Ingenious Scams

[FlyWf]

See, the fake doorman and fake parking [censored] is a proper scam. You'd never know!

I know a doorguy who plays a related scam. He's a legitimate employee for a bar but he invents a dress code and charges people for 'violations'. The beauty is that people think they're bribing him to look the other way. A good scam makes the mark think they are complicit in wrongdoing to prevent them from spreading the word around.

Stealing [censored] is not a scam, and it's certainly not "Ingenious".

[btmagnetw]

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=kamranakhtar

some are very lame, some are impossible to do, but you'll see some cool ones here and there.

[talentdeficit]

my favorite was the guy in indiana who leased the building where a bank had been located and reopened the bank. he took deposits for three months, then disappeared.

[liamm1987]

[ QUOTE ]

I like that one.

An old roommate of mine used to go with a couple of buddies in white shirts and a tie to unwatched empty parking lots next to theaters, and bring a couple of traffic cones for each exit. They would charge people five bucks a shot for theater parking, and often fill the lot.

[/ QUOTE ]

We used to do this when i was younger outside a local Pub/Restuarant. We used to just hang about outside and ask folk if they wanted us to watch there car. It was just basically us getting money to not damage there motor, not that we would anyway.

[sonneti]

Best I heard of was a scam carried out on an english hotel during the Cheltnam horse racing festival. A few weeks before the festival three scammers are drinking in a Pub in Belfast, they get introduced to a guy with the same name as a well known irish multi-millionaire. They are sure they can take advantage of this so they get the guy to open a new bank account and give him £1000 to deposit.

So while they are waiting for the guy to get his cheque book from the new account. They make a booking for 3 rooms in the name of the irish millionaire + his entourage at a hotel right beside the festival.

Once this guy gets his cheque book they make a copy of the millionaires company stamp, write out a cheque for £1000, stamp it and then post it to the hotel as a deposit.

A couple of weeks later they arrive at the hotel just in time for the festival. Everything is on the tab as the orginal cheque for £1000 will have cleared, the hotel manager is kissing the scammers asses because he thinks they are all rich!

They arrive on the Thursday and spend the night drinking champagne and eating steaks, running up a massive bill on the tab. On the Friday they head out to the races as expected, then return later & party some more. They get friendly with the manager and ask him to cash a cheque for £5000, for mr millionaire as he'd like some money for the racing the next day. Manager says ok and takes a cheque for them, they do the same on Saturday and Sunday netting £15,000 in total...

The same guy pulled off another scam on a bar in Scotland, he applied for a job as a manager in the bar, got really friendly with the family & then the first time they went on Holiday he sold everything they had.. completly cleared a family business.

The same guys posed as rich business men in Belfast, took a car for a weekend test drive, drove it over to england and sold it... they didnt have any money at the time and had to sell the mat's out of the car so they could get the petrol..

[Blarg]

They do this outside the Colliseum(sp?) in Watts all the time.

[Wretchy]

Very simple scam, but works.

Buy fake things overseas, name brand stuff like golf clubs, Nike, Callaway, ect...

You can average 100 bucks a set, and resell them for 400-900 a set here.

Only about half the people you ship them to will know the difference, so you apologize and give them a full refund, and simply list the clubs again.

I have a friend who has been doing this for years and makes a living doing so.

[Grasshopp3r]

Denver found several coins with strings tied to them in parking meters. People would put the coin in and take it back out.

[Exitonly]

I think we have to add this Soprano's Season Finale scam to the list...

[maryfield48]

I was told this story last week by a couple from Philly who I met while waiting to board a plane.

A group is out to dinner at a restaurant. One of the ladies in the group goes to the bathroom, and puts her bag on the floor while she's peeing. Someone in the next stall steals the bag. When she realizes it she raises the alarm but the culprits have scarpered.

A few days later the victims get a call, this is John the Maitre 'D, we're so sorry, yada yada, we'd like to offer you a free dinner at a time and date of your choosing. They accept, set the date for next Thursday, and when they show up no-one at the restaurant knows anything about it.

Of course while they're at the restaurant their home is entered and they are cleaned out.