#confidence scam

[trexalicious]

The original flim-flam artist is Doria...

[bhrarchinerd]

Uber is a bezzle ("the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it"). Every bezzle ends. Uber's time is up.

[wordstoreference]

Simon wonders why disenchantment with globalization has caused people to turn to what he calls snake oil salesmen. That phrase is apt, because snake oil salesmen thrived for decades. And some of the reasons they did so might be relevant today.

[pitch-and-moan]

The Briefest of Hustles

A con woman manages to hustle his way into law firm posing as a former partner returned from an extended absence who no one remembers, and gets by asking interns, temps and prospective hires to do her work for her.  Eventually she winds up "interviewing" a candidate that writes an entire paragraph about how the con is getting the attorney, as a potential hire, to write a brief for her, and that the con should be investigated, held in contempt and disbarred.  Of course she doesn't notice, and the brief is filed, waiting for a clerk to notice.  In the meantime she attempts to start a relationship with the potential hire, just as she realizes the case is her "firm" defending a giant corporation against sick children or sick puppies, or sick children with sick puppies.  Somehow this all culminates in the con woman winning the case for the kids because of the misfiled brief, getting the guy, and enrolling in law school to become a real lawyer and give up the grifting life, without getting arrested.

Inspired by true events that happened to my friend Jamie.