Many scammers use additional tricks to prevent the victim from going to the police. A common trick of investment scammers is to encourage a brand to use money hidden from tax authorities. The sign cannot go to the authorities without revealing that they have committed tax fraud. Many scams involve a minor element of the crime or other misdeeds. The sign is made to think that they will make money by helping scammers get huge sums of money from a country (the classic scam in advance/Nigerian scam); Therefore, a marker cannot go to the police without revealing that he wanted to commit a crime himself. The Beijing Tea Scam is a famous variant of the Clip Joint scam practiced in and around Beijing and other major Chinese cities. Artists (usually women and working in pairs) will approach tourists and try to make friends. After speaking, they suggest a trip to see a tea ceremony, claiming that they have never attended one before. We never show the tourist a menu, but we assume that this is how things are done in China. After the ceremony, the bill is given to the tourist and costs more than $100 per capita.
Artists then hand in their bills, and tourists are forced to do the same. Similar scams involving restaurants, cafes and bars also take place. [62] [63] Victor Lustig, a German fraudster, designed and sold a “coin box” that he said could print $100 notes with blank sheets of paper. [1] [self-published source] A victim who felt huge profits and didn`t care about the ethical implications would buy the machine at a high price – from $25,000 to $102,000. [1] Lustig stockpiled the machine with six to nine real $100 bills for demonstration purposes, but after that, it only produced blank paper. [2] When the victims realized they had been deceived, Lustig was long gone. [1] [2] The deposit wallet scam usually targets tourists. The scammer pretends to accidentally deposit his wallet in a public place. After an unsuspecting victim picks up the wallet and offers it to the scammer, the scam begins.
The artist accuses the victim of stealing money from the wallet and threatens to call the police, which scares the victim to return the allegedly stolen money. Cases have been reported in Eastern Europe and major cities or train stations in China. In this scam, the trusted artist pretends to be a casting agent for a model agency looking for new talent. The budding model is told that he needs a wallet or a comp card. The brand pays an upfront fee to have photos and create its portfolio, after which it will be sent on its way, hoping that its agent will find it to work in the coming weeks. [68] Of course, he never hears anything from the trusted artist. The artist? The girl who forged her work? The collector who discovered the scam but didn`t reveal it to the public for fear of seeing how the value of his art would change? The traditional romantic scam has now moved to internet dating sites and has been given a new name for cat fishing. The scammer actively maintains a romantic relationship, which often involves marriage vows. However, after a while, it becomes clear that this Internet “treasure” is stuck in its home country or in a third country, it does not have the money to leave and therefore cannot be united with the brand. The fraud then becomes prepayment fraud or cheque fraud. Various reasons can be put forward to explain the player`s lack of money, but instead of simply borrowing the money from the victim (fraud in advance), the scammer usually explains that he has checks that the victim can cash on his behalf and transfer the money via a non-reversible transfer service to facilitate the trip (check fraud).
Of course, checks are falsified or stolen, and the scammer never makes the trip: the unfortunate victim ends with a large debt and a sore heart. This scam can be seen in the movie Nights of Cabiria. Spanish prisoner fraud – and its modern variant, prepayment fraud or “Nigerian letter fraud” – involves recruiting the brand to help recover stolen money from its hideout. The victim sometimes believes that they can scam scammers with their money, but anyone who tries to do so has already fallen into the trap of the essential scam by believing that the money is there to steal (see also Black Money Fraud). The classic trick of the Spanish prisoner also contains an element of romantic cheating (see below). Insurance fraud involves a variety of systems in which policyholders try to scam their own insurance company, but if the victim is an individual, the scammer cheats the brand to damage the scammer`s car or injure the scammer, for example, in a way that the scammer may exaggerate later. A relatively common pattern involves two cars, one for the scammer and the other for the shilling. The scammer will shoot in front of the victim, and the shilling will shoot in front of the scammer before he slows down.
The scammer will then press his brakes to “avoid” the shilling, forcing the victim to straighten the scammer. The shill accelerates and leaves the stage. The scammer will then claim various exaggerated injuries to be collected from the victim`s insurance company, even if he intentionally caused the accident. Insurance companies that have to spend money to combat even claims they consider fraudulent often pay thousands of dollars – a tiny amount to the carrier, even if it`s a significant amount for an individual – to settle those claims instead of going to court. [38] In this scam, the artists pose as ticket control staff on public transport. They tend to look for tourists as easy markers and therefore target rail connections from the airport. They will ask to see the passenger`s tickets, and once they have found a suitable brand, they will claim that there is something wrong with the ticket they own. You will then claim that immediate payment is required to avoid further legal problems. In some cases, this scam is even committed by real public transport employees who want to scam tourists. [87] The blessing scam targets elderly Chinese immigrant women and convinces them that an evil spirit threatens their families and that this threat can be eliminated by a blessing ceremony where a bag is filled with their savings, jewelry or other valuables.