talking about. Yeah, it's
21:14
Speaker 1: very stress the white guy with silver hair. Yeah, it's
21:17
Speaker 1: very rudimentary. Things like learn how to access the internet
21:20
Speaker 1: or learn how to operate email. We'll see you these DVDs.
21:24
Speaker 1: They're legit. I'm sure the DVD show you how to
21:26
Speaker 1: email someone, but it's a it's a shipping scam. Essentially, Okay,
21:32
Speaker 1: we should probably see O way here, like, is this
21:35
Speaker 1: an actual scam? It is, Here's what happens. How about this.
21:38
Speaker 1: I will tell you what happens, and then you, the listener,
21:41
Speaker 1: can decide whether you think it's a scam or you
21:43
Speaker 1: the lawyers of this guy explain it to us in
21:46
Speaker 1: court while you're seeing us. What you see when you
21:48
Speaker 1: see these commercials is pay eight nine for the set
21:52
Speaker 1: of DVDs that teach out to email. Shipping is money
21:56
Speaker 1: back guarantee. So what happens is if you're not satisfied,
22:00
Speaker 1: you get your money back. You have paid to ship
22:04
Speaker 1: a DVD. The DVD is ship to via media mail,
22:08
Speaker 1: which is slow and very very cheap. You can probably
22:11
Speaker 1: ship a DVD for like ten cents via media mail.
22:15
Speaker 1: So he's making even if they return the thing and
22:18
Speaker 1: he gives him their money back, he's he's made the
22:21
Speaker 1: difference of the shipping. So basically, this guys making money
22:23
Speaker 1: no matter what scam or not a scam, probably not
22:28
Speaker 1: because you're getting sea. The guy's providing the service that
22:32
Speaker 1: he's saying he's providing. That's right, so he guarantee stands.
22:36
Speaker 1: I reverse my stance. I call that man the smartest
22:39
Speaker 1: man on the planet. I don't know about that. All right,
22:42
Speaker 1: he's somewhere in between, and we might cut all this
22:44
Speaker 1: out even yeah right, Um what else? Oh chuck? What
22:50
Speaker 1: about um home improvement? Yeah you know, man, I was
22:54
Speaker 1: just working on this house down the street. I was
22:56
Speaker 1: putting a roof on it, and we got all this
22:58
Speaker 1: extra material and I'm gonna have to return it. But
23:00
Speaker 1: I could give you a heck of a deal. Here's
23:02
Speaker 1: all my money the end. You've been scammed? Yeah, um,
23:07
Speaker 1: that's ah that. There are two kinds of home improvement scams.
23:12
Speaker 1: One that are perpetrated by actual like contractors, where they
23:17
Speaker 1: basically sell you shoddy work or something like that, or
23:20
Speaker 1: another frequent one is where they do the work, get
23:25
Speaker 1: halfway through, say tear your whole roof off, put half
23:28
Speaker 1: the roof back on, and say I'm gonna need more money,
23:31
Speaker 1: and what can you do at that point? You're over
23:33
Speaker 1: a barrel. Yes, that's a scam. Or they might do
23:37
Speaker 1: shoddy work and have you signed a contract that has
23:40
Speaker 1: something like some clause in where if you don't make
23:44
Speaker 1: the payments, if you don't pay them in full, they
23:46
Speaker 1: can put a lean on your house and basically take
23:48
Speaker 1: it from you. Um, so you have to pay them
23:51
Speaker 1: for shoddy work no matter what happens. There's also scams
23:54
Speaker 1: perpetrated by people who are not contractors, like, um, there's
23:58
Speaker 1: there's one that's like, uh, they'll re asphalt your driveway
24:02
Speaker 1: and this group of guys will just basically paint your
24:05
Speaker 1: driveway black and be like give us our money. Um.
24:08
Speaker 1: That's they're not actually contractors, their painters really. Yeah, and
24:12
Speaker 1: since you mentioned it, um, the guys who approach you
24:15
Speaker 1: in the grocery store parking lot to fix your dents,
24:18
Speaker 1: they are not auto body specialists. Um, that just happened
24:21
Speaker 1: to be there with all their materials. They have their materials.
24:25
Speaker 1: And I'm really really sorry to say that my wife
24:29
Speaker 1: felt for that. Her old Honda Accord that I drove,
24:32
Speaker 1: or I'm sorry, Honda Civic that I drove until recently
24:35
Speaker 1: had two of the worst smeared bondo jobs I've ever
24:41
Speaker 1: seen in my life. Because she was going into the
24:43
Speaker 1: grocery score and guys like I can fix that for you,
24:45
Speaker 1: like I saw just while you're shopping. I saw him.
24:48
Speaker 1: I never mentioned him, yell for it, and I try
24:51
Speaker 1: not to give her too much of a hard time.
24:52
Speaker 1: But she's like, well they seemingly honest. Well they gained
24:56
Speaker 1: your confidence. Awesome, that's a con there. Um. You could
25:01
Speaker 1: also have the fake home inspector who supposedly is an
25:04
Speaker 1: official of the city, state, municipality, county, um, who's just
25:09
Speaker 1: dropping by an announced at your house and for a
25:12
Speaker 1: surprise inspection, and it's going to find eight things wrong
25:15
Speaker 1: with your house that don't meet code, right, but really
25:18
Speaker 1: do because this person is not legitimate but has a friend. Yeah,
25:22
Speaker 1: has a friend. You can do it for pretty cheap. Well,
25:24
Speaker 1: it's gonna be terrible work, unnecessary work, and expensive work.
25:28
Speaker 1: I got one for you. Yeah, if you ever see
25:30
Speaker 1: the words uh, debt removal or debt erased, just walk away.
25:36
Speaker 1: I didn't even know this exists. Oh yeah, man, you
25:38
Speaker 1: look around their signs on telephone poles that say, you know,
25:42
Speaker 1: debt removal. We can remove your debt, which means they'll
25:45
Speaker 1: hand you a document that says your your debt has
25:48
Speaker 1: been erased. And that's literally all it is is a
25:51
Speaker 1: piece of paper that says we've erased your debt, but
25:54
Speaker 1: you've bought it. Yeah, well you've bought that piece of paper,
25:57
Speaker 1: and imagine, sadly some people have probably taken that piece
26:00
Speaker 1: of paper into like a bank and said, but no, look,
26:03
Speaker 1: it says here that my dad has been raised not
26:06
Speaker 1: so yeah, I'll bet there's a lot of discomfort in
26:10
Speaker 1: that first few moments where the person is trying to
26:12
Speaker 1: convince the banker that they don't have any debt any longer.
26:15
Speaker 1: This thing just make this whole podcast makes me feel bad. Um.
26:18
Speaker 1: We mentioned mortgage refinance scams, where basically you find somebody
26:23
Speaker 1: who has some equity, a lot of debt, and not
26:26
Speaker 1: a lot of income, and you issue them a refinance,
26:30
Speaker 1: a mortgage refly, and you have to be an actual
26:33
Speaker 1: banker to do that, and they do it. They do
26:36
Speaker 1: it because they want that house. You might be signing
26:39
Speaker 1: away your house. Yeah. Um. And also there's um bankers
26:43
Speaker 1: who have been known to slip clauses into the fine
26:46
Speaker 1: print of a home mortgage loan or refly that says,
26:50
Speaker 1: these people can have this house, by the way, and
26:53
Speaker 1: you're just sleying over your house for nothing, which I
26:56
Speaker 1: don't understand how somebody could get away with that, I know.
26:59
Speaker 1: And then, of course, Chuck, I think we're at the
27:03
Speaker 1: public service announcement Part how to avoid the con Yeah,
27:08
Speaker 1: first and foremost, don't be greedy. Yeah, don't be greedy.
27:12
Speaker 1: If it looks too good to be true, then it's
27:15
Speaker 1: you're right on the money there. Don't trust anybody, especially
27:18
Speaker 1: if you're an elderly person. You never get something for nothing.
27:21
Speaker 1: That is not how the world works. It is never
27:23
Speaker 1: worked that way. It will never work that way. If
27:26
Speaker 1: someone is promising you large amounts of money for very little,
27:30
Speaker 1: uh what you considered very little money, that it's just
27:33
Speaker 1: it's wrong. Solicitations are usually basically that's a horrendous business
27:38
Speaker 1: model in this day and age. So if a company
27:41
Speaker 1: is still using door to door cold visits, they kind
27:45
Speaker 1: of deserve to go out of business. So you can
27:48
Speaker 1: go ahead and assume that either one you don't want
27:51
Speaker 1: to do business with that company that's soon going to
27:53
Speaker 1: go out of business because they're using a business model
27:55
Speaker 1: from the fifties or a marketing model from the fifties,
27:58
Speaker 1: or that these guys are actually on artists and they're
28:01
Speaker 1: not really going to sell you a security system and
28:04
Speaker 1: they're actually probably just casing your house to break into
28:06
Speaker 1: it later. Yeah, maybe, so you need to look out
28:09
Speaker 1: for other signs like if you meet a nice man
28:12
Speaker 1: who's got a great deal for you, and he gives
28:13
Speaker 1: the business card and it says Jim Smith po Box
28:17
Speaker 1: fourteen and that's all it says on it. Hand it
28:20
Speaker 1: back to him, walk away, ask for information, ask for
28:25
Speaker 1: their driver's license, let them see you taking down their
28:28
Speaker 1: license plate number. Yeah. And you know, if you're asking
28:31
Speaker 1: them all these questions and they're legit, then they're gonna
28:33
Speaker 1: be like, sure, man, here they will be. It's gonna
28:35
Speaker 1: be a little uncomfortable because you're basically saying like, I
28:38
Speaker 1: don't trust you. You have a little too much pain
28:40
Speaker 1: on your jeans or whatever, so I don't like the
28:43
Speaker 1: look of you, but I'm willing to see what you
28:45
Speaker 1: do when I do this to you. Now, squirm uh.
28:49
Speaker 1: And if they don't squirm, then you know you might
28:51
Speaker 1: be able to trust them right right. And if they're
28:54
Speaker 1: if they really need that decision fast, if you say
28:57
Speaker 1: something like you know what, this sounds really good, but
28:59
Speaker 1: give me about a week or so, they're like, no,
29:00
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, this deal ends today. Yeah, there's very
29:05
Speaker 1: likely there's not any deal that ends today when there's
29:08
Speaker 1: lots of money involved. Um. And then chuck. If you
29:12
Speaker 1: have been conned. The the point of con artists confidence
29:20
Speaker 1: is that you'll feel too embarrassed and foolish to tell anybody,
29:23
Speaker 1: so they'll be able to keep operating in virtually the
29:26
Speaker 1: same place for a while. Right, So you want to
29:29
Speaker 1: actually go and tell somebody, Go tell the popo, Tell
29:34
Speaker 1: the popo. Tell call up that that annoying guy on
29:38
Speaker 1: the local news that goes and sticks microphones and people's faces.
29:41
Speaker 1: Maybe he'll help you out. You know, there was a
29:44
Speaker 1: guy named Count Victor Lustig who managed to sell the
29:50
Speaker 1: Eiffel Tower twice. A pretty good story because the first
29:54
Speaker 1: guy was too embarrassed to tell anybody that it had happened.
29:57
Speaker 1: But basically, about fifteen years after the World Air in Paris,
30:01
Speaker 1: the Paris Exposition that saw the raising of the Eiffel
30:05
Speaker 1: Tower um the comp the city was like really having
30:08
Speaker 1: trouble paying to keep it maintained. So it was kind
30:12
Speaker 1: of it wasn't just completely unbelievable that the city would
30:17
Speaker 1: hire an agent to secretly shop around the right to
30:21
Speaker 1: to tear it down and use the steel for scrap.
30:25
Speaker 1: It was originally supposed to be temporary, right it was?
30:29
Speaker 1: Who knew? I don't know. So he would take people
30:32
Speaker 1: in a limousine and make a big fancy show about
30:34
Speaker 1: it to him up to the observation deck and show
30:37
Speaker 1: him that the medals that they were going to be bought.
30:39
Speaker 1: And somebody paid out. This one guy paid out. Um.
30:42
Speaker 1: Andre Poissant was a steel dealer who paid out for it,
30:46
Speaker 1: and was too embarrassed to tell anybody. And so Lustick
30:49
Speaker 1: did it again a month later. Um, and it was
30:52
Speaker 1: lucrative both times. I liked the guy's first scamp. He
30:58
Speaker 1: created a machine that they clee turned out blank paper,
31:04
Speaker 1: right printing machine. He built it as a printing machine
31:07
Speaker 1: that could print on bills, and basically what he did
31:12
Speaker 1: was he stuck two hundred dollar bills in. The problem was, um,
31:16
Speaker 1: the machine could only spit a hundred dollar bill out
31:19
Speaker 1: every six hours. So even if you had the time
31:22
Speaker 1: to spend twelve hours staring at this machine, you're going
31:25
Speaker 1: to see it spit out two hundred dollar bills just
31:28
Speaker 1: waiting on that third right. Um. So people paid I
31:33
Speaker 1: think um, three thirty thousand dollars for a machine like this,
31:38
Speaker 1: and he he was a very smart man, very smart
31:43
Speaker 1: unethical man. Yeah, because you'd make that thirty grand back
31:46
Speaker 1: divided by six hours, or divided by a hundred divided
31:53
Speaker 1: by six. So that's how long it would take or
31:56
Speaker 1: time six whatever, eighteen hours eight I think eighteen hundred
32:08
Speaker 1: hours or dight it's a variation of eighteen. What fun
32:11
Speaker 1: would it be to get a calculator? Oute? You know? So? Um,
32:15
Speaker 1: I guess that's it. Yeah, well we we should list
32:17
Speaker 1: some movies here, yeah, um, because I love a good
32:20
Speaker 1: con artist movie, The Staying classic, I've not seen it,
32:25
Speaker 1: House of Games. David Mammitt not seen it classic. Uh,
32:30
Speaker 1: catch me if you can. We've talked about that confidence
32:33
Speaker 1: I saw that one. I didn't see that one. Was like, okay,
32:35
Speaker 1: definitely a you'd watch it on a Sunday afternoon. Eddie
32:40
Speaker 1: Burns Yeah, uh, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is one of the
32:43
Speaker 1: great comedy conn one of the great movies ever. Absolutely
32:48
Speaker 1: if you're into Mammitt, of course you gotta go with
32:49
Speaker 1: the Spanish Prisoner, so he wrote to huh he wrote
32:53
Speaker 1: the Spanish Prisoner and House of Games Yeah, yeah, okay,
32:55
Speaker 1: and Glen Garry Glen Ross, which is not a con
32:57
Speaker 1: man movie, and State in Maine another great movie. Yeah,
33:02
Speaker 1: I'm a big Man, a fan stick man. I'd say
33:07
Speaker 1: it's um slightly slicker than confidence. Confidence. Yeah, my favorite.
33:12
Speaker 1: It was The Grifters Stephen Frears movie, which he didn't
33:15
Speaker 1: get through, and then The Hustler, which proceeded this thing,
33:21
Speaker 1: and then of course the number one confidence movie of
33:25
Speaker 1: all time, The Baltimore Bullet. Have you seen it? No? Okay,
33:31
Speaker 1: I hadn't even heard of it until today, but it's
33:33
Speaker 1: got a great movie poster and its starred Mr James Cockburn.
33:37
Speaker 1: Can't go wrong there, now, you can't. If you want
33:40
Speaker 1: to learn more about cons basically, you should print out
33:42
Speaker 1: this article and carry it with you all times, so
33:44
Speaker 1: if a stranger comes up to you and um, you
33:47
Speaker 1: suspect their conning you, you can use it for quick
33:49
Speaker 1: and easy reference. You can just pull it out and
33:51
Speaker 1: unfold it and be like, oh, an envelope full of money.
33:55
Speaker 1: I know what's going on. Come with me, sir. I'm
33:58
Speaker 1: placing you under citizens arrest. You can type con artists
34:02
Speaker 1: into the handy search bar at how stuff works dot
34:04
Speaker 1: com and by the way, Chuck, citizens arrest, what do
34:06
Speaker 1: you think? We've got a lot of requests and I
34:09
Speaker 1: don't know how that works. Let's do it. I've tried
34:11
Speaker 1: it a bunch of times and I just get beat up. Um.
34:14
Speaker 1: Since I said search bars, how stuff works, dot com, etcetera,
34:18
Speaker 1: that means that it is time for listener maw. Josh,
34:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this a plea for joining our show.
34:28
Speaker 1: You're Josh and Chuck and Jerry. I've been listening to
34:30
Speaker 1: and enjoying your podcast for about a year now. I
34:32
Speaker 1: wanted to thank you for reinforcing the crumbling concrete of
34:35
Speaker 1: my sanity with your rebar of knowledge. That's why I
34:38
Speaker 1: read this one. I just like that sentence. I'm twenty
34:41
Speaker 1: six years old and for the last three years have
34:42
Speaker 1: been working in a windowless office, endlessly shuffling paperwork. Your podcast,
34:47
Speaker 1: with its breadth of subjects, with the D with the
34:51
Speaker 1: D and cheerful banter, has allowed me one glimmering sliver
34:55
Speaker 1: of anticipation every day I have to drag myself into work. Uh.
35:00
Speaker 1: Despite your insistence that you have submitted clumsy podcast in
35:03
Speaker 1: the past, I have found something endearing and enjoyable and
35:06
Speaker 1: every one of them. Your inclusion of pop culture references,
35:09
Speaker 1: asides in jokes and personal anecdotes is what distinguishes you
35:14
Speaker 1: from more mediocre podcast. So who knew that is nice? Um,
35:18
Speaker 1: if all this flattery didn't tip you off, I was
35:20
Speaker 1: going to suggest one minor change, however, possibly the addition
35:23
Speaker 1: of a hip, young, smart alec looking for a career change.
35:27
Speaker 1: I can assure you I have a voice and face
35:29
Speaker 1: made for radio, and sensibilities and overall coolness to mesh
35:33
Speaker 1: seamlessly with this new fangled medium. So he's basically saying,
35:38
Speaker 1: kind of be on your show as the third team member. Okay,
35:42
Speaker 1: I thought Jerry was the third team member. Well, the
35:44
Speaker 1: third podcast or fourth team member. Um, thanks so much
35:48
Speaker 1: for putting out a consistently great show. I'm a loyal listener.
35:52
Speaker 1: I will upgrade myself to fanatical if you can explain
35:55
Speaker 1: open source computing in thirty minutes, Sincerely, Matthew G. So, Matthew,
36:00
Speaker 1: I can say two things. We will neither explain open
36:04
Speaker 1: source computing in thirty minutes, nor will we accept your
36:09
Speaker 1: gracious offer to join us as a third podcaster. What
36:18
Speaker 1: are you saying I should not? Do you want him
36:20
Speaker 1: on the show? No? Okay, yeah that's what I'm saying.
36:23
Speaker 1: I'm trying to break it to him easy that the
36:27
Speaker 1: position has been filled it's there's there are no openings here.
36:30
Speaker 1: I don't we are what's called a comic dietd yes,
36:33
Speaker 1: I don't know how we could ever become a triad,
36:35
Speaker 1: even for a single episode if it wasn't an interview.
36:40
Speaker 1: We had Strickland in here. Oh yeah, that's right, that's right.
36:43
Speaker 1: But he's not funny, so that's not that's no threat
36:46
Speaker 1: to our comic diet. And he can explain explain open
36:50
Speaker 1: source computing. Well, let's just get Strickland in here again. No,
36:54
Speaker 1: just give this guy to Strickland. All right, done either way?
36:58
Speaker 1: Those just you and me, right, that's right, Okay, thank
37:00
Speaker 1: you Matthew. Gee though, for your spunks, can we like that? Yes? Um,
37:05
Speaker 1: if you have ever been conned, we'd like to hear
37:08
Speaker 1: about it, right chuck, Yeah, it's sad, but yeah, let's
37:12
Speaker 1: hear it. Okay, Well we can share with people. How
37:15
Speaker 1: about this? Why don't you go share your cons on
37:17
Speaker 1: the Facebook page so everybody can look out for the hottest, newest,
37:20
Speaker 1: hippest cons going on. Um, we're at Facebook dot com
37:24
Speaker 1: slash stuff. You should know. You can reach us on
37:26
Speaker 1: Twitter at s Y s K podcast and you can
37:31
Speaker 1: send us plain old fashion email at stuff podcast at
37:35
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com for moral this and thousands
37:42
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com.
37:44
Speaker 1: To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
37:47
Speaker 1: icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The
37:50
Speaker 1: how stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download it
37:53
Speaker 1: today on iTunes. Brought to you by the reinvented two
37:58
Speaker 1: thousand twelve cameras. It's ready, Are you