I love hearing about clever scams. This is probably for the same reason I have studied sleight of hand magic for the past 20 years. I just love sneaky shit!
There are some really interesting ones out there. Like stealing a fraction of a penny from millions of bank customers. That one actually happened long ago here in the UK.
Anyway - here are a couple that are my favourites. One is fairly big in scale. And the other is alot smaller in scale - [note: this information is for educational purposes only. blah blah blah.]
I only like these things because as with a good magic trick, I appreciate the ingenuity behind a good con.
The first one. Imagine you could promise people that with just 10 minutes of 'hypnosis' - they would pass the entrance interview that you have to take to get into elite universities like Oxford, Cambridge and the Ivy league universities?
Not only that. You are so sure that your method will work. That you offer a 'no quibbles' money back guarantee if it fails?
I think most parents would drop a thousand bucks on a 'money back guarantee' basis to ensure their kids get into their desired university.
So - what is the secret to the scam? The secret is that there is no secret.
Let's say you spend 10 minutes with a 100 kids. And you pretend to hypnotise all 100 of them.
Now - naturally - through luck and talent. A proportion of those kids will pass the interview anyway. Let's imagine ten of them did.
So - you keep the 10,000 dollars from the ten grateful parents. And you refund the rest of the money to the other 90 kids. Simples!
Free money. No work. No talent. And - this is the cool part - no unhappy customers.
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Another great scam is a bar scam. It has leaked out into the mainstream over the past decade (it used to be a legendary scam in magic circles many years ago). As such - I will save some effort by just copying and pasting a description from elsewhere:
Code:
There are some really interesting ones out there. Like stealing a fraction of a penny from millions of bank customers. That one actually happened long ago here in the UK.
Anyway - here are a couple that are my favourites. One is fairly big in scale. And the other is alot smaller in scale - [note: this information is for educational purposes only. blah blah blah.]
I only like these things because as with a good magic trick, I appreciate the ingenuity behind a good con.
The first one. Imagine you could promise people that with just 10 minutes of 'hypnosis' - they would pass the entrance interview that you have to take to get into elite universities like Oxford, Cambridge and the Ivy league universities?
Not only that. You are so sure that your method will work. That you offer a 'no quibbles' money back guarantee if it fails?
I think most parents would drop a thousand bucks on a 'money back guarantee' basis to ensure their kids get into their desired university.
So - what is the secret to the scam? The secret is that there is no secret.
Let's say you spend 10 minutes with a 100 kids. And you pretend to hypnotise all 100 of them.
Now - naturally - through luck and talent. A proportion of those kids will pass the interview anyway. Let's imagine ten of them did.
So - you keep the 10,000 dollars from the ten grateful parents. And you refund the rest of the money to the other 90 kids. Simples!
Free money. No work. No talent. And - this is the cool part - no unhappy customers.
----------------
Another great scam is a bar scam. It has leaked out into the mainstream over the past decade (it used to be a legendary scam in magic circles many years ago). As such - I will save some effort by just copying and pasting a description from elsewhere:
Code:
Code:
This is a trick that is like a magic trick, and you make almost a hundred dollars off it and there is also a low probability of getting in trouble.
The things you need are:
1. a bar that has multiple people working one register and that also takes hundred dollar bills.
2. a confederate (someone who secretly knows you and will help you in your plan).
3. a hundred dollar bill
OK so first you have to make some small talk with the bartender and become buddys with him or mabey do a few simple bar/magic tricks to warm him up. After you have relaxed him, bet him that you can make a hundred dollar bill appear in his cash register (no its not as corny as it sounds.) So tell him that if he signs your hundred dollar bill it will appear in his cash register. Have him sign it and when your buddy (the confederate) sees this he should walk past you and you can slyly hand him the money.
Then your friend will go to another bartender at the same register and spend the hundred dollar bill on a cheap drink (probably getting around 95 dollars in change). That is when you tell your bartender to check his register and he will find to his amazement the hundred dollar bill he signed and give it back to you.
Now you will get the hundred dollars back plus the 95 dollars and almost double your money. And the worst that can happen is you lose five bucks.