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Boat Rides

Name Boat Rides

AKA Fictional Tours

The Mark Tourists

The Con This scam can happen in any tourist city if it happens to be near a river. People offer tours around the city on their boat, seeing the sights. These are often legitimate businesses offering nice city tours.

The con man will set up a stall, near a few boats, that has a lot of foot traffic. The Con Man sells these tours at a very competitive price. After purchasing a ticket the marks are told to come back in a few hours for the tour, and the Con Man points to the boat to meet at.

The people turn up, the Con Man does not. The Con Man just points at a random boat, and hands out self printed tickets.

The Score £10 - £100 depending on local prices.

How to avoid being scammed? The internet is your friend, you can check for reviews, and see if the ticket seller is legitimate.

Coins on Note

The Bet A tower of 20-ish coins are placed on top of a £5 note. The bet is to remove the £5 note without disturbing the tower of coins.

The rules: Nothing can touch the coins except the note and the table beneath it. The coins must remain in a straight tower as it looked at the beginning.

The Scam This seems like it would require a lot of practice, but you will be able to do it straight away. You will need a pen/pencil and you will start to roll the note around the pencil then roll the pencil towards the tower of coins. This will push against the tower, and rolling it slowly will keep the tower in place, while removing the note.

Light Bulb Salesman

Name Lightbulb Salesman

AKA Replacement Scam

The Mark Homeowners

The Con You get a knock on your door and open to see a man in a uniform for a handy service company. He says he has been doing work down the road and has a lot of spare bulbs. If they like, the man will change all the bulbs in their house for £10.

You give him £10 and he changes all of the bulbs and goes on his way.

What you don't know is that the bulbs are actually not new. But what you are even less likely to know is that they are in fact your neighbors bulbs.

The con man starts off will some old bulbs, then goes door to door exchanging old bulbs for other old bulbs, getting £10 at each house. This scam might not even register as being a con, as the bulbs might take a long time to blow.

Variations This can be done with any household item that has a life spawn that warrants replacing.

The Score £10 for every house that agrees.

How to avoid being scammed? Just knowing about this scam is enough to be able to catch the signs of a con artist. Be wary any time someone knocks on your door to offer something. Remember they are looking for money, but you are not looking for whatever service or item they offer.

Burning Match

The Bet

You watch a man sat at a bar striking up a match and letting it burn down until it burns him. He does this until you ask him what he is doing. He will tell a tale of how he watched a man strike a match and let it burn for over 40 seconds.

The man will let you try, and if you are able to succeed in keeping the match lit he will give you a crisp £5 note. After you have failed and burned, he will want to try again for the same stake.

Got to be worth the risk to watch him burn himself again?

This doesn't end with the stranger burning himself, rather you losing £5.

The Scam

This takes a little practise, but can be quite easy to do. Light the match and turn it upside down, waving it slowly side to side. Your goal is to get the flame smaller, but not to extinguish the it. The smaller flame stops the stick burning as fast, therefore can burn for a longer time. £5 Please.

Evil Twins

Name Evil Twins

Aka Look-A-like Hotspots

Victims Public WiFi users

The Con You've spent a morning shopping, and decided to get a coffee and check your emails. You go into a local coffee shop, lets call it 'Bart's'. You look up the availably WiFi options and find that Bart's has it's own Wifi. For only £1 you can browse all day. You enter your details and go about your day. A few days pass and you have no money in your account.

So what happened? Well Bart's doesn't offer WiFi, Bart's sucked the money out of your account. The Con-man has set up a WiFi spot near by, called it 'Bart's WiFi' and put it behind a pay wall. This part is actually fair, stealing your card details and draining your account isn't quite as fair.

The Score Credit card numbers, identity theft and bank account information.

How to avoid being scammed Ask the staff if they have Wifi, they'll direct you to the right one. If in doubt, don't use any Wifi spot you're not familiar with. Would you give a stranger your credit card to hold? Unsecure connections are just the same.

Drink Up (Prop Bet)

The Bet:

This is a classic proposition bet. You challenge your mark to a drinking game. You claim to be able to drink 3 pints before they can drink 3 shots. There are two rules to stop cheating; you can't touch each other, or each others drinks.

The Scam

This seems so impossible you can ask your mark to allow you to drink your first pint and place it back down on the table before you both begin drinking for real. They will oblige as they can easily drink 3 shots before you can drink 1 pint.

After you finish your pint, turn it upside down and place it over one of your marks shot glasses. They might try and pick up your glass, remind them of the rules, they can't touch your glass. Take your time drinking your pints, and enjoy your money

Coin Collector Scam

Name Coin Collector Scam

Aka Value inflating.

Marks Inexperienced collectors

The Con Imagine someone tries to sell a perfume. It has a foreign name, and smells nice, so you purchase it for your mother's birthday, and at only £20 it's a bargain, and Au De Toilet usually sells for £55! (apparently) This might sound obvious but this scam comes in a number of different forms but always has the same core method. The Con-man convinces the mark to buy something that they don't know much about, but sounds like an incredible deal.

Originally a coin of significant value is sold to someone that knows nothing about antique coins, and as the owner needs a quick sale the mark can gain the profit. When they try and sell it, they find out it is worthless.

Don't think this would happen to you? How many things have you purchased that you don't have a 100% understanding of? Probably everything (I am fairly sure phones work on magic). You assume you aren't getting conned because you are in a shop, or trust the seller. So watch out, especially on sites like eBay. A seller will use several accounts to sell an item at an inflated price. When you search for the item, all the prices you see are inflated prices, therefore you assume that is how much it costs.

The Score Usually under £200, but there really is no limit.

How to avoid being scammed Being aware and always check multiple shops/websites for price comparisons and reviews.

Charity Collectors

Name Charity Collectors

Aka Cheggars (Charity Beggars) or Chuggers (Charity Muggers)

Marks Charitable People

The Con The con-man pretends to be raising money for charity by collecting donations. They get the mark to either give money there and then, or sign up to a pay monthly system. The con-man will just keep the money, not giving any to charity.

Commision Chuggars: This scam has a nasty cousin, mainly because it is actually legal. If you were to ask the con-man for his charity number, he would have to lie. Commission collectors actually do give money to charity, and have legitimate charity numbers. BUT they likely give less than 20% to the actually charity. The rest of the money goes to the organisation that runs the collection, and the collectors themselves (commission based).

The Score Depends on how charitable you are.

How to be abode being scammed? This scam can be stopped by a couple questions. Firstly ask for a charity number and check there credentials. Secondly, ask what percentage goes to the charity, and where does the other portion of the money go. Final note, if unsure, just ask for information about the charity and find another way to donate.

Buy A Star

Name Buy A Star

Aka RegiSTAR

The Mark Present buyers

The Con Not sure what to buy for someone's birthday? (Or any other day for that matter) You could buy someone their very own star! Send in the name you'd like the star to be known as, and a little bit if cash of course. Receive a certificate showing where it is in the sky, and it's new official name!

Not too much to this scam other than the fact that a star can't be owned. There are also clever terms and conditions that make this scam totally legal. All you are really receiving is a piece of paper.

The Score Around £20 - £40 per star

How to avoid being scammed? Easy! Don't buy a star. But if you really want one, send me an email, I promise to beat anyone else's prices!

Bar Code Switch

Name Bar Code Switch

Aka Price (tag) fixing

Marks Big retail shops with large range of products

The Con This is a very simple scam where the bar codes of two items are switched. A DVD player that cost £20's bar code is removed from it's box and attached to a more expensive DVD player. This newly coded DVD player is taken to the till to be purchased. This saves the con man a lot of money, or the item can be taken back for a refund by removing the bar code from the box and claiming to have lost the receipt. The store may only give store credit or refund at the lowest price it was sold at, but you can't complain at something for nothing.

The Score Mainly small items under £100, but can be used for higher value items, with more risk.

How to avoid being scammed? If you work in retail, knowledge is key to stop this scam. Just being aware of particular brands price range will help when someone brings you an Apple iPod and it rings up at £19.99. If the barcode looks like it has been tampered with, just have a look at another box of the same product or even just saying that there could be something wrong with a bar code is enough to send a Con-man running

#Con #Short #Bar #Short con #Switch #Code

Animal Safety

Name Animal Safety

Aka Puppy scam, dog.con

The Mark Animal lovers

The Con The Con-Man takes out advertisements in newspapers, websites or anywhere else the victims may see it. The advertisements are looking people to adopt pets, usually dogs, to save them from cruelty. They can even get the animal for free, but have to pay the customs/vets fee in advance.

The money clears, the animal never arrives.

The Score £20 - £500 per animal

How to avoid being scammed? Quite simply only buy or adopt animals from approved organisations. Think about why an organisation would want an injured animal to be sent on a long trip out of the country (Hint: they wouldn't).

Match Stick Puzzle: Square in Square

Arrange the match sticks as shown below. As you can see there are three squares. Move two sticks to create four equal size squares.

Match Stick Puzzle: Olive in Wine Glass

Olive in Wine Glass

This uses four match sticks and an 'olive' (or match head). You arrange the matches to create a wine glass, and put the olive in the center. The aim is to remove the olive by only moving two matches.

The answer is below!

500 Meter Drive

Name 500 Meter Drive

Aka Tin Cup Drive, Golf Scam, The frozen lake drive.

The Mark Golfers

The Con The con-man boasts that he can drive over 500 meters using the club and ball of the marks choosing. This is obviously impossible, after all the world record is 471 meters.

So how can it be done? Well not only can it be done, but there are several ways of doing it!

The most famous version was made by american hustler Titanic Thompson (Alvin Clarence Thomas). He managed to drive a golf ball across a frozen lake, due to the lack of friction it rolled for over 500 yards. (The record for longest drive at the time was just over 200 yards)

The mark picks the club and the ball, but they are not important, the location is. The easiest version of this scam is to find somewhere with a huge fall. Then tap the ball off of the edge, easy win.

The Score As much as the hustler can get out of the mark.

How to avoid being scammed? If you ever meet someone that boats an amazing skill, and has enough confidence to put money on it. You are not paying to win, you are paying to see an amazing skill, or clever con. Just keep that in mind.

#Short #con #hustle #500 #meter #drive #golf

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