From Elizabeth Holmes to Fyre Festival, the stories of grifters prove compelling
THERE ARE plenty of words in English for tricking people out of their money. You can scam, hustle, bilk, gyp, flimflam, swindle, swizzle, fleece and finagle. Those who do so are grifters, con artists, hucksters, charlatans, hustlers or fraudsters. Such figures are something of a staple in popular culture: think of the champagne-chicanery of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby; Frank Abagnale, Leonardo DiCaprio’s charismatic con-man in “Catch Me if You Can”; or the glitzy characters in “American Hustle”. They are not ordinary villains, causing revulsion or fear. In being able to make a fortune using little more than their wits, they become attractive, almost awe-inspiring. In both fiction and real life, scammers sell.
Episode 876: Patent Deception
World Patent Marketing’s pitch to inventors was simple: Pay us lots of money, and we’ll take care of the complicated patent office details. Hundreds of tinkerers and would-be visionaries took this deal.
After all, the patent system is complicated. Marketing is tricky. It can be hard to find factories. But, for new inventors, it’s hard to tell a legitimate service from a scam. It was especially hard to tell with World Patent Marketing, which boasted an advisory board that included Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.
If you want more, check out this piece in the Miami New Times, by Brittany Shammas, who joins us on this week’s show.
Ann Coulter: Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people, amused the populists for a while
Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people, amused the populists for a while, but he’ll have no legacy whatsoever” if yields on the issue, columnist Ann Coulter told the Daily Caller in a podcast.
.. David Bossie: Attacks on Trump ignore all the things he’s accomplished.
Marc Thiessen: Trump called Obama the ‘founder of ISIS,’ why would he make the same mistake?
Money Mules: How A Data Breach Turns Into Cash
Once a cybercriminal gets their hands on thousands of credit cards, now what? They obviously can’t go on a shopping spree and have everything shipped to their house, right?
Instead, they rely on a high-tech mix of services and scams to turn the stolen credit cards into stolen goods. It starts with shipping labels – a critical part of the scam. Black market services exist to print labels with carriers that are sold to cybercriminals – often by those proficient in taking over accounts with access to shipping services.
But labels alone don’t get the job done; to remain unknown, cybercriminals need a “drop network” – which includes a group of unsuspecting individuals who act as “mules” to receive good purchased with the credit cards and ship them to their next destination.