An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and one of the most common types of confidence tricks. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster requires in order to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim or simply disappears.
A scam or confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence.
The Spanish Prisoner is a confidence trick originating in the late 19th century. In its original form, the confidence trickster tells his victim that he is a wealthy person of high estate who has been imprisoned in Spain under a false identity. Some versions had the imprisoned person being an unknown or remote relative of the mark. Supposedly the prisoner cannot reveal his identity without serious repercussions, and is relying on a friend to raise money to secure his release. In this classic pigeon drop game archetype, the confidence trickster offers to let the mark put up some of the funds, with a promise of a greater monetary reward upon release of the prisoner plus a non-pecuniary incentive, gaining the hand of a beautiful woman represented to be the prisoner's daughter. After the mark has turned over the funds, he is informed further difficulties have arisen, and more money is needed. With such explanations, the trickster continues to press for more money until the victim is cleaned out, or declines to put up more funds.
Email fraud is the intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual through email. Almost as soon as email became widely used, it began to be used as a means to defraud people. Email fraud can take the form of a "con game" or scam. Confidence tricks tend to exploit the inherent greed and dishonesty of their victims. The prospect of a 'bargain' or 'something for nothing' can be very tempting. Email fraud, as with other 'bunco schemes' usually targets naive individuals who put their confidence in get-rich-quick schemes such as 'too good to be true' investments or offers to sell popular items at 'impossibly low' prices. Many people have lost their life savings due to fraud.
United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is a coalition of left and centre-left political parties in India formed after the 2004 general election. The largest member party of the UPA is the INC, whose Former National President Sonia Gandhi is chairperson of the UPA. It formed a government with support from some other left-aligned parties in 2004.
The drop swindle was a confidence trick commonly used during the 19th and 20th centuries. Employing a variety of techniques the con usually consists of the "dropper", who purposely drops a wallet containing counterfeit money near a potential victim. As the victim goes to pick it up the "dropper" turns to pick it up at the same moment pretending to have found the wallet as well. Acting as if he is in a hurry the "dropper" offers to give the wallet to the victim in exchange for money while the victim can claim the reward from the owner. One of the leading practitioners of this confidence trick was "Kid Dropper" Nathan Kaplan, an early twentieth century gangster.
Pigeon drop is a confidence trick in which a mark or "pigeon" is persuaded to give up a sum of money in order to secure the rights to a larger sum of money, or more valuable object.
The gem scam is a confidence trick performed in Bangkok, Thailand as well as other cities in the country. It is one of the most pervasive scams in Thailand. Most of the shops are gold or jewelry shops. The marks tend to be tourists from outside Thailand. It has been alleged that this scam has been operating for the past 20 years, sometimes in the same premises. It has been suggested that individuals in the Royal Thai Police and even politicians protect this scam. The scam was demonstrated on an episode of the BBC series The Real Hustle and in a Scam City episode in Bangkok.
A romance scam is a confidence trick involving feigning romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining their affection, and then using that goodwill to commit fraud. Fraudulent acts may involve access to the victim's money, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, e-mail accounts, or national identification numbers; or forcing the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf. In many instances, a mail-order bride scam will also bait the victim into committing felonies to establish citizenship for the perpetrator.
A mock auction is a scam usually operated in a street market, disposal sale or similar environment, where cheap and low quality goods are sold at high prices by a team of confidence tricksters.
This is a list of notable literary works involving confidence tricks.
Thai Tailor Scam is one of the most common confidence tricks performed in tourist hotspots in Thailand, like Pattaya, Bangkok, Phuket, and beach towns like Khao Lak.
The green goods scam, also known as the "green goods game", was a fraud scheme popular in the 19th-century United States in which people were duped into paying for worthless counterfeit money. It is a variation on the pig-in-a-poke scam using money instead of other goods like a pig.
The Thai Zig zag scam is a confidence trick where one is falsely accused of shoplifting, and then held by police, or those claiming to be police, until "bail" is paid for the alleged theft. At times those fleeced are shown faked closed-circuit television footage as corroboration. In several cases in Thailand, this confidence trick has occurred at the airport, and thus is sometimes called the "Thai airport scam". Most reports of this scam are dated.
A bride scam is a form of romance scam - a confidence trick that aims to defraud potential grooms with the offer of a foreign bride. The basis of the confidence trick is to seek men from the western world who would like to marry a foreign woman and pretend to be willing to marry them. The woman asks the man to send money, for example, for the purposes of purchasing an airline ticket or a visa they have no intention of buying. The relationship ends after requested money has been wired and received, sometimes after multiple transfers have been made.
Fortune telling fraud, also called the bujo or egg curse scam, is a type of confidence trick, based on a claim of secret or occult information. The basic feature of the scam involves diagnosing the victim with some sort of secret problem that only the grifter can detect or diagnose, and then charging the mark for ineffectual treatments. The archetypical grifter working the scam is a fortune teller who announces that the mark is suffering from a curse that her magic can relieve, while threatening dire consequences if the curse is not lifted.
A sick baby hoax is a confidence trick where a person claims, often on a website, that they have an ill child and are struggling to pay for its medical expenses. Some versions of the hoax ask people to make a monetary donation directly, while others simply encourage people to share the story.
Bindeshwari Prasad Verma also known as Vindheshwari Prasad Verma, was a politician from Bihar state of India who led Bihar Legislative Assembly as a first Speaker in independent India from 1946 to 1962. He was awarded India's 3rd highest civilian award Padma Bhushan in 1961 by President of India.
