Confidence tricks and scams are difficult to classify, because they keep changing and often contain elements of more than one type. This list should not be considered complete, but covers the most well-known confidence tricks. Throughout this list, the perpetrator of the confidence trick is frequently called a "con artist" or simply "artist", and the intended victim called a "mark".
Get-rich-quick schemes
Get-rich-quick schemes are extremely varied. For example, fake franchises, real estate "sure things", get-rich-quick books, wealth-building seminars, self-help gurus, sure-fire inventions, useless products, chain letters, fortune tellers, quack doctors, miracle pharmaceuticals, Nigerian money scams, charms and talismans are all used to separate the mark from their money. Variations include the pyramid scheme, Ponzi scheme and Matrix sale.
Count Victor Lustig sold the "money-printing machine" which could copy $100 bills. The client, sensing huge profits, would buy the machines for a high price (usually over $30,000). Over the next twelve hours, the machine would produce just two more $100 bills, but after that it produced only blank paper, as its supply of hidden $100 bills would have become exhausted. This type of scheme is also called the "money box" scheme.
Televised infomercial scam : Certain infomercials feature enthusiastic hosts and highlights of satisfied customers' testimony extolling the benefits of get-rich-quick methods such as internet auctioneering, real estate investment and marketing, for-profit toll phone business, classified advertisement and unique products of questionable value requiring active marketing by the paying customers. Infomercials which fall under the aforementioned descriptions are highly likely to be scams devised and engineered to "bamboozle" the unsuspecting viewers for the express purpose of enriching the scheme inventors who produced the infomercials which often grossly exaggerate their claims, in conjunction with the clips of satisfied customers' over-excited testimonies with the superimposed captions of the alleged profits made.
Don Lapre, creator of "Money Making Secrets", "The Ultimate Road to Success", "The Greatest Vitamin in the World" and other schemes, was reported by Internet customer watchdog organizations Ripoff Report, Bad Business Bureau and Quackwatch, plus alternative newspaper publications such as Phoenix New Times as one of the premier confidence artists whose characteristic traits of overly positive attitude and over-enthusiastically cheerful and charismatic personality depend on the gullibility of the infomercial viewers to purchase the essentially useless products to gain substantial sums of profit by deception.
The wire game , as depicted in the movie The Sting , trades on the promise of insider knowledge to beat a gamble, stock trade or other monetary action. In the wire game, a "mob" composed of dozens of grifters simulates a "wire store", i.e., a place where results from horse races are received by telegram and posted on a large board, while also being read aloud by an announcer. The griftee is given secret foreknowledge of the race results minutes before the race is broadcast, and is therefore able to place a sure bet at the wire store. In reality, of course, the con artists who set up the wire store are the providers of the inside information, and the mark eventually is led to place a large bet, thinking it to be a sure win. At this point, some mistake is made, which actually makes the bet a loss. The grifters in The Sting use miscommunication about the race results to simulate a big mistake, and the bet is lost.
Salting or to salt the mine are terms for a scam in which gems or gold ore are planted in a mine or on the landscape, duping the greedy mark into purchasing shares in a worthless or non-existent mining company. During the Gold Rush, scammers would load shotguns with gold dust and shoot into the sides of the mine to give the appearance of a rich ore, thus "salting the mine". For a 19th-century example, see the Diamond hoax of 1872; for a modern example, involving imaginary gold deposits in Borneo, see Bre-X. Popularized in the HBO series Deadwood , when Al Swearingen and E.B. Farnum trick Brom Garret into believing gold is to be found on the claim Swearingen intends to sell him.
The Spanish Prisoner scam – and its modern variant, the advance fee fraud or Nigerian scam – take advantage of the victim’s greed. The basic premise involves enlisting the mark to aid in retrieving some stolen money from its hiding place. The victim sometimes believes they can cheat the con artists out of their money, but anyone trying this has already fallen for the essential con by believing that the money is there to steal (see also Black money scam). Note that the classic Spanish Prisoner trick also contains an element of the romance scam (see below).
Many conmen employ extra tricks to keep the victim from going to the police. A common ploy of investment scammers is to encourage a mark to use money concealed from tax authorities. The mark cannot go to the authorities without revealing that they have committed tax fraud. Many swindles involve a minor element of crime or some other misdeed. The mark is made to think that they will gain money by helping fraudsters get huge sums out of a country (the classic Nigerian scam); hence marks cannot go to the police without revealing that they planned to commit a crime themselves.
In a recent twist on the Nigerian fraud scheme, the mark is told they are helping someone overseas collect debts from corporate clients. Large cheques stolen from businesses are mailed to the mark. These cheques are altered to reflect the mark's name, and the mark is then asked to cash them and transfer all but a percentage of the funds (his commission) to the con artist. The cheques are often completely genuine, except that the "pay to" information has been expertly changed. This exposes the mark not only to enormous debt when the bank reclaims the money from their account, but also to criminal charges for money laundering. A more modern variation is to use laser-printed counterfeit cheques with the proper account numbers and payer information.
Romance tricks
Romance fraud, when fraudsters seduce people only to target their money, is an old-fashioned type of fraud. It received high attention in Sweden around 1950 when a man named Gustaf Raskenstam had relationships with more than a hundred lonely women, and had been engaged to many of them, often several at the same time. He was eventually imprisoned for fraud. His contact ads usually had the headline "Sun and spring" ("sol och vår" in Swedish). This type of behaviour has since been called "sol och vårande" in Swedish.
The traditional romance scam has now moved into internet dating sites. The con actively cultivates a romantic relationship which often involves promises of marriage. However, after some time it becomes evident that this Internet "sweetheart" is stuck in his home country, lacking the money to leave the country and thus unable to be united with the mark. The scam then becomes an advance-fee fraud or a check fraud . A wide variety of reasons can be offered for the trickster's lack of cash, but rather than just borrow the money from the victim (advance fee fraud), the con man normally declares that they have checks which the victim can cash on their behalf and remit the money via a non-reversible transfer service to help facilitate the trip (check fraud). Of course, the checks are forged or stolen and the con man never makes the trip: the hapless victim ends up with a large debt and an aching heart. This scam can be seen in the movie Nights of Cabiria .
Gold brick scams
Goldbricking- Gold brick scams involve selling a tangible item for more than it is worth; named after selling the victim an allegedly golden ingot which turns out to be gold-coated lead.
The 1883 "No Cents" Liberty Head nickel , a scam developed by con artists that electroplated Liberty Head nickels, intending to make storeowners believe that the gold-plated nickel was a $5 coin.
The coin collecting scam is a scam preying on inexperienced collectors. The conman convinces the mark by stating that a high-priced collection is for sale at a lower amount. The coin collector then buys the entire collection, believing it is valuable.
Pig-in-a-poke originated in the late Middle Ages. The con entails a sale of a (suckling) "pig" in a "poke" (bag). The bag ostensibly contains a live healthy little pig, but actually contains a cat (not particularly prized as a source of meat, and at any rate, quite unlikely to grow to be a large hog). If one buys a "pig in a poke" without looking in the bag (a colloquial expression in the English language, meaning "to be a sucker"), the person has bought something of less value than was assumed, and has learned firsthand the lesson caveat emptor . Dutch, German, Scandinavian, Russian and Polish speakers employ the expression "buying a cat-in-the-bag" when someone buys something without examining it beforehand. In Sweden, Finland and Estonia, the "cat" in the phrase is replaced by "pig", referring to the bag's supposed content, but the saying is otherwise identical. This is also said to be where the phrase "letting the cat out of the bag" comes from, although there may be other explanations.
The Thai g
How To Earn Extra Money Online | Ways To Make Extra ...
You can usually make up to $5 per article which is usually 500+ words and unique. ... 140 People have expressed themselves on“Ways To Earn Extra Money Online”
Need To Make Money Fast? 10 Quick and Easy Ways To Earn ...
There you have it. 10 ways to make money fast. They’re quick and easy ways to earn extra money online plus you don ... How To Turn Old PLR Articles Into Fresh Unique Content; 21 Top ...
Four Unique Ways to Earn Money at Halloween ...
Halloween can be a great time to earn extra money. Here are four, fun, seasonal business ideas you can try in your area.
Unique ways to earn money for students.
Students! Replace your minimum wage, boring part-time job with more unique ways to earn money. In fact, earn more than just money for school.
Ways to Earn Extra Money Online: Sell Stuff Online to ...
It needn't be a unique skill, but it should be in an area where there is a ... The copyright of the article Ways to Earn Extra Money Online in Personal Budgeting/Finance is owned ...
Advertising techniques: unique ways to earn money
Fast advertising techniques: discover unique ways to earn money and traffic
Unique Ways for Auto Mechanics to Earn Extra Money
If you are an auto mechanic there is a world of money making opportunities available to you. Don’t think that the only thing you can do to make a bit of money is work in a garage
55 Ways to Earn Money for Missions - Item #71TW5016
unique items: ... 55 Ways to Earn Money for Missions Item # 71TW5016 Price:
BanPro NET » Unique ways to earn money
Unique ways to earn money. December 6th, 2005. When we use marketing techniques and we invest some money into them, we desire the best results. There are some unique ways to earn money ...
Unique way to pay for your car or just earn money!
CRXSi.Com offers absolutely unique way to earn online with Sensible-Share™ program as an added residual income. Any participant absolutely Guaranteed to be paid and earn!