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United States USAID provides US$8m technical assistance and training, limited-scale infrastructure activities, and specialized equipment for the Litani River Authority, transforming the Authority in a "river basin agency". It also provides US$19.5m to improve the management, operations and services of the four Regional Water Establishments, including a "national strategic water and wastewater master plan". Memoranda of understanding about both programs were signed in June 2010. The first project builds on a previous U.S.-supported project that helped the South Lebanon Water Establishment to become—according to the consulting firm who works on the project, DAI—"a model for the other water establishments in Lebanon."
The project introduced a business plan and a financial model for the utility. It attempted to replicate the positive experience in the South to the Beirut/Mount Lebanon Water Establishment, but faced difficulties there because of a lack of support from management. The project also tried to promote public-private partnerships (PPPs) through the establishment of a PPP unit in the Ministry of Energy and Water. The work of the unit has had little impact and "all activities related to PPP (were put) on hold due to the absence of a clear vision regarding PPP in the country". The project also aimed to develop a new tariff strategy, but actually carried out an assessment of current revenues and scenarios for future revenues.
Furthermore, substantial training was carried out and a South Lebanon Wastewater Master Plan was developed. Last but not least production and zone meters were installed in Sidon, the only city in the South and one of the few localities in the entire country that has customer meters. However, it is unclear if the meters are actually being read. The final report of the project concludes, among other things, that there is a lack of sufficient qualified staff in the regional water establishments, a lack of accurate operational and financial data, and a lack of local firms specialized in the development and implementation of financial and accounting systems.
World Bank The World Bank has supported the Lebanese water and sanitation sector since 1993 when it approved an Emergency Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Project. With the help of the project water systems in 97 communities were rehabilitated or built, as were 98 small sewerage systems. After the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon, 5 additional water and sewerage systems were rehabilitated benefiting 140 communities. The project also rehabilitated or expanded three large water productions and distribution systems and wastewater treatment plants Baalbek, Metn and Barouk. Because complementary works, to be financed by other sources, had not been completed on time, these facilities were inoperative as of 2006.
In particular, the Baalbek wastewater treatment plant (13,000 m3/day capacity), completed in early 2002, was not connected to the sewerage system. The World Bank continued to support water supply and sanitation in Baalbek through a US$43.5m loan approved in 2002. This was followed by a US$15m emergency grant in 2007 to support the rehabilitation and expansion of water supply systems in five villages in the Western Bekaa Valley. In December 2010, the World Bank approved a US$200m loan to support the Greater Beirut Water Supply Project. The World Bank had to cancel a previous loan for submarine treated wastewater outfalls in Kesrouan and Sour approved in 1998 after the government had not ratified the corresponding loan agreements.
Non-governmental organizations A number of foreign and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are active in the Lebanese water and sanitation sector. For example, NGOs such as the YMCA, the Mercy Corps, CHF International and the Pontifical Mission built 13 small wastewater treatment plants throughout the country during the 1990s with funding from USAID. Further reading Council for Development and Reconstruction:Potable Water Supply, Progress Report October 2009 Council for Development and Reconstruction:Project search water External links Ministry of Energy and Water (in Arabic) Ministry of Environment Law No 221: Organization of the Water Sector GIZ:Lebanon Water Sector Reform References Category:Water supply and sanitation in Lebanon
A Reactional keratosis is a premalignant keratotic skin lesion that may arise in a variety of long-standing, nonscarring, inflammatory processes such as cutaneous lupus erythematosus for example. References Category:Epidermal nevi, neoplasms, cysts
The demographics of Kazakhstan enumerate the demographic features of the population of Kazakhstan, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population. Some use the word Kazakh to refer to the Kazakh ethnic group and language (autochthonous to Kazakhstan as well as parts of Russia, China and Mongolia) and Kazakhstani to refer to Kazakhstan and its citizens regardless of ethnicity, but it is common to use Kazakh in both senses. Demographic trends Official estimates put the population of Kazakhstan at 18,137,300 as of December 2017, of which 44% is rural and 56% urban population.
The 2009 population estimate is 6.8% higher than the population reported in the last census from January 1999 (slightly less than 15 million). These estimates have been confirmed by the 2009 population census, and this means that the decline in population that began after 1989 has been arrested and reversed. The proportion of men makes up 48.3%, the proportion of women 51.7%. The proportion of Kazakhs makes up 63.6%, Russians 23.7%, Uzbeks 2.9%, Ukrainians 2.1%, Uygur 1.4%, Tatars 1.3%, Germans 1.1%, others 3.9%. Note that a large percentage of the population are of mixed ethnicity. The first census in Kazakhstan was conducted under Russian Imperial rule in 1897, which estimated population at round 4 million people.
Following censuses showed a growth until 1939, where numbers showed a decrease to 6,081 thousand relative to the previous census done 13 years earlier, due to famines of 1922 and 1933. But since 1939 population has steadily increased to 16.5 million in the 1989, according to corresponding year census. Official estimates indicate that the population continued to increase after 1989, peaking out at 17 million in 1993 and then declining to 15 million in the 1999 census. The downward trend continued through 2002, when the estimated population bottomed out at 14.9 million, and then resumed its growth. Significant numbers of Russians returned to Russia.
Kazakhstan underwent significant urbanization during the first 50 years of the Soviet era, as the share of rural population declined from more than 90% in the 1920s to less than 50% since the 1970s. Population of Kazakhstan 1897–2018 Data sources: Population 1897 from Russian Empire Census. Population 1926 from First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union. Population 1939–1999 from demoscope.ru, 2002–2008 from Kazakhstan Statistical Agency web site. Rural/urban shares 1939–1993 from statistical yearbooks, print editions, 2002–2008 from Kazakhstan Statistical Agency web site. 2009–2014 from Kazakhstan Statistical Agency web site. As of 2003, there were discrepancies between Western sources regarding the population of Kazakhstan.
United States government sources, including the CIA World Fact Book and the US Census Bureau International Data Base, listed the population as 15,340,533, while the World Bank gave a 2002 estimate of 14,858,948. This discrepancy was presumably due to difficulties in measurement caused by the large migratory population in Kazakhstan, emigration, and low population density - only about 5.5 persons per km² in an area the size of Western Europe.
Vital statistics Births and deaths 1 Vital statistics Births: January-September of 2018: 297,279 (21.7) January-September of 2019: 301,024 (21.7) Deaths: January-September of 2018: 98,103 (7.2) January-September of 2019: 100,045 (7.2) Natural increase: January-September of 2018: 199,176 (14.6) January-September of 2019: 200,979 (14.5) Structure of the population Structure of the population (01.07.2008) (Estimates) : Total fertility rate Total fertility rate by regions of Kazakhstan: Mangystau - 3.80, South Kazakhstan - 3.71, Kyzylorda - 3.42, Atyrau - 3.29, Jambyl - 3.20, Aqtobe - 2.70, Almaty (province) - 2.65, Almaty (city) - 2.65, City of Astana - 2.44, West Kazakhstan - 2.29, Aqmola - 2.19, East Kazakhstan - 2.07, Qaragandy - 2.04, Pavlodar - 1.98, North Kazakhstan - 1.72, Qostanay - 1.70, Republic of Kazakhstan - 2.65.
Thus it can be seen that fertility rate is higher in more traditionalist and religious south and west, and lower in the north and east, where the percentage of Slavic and German population is still relatively high. According to the Kazakhstan Demographic and Health Survey in 1999, the TFR for Kazakhs was 2.5 and that for Russians was 1.38. TFR in 1989 for Kazakhs & Russians were 3.58 and 2.24 respectively. Life expectancy at birth Source: UN World Population Prospects Ethnic groups History of ethnic composition Kazakhstan's dominant ethnic group Kazakhs, traces its origin to 15th century, when a number of Turkic and some Mongol tribes united to establish the Kazakh Khanate.
With cohesive culture and national identity, they constituted absolute majority on the land until Russian colonization. Russian advancement into the territory of Kazakhstan began in the late 18th century, when the Kazakhs nominally accepted Russian rule in exchange for protection against repeated attacks by the western Mongolian Kalmyks. In the 1890s, Russian peasants began to settle the fertile lands of northern Kazakhstan, causing many Kazakhs to move eastwards into Chinese territory in search of new grazing grounds. The 1906 completion of the Trans-Aral Railway between Orenburg and Tashkent further facilitated Russian colonization. The first collectivized farms opened in Kazakhstan in 1921, populated primarily by Russians and Soviet deportees.
In 1930, as part of the first Five Year Plan, the Kazakh Central Committee decreed the sedentarization of nomads and their incorporation into collectivized farms. This movement resulted in devastating famine, claiming the lives of an estimated 40% of ethnic Kazakhs (1.5 million), between 1930-33. Hundreds of thousands also fled to China, Iran and Afghanistan. The famine rendered Kazakhs a minority within Kazakhstan, and only after the republic gained independence in 1991 did Kazakhs recover a slim demographic majority within Kazakhstan. Demographics would continue to shift in the 1950-1960s, wherein as part of Nikita Khrushchev's Virgin Lands Campaign, hundreds of thousands of Soviet deportees were relocated to the Kazakh steppes in order to farm.
As recognized in the 1959 census, the Kazaks became a minority for the first time in history, comprising just 30% of the total population of Kazakhstan. Russians numbered 42.7%. According to the 2009 census, the ethnic composition of Kazakhstan is approximately: 63.1% Kazakh, 23.7% Russian, 2.9% Uzbek, 2.1% Ukrainian, 1.4% Uyghur, 1.3% Tatar, 1.1% German, 1% Kyrgyz, and <1% Korean, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Dungan, Kurdish, Tajik, Polish, Chechen. Religions References Bibliography . External links For current data, use these sites. Population and social policy, Statistical Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan (kaz World Bank Database CIA World Fact Book page on Kazakhstan US Census Bureau International Data Base countrystudies.us WESP population statistics Russians left behind in Central Asia
Confidence tricks and scams are difficult to classify, because they change often and often contain elements of more than one type. Throughout this list, the perpetrator of the confidence trick is called the "con artist" or simply "artist", and the intended victim is the "mark". Particular scams are mainly directed toward elderly people, as they may be credulous and sometimes inexperienced or insecure, especially when the scam involves modern technology such as computers and the internet. This list should not be considered complete but covers the most common examples. Get-rich-quick schemes Get-rich-quick schemes are extremely varied; these include fake franchises, real estate "sure things", get-rich-quick books, wealth-building seminars, self-help gurus, sure-fire inventions, useless products, chain letters, fortune tellers, quack doctors, miracle pharmaceuticals, foreign exchange fraud, Nigerian money scams, and charms and talismans.
Variations include the pyramid scheme, the Ponzi scheme, and the matrix scheme. The "Money-Box Scheme" Victor Lustig, a German con artist, designed and sold a "money box" which he claimed could print $100 bills using blank sheets of paper. A victim, sensing huge profits and untroubled by ethical implications, would buy the machine for a high price—from $25,000 to $102,000. Lustig stocked the machine with six to nine genuine $100 bills for demonstration purposes, but after that it produced only blank paper. By the time victims realized that they had been scammed, Lustig was long gone. Salting Salting or "salting the mine" are terms for a scam in which gemstones or gold ore are planted in a mine or on the landscape, duping the mark into purchasing shares in a worthless or non-existent mining company.
During gold rushes, scammers would load shotguns with gold dust and shoot into the sides of the mine to give the appearance of a rich ore, thus "salting the mine". Examples include the diamond hoax of 1872 and the Bre-X gold fraud of the mid-1990s. This trick was featured in the HBO series Deadwood, when Al Swearengen and E. B. Farnum trick Brom Garret into believing gold is to be found on the claim Swearengen intends to sell him. This con was also featured in Sneaky Pete. Spanish Prisoner The Spanish Prisoner scam — and its modern variant, the advance-fee scam or "Nigerian letter scam" — involves enlisting the mark to aid in retrieving some stolen money from its hiding place.
The victim sometimes believes he can cheat the con artists out of their money, but anyone trying this has already fallen for the essential con by believing that the money is there to steal (see also Black money scam). Note that the classic Spanish Prisoner trick also contains an element of the romance scam (see below). Many con men employ extra tricks to keep the victim from going to the police. A common ploy of investment scammers is to encourage a mark to use money concealed from tax authorities. The mark cannot go to the authorities without revealing that he has committed tax fraud.
Many swindles involve a minor element of crime or some other misdeed. The mark is made to think that he will gain money by helping fraudsters get huge sums out of a country (the classic advance-fee fraud/Nigerian scam); hence a mark cannot go to the police without revealing that he planned to commit a crime himself. In a twist on the Nigerian fraud scheme, the mark is told he is helping someone overseas collect debts from corporate clients. Large cheques stolen from businesses are mailed to the mark. These cheques are altered to reflect the mark's name, and the mark is then asked to cash them and transfer all but a percentage of the funds (his commission) to the con artist.
The cheques are often completely genuine, except that the "pay to" information has been expertly changed. This exposes the mark not only to enormous debt when the bank reclaims the money from his account, but also to criminal charges for money laundering. A more modern variation is to use laser-printed counterfeit cheques with the proper bank account numbers and payer information. This scam can be seen on the film The Spanish Prisoner. Persuasion tricks Persuasion fraud, when fraudsters persuade people only to target their money, is an old-fashioned type of fraud. Grandparent scam A grandparent gets a call or e-mail from someone claiming to be their grandchild, saying that they are in trouble.
For example, the scammer may claim to have been arrested and require money wired, or gift cards purchased for bail, and asks the victim not to tell the grandchild's parents, as they would "only get upset." The call is fraudulent impersonation, the name of the grandchild typically obtained from social media postings as well as obituaries listed either in newspapers or from a funeral home's website. Any money wired out of the country is gone forever. Romance scam The traditional romance scam has now moved into Internet dating sites. The con actively cultivates a romantic relationship which often involves promises of marriage.
However, after some time, it becomes evident that this Internet "sweetheart" is stuck in his or her home country or a third country, lacking the money to leave and thus unable to be united with the mark. The scam then becomes an advance-fee fraud or a check fraud. A wide variety of reasons can be offered for the trickster's lack of cash, but rather than just borrow the money from the victim (advance fee fraud), the con-man normally declares that he has checks which the victim can cash on his behalf and remit the money via a non-reversible transfer service to help facilitate the trip (check fraud).
Of course, the checks are forged or stolen and the con-man never makes the trip: the hapless victim ends up with a large debt and an aching heart. This scam can be seen in the movie Nights of Cabiria. In some cases, an online dating site is itself engaged in fraud, posting profiles of fictional persons or persons which the operator knows are not currently looking for a date in the advertised locality. Fortune-telling fraud One traditional swindle involves fortune-telling. In this scam, a fortune teller uses cold reading skills to detect that a client is genuinely troubled rather than merely seeking entertainment; or is a gambler complaining of bad luck.
The fortune teller informs the mark that he is the victim of a curse, and that for a fee a spell can be cast to remove the curse. In Romany, this trick is called bujo ("bag") after one traditional format: the mark is told that the curse is in his money; he brings money in a bag to have the spell cast over it, and leaves with a bag of worthless paper. Fear of this scam has been one justification for legislation that makes fortune-telling a crime. See the "Blessing Scam" below. This scam got a new lease on life in the electronic age with the virus hoax.
Fake anti-virus software falsely claims that a computer is infected with viruses, and renders the machine inoperable with bogus warnings unless blackmail is paid. In the Datalink Computer Services incident, a mark was fleeced of several millions of dollars by a firm that claimed that his computer was infected with viruses, and that the infection indicated an elaborate conspiracy against him on the Internet. The alleged scam lasted from August 2004 through October 2010 and is estimated to have cost the victim $6–20 million. Gold brick scams Gold brick scams involve selling a tangible item for more than it is worth; they are named after selling the victim an allegedly golden ingot which turns out to be gold-coated lead.
Green goods The green goods scam, also known as the "green goods game", was a 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 mark, or victim, would respond to flyers circulated throughout the country by the scammers ("green goods men") which claimed to offer "genuine" counterfeit currency for sale. This currency was sometimes alleged to have been printed with stolen engraving plates. Victims, usually living outside major cities, would be enticed to travel to the location of the green goods men to complete the transaction.
Victims were guided by a "steerer" to be shown large amounts of genuine currency—represented to be counterfeit—which was then placed in a bag or satchel. Victims then received offers to purchase the money at a price much less than face value. While a victim negotiated a price or was otherwise distracted, another accomplice (the "ringer") would switch the bag of money for a bag containing sawdust, green paper, or other worthless items. Victims would leave unaware of the switch, and were unwilling to report the crime, as attempting to purchase counterfeit currency was itself a crime and the victim accordingly risked arrest.
Pig in a poke (cat in a bag) Pig in a poke originated in the late Middle Ages. The con entails a sale of what is claimed to be a small pig, in a poke (bag). The bag actually contains a cat (not particularly prized as a source of meat). If one buys the bag without looking inside it, the person has bought something of less value than was assumed, and has learned first-hand the lesson caveat emptor. "Buying a pig in a poke" has become a colloquial expression in many European languages, including English, for when someone buys something without examining it beforehand.
In some regions the "pig" in the phrase is replaced by "cat", referring to the bag's actual content, but the saying is otherwise identical. This is also said to be where the phrase "letting the cat out of the bag" comes from, although there may be other explanations. In Portuguese or Spanish speaking countries, the "pig" in the phrase is replaced by a hare or jackrabbit. A victim thinks he is buying a hare, when in reality he is buying a cat, hence the expression "gato por lebre" (in Portuguese) or "gato por liebre" (in Spanish). Thai gems The Thai gem scam involves layers of con men and helpers who tell a tourist in Bangkok of an opportunity to earn money by buying duty-free jewelry and having it shipped back to the tourist's home country.
The mark is driven around the city in a tuk-tuk operated by one of the con men, who ensures that the mark meets one helper after another, until the mark is persuaded to buy the jewelry from a store also operated by the swindlers. The gems are real but significantly overpriced. This scam has been operating for twenty years in Bangkok, and is said to be protected by Thai police and politicians. A similar scam usually runs in parallel for custom-made suits. Many tourists are hit by con men touting both goods. A similar trick in Thailand involves lying about the presence of ivory in ornaments.
Tricksters offer a non-ivory ornament for sale next to a sign in English reading "It is strictly forbidden to transport ivory into the United States, and the seller assumes no responsibility". This may make the buyer believe he or she has stumbled upon "forbidden fruit", tempting him to purchase the ornament, usually small and easy to hide, and smuggle it out of the country. The buyer would later discover that the ornament is made out of bone matter with no trace of ivory whatsoever. White-van speakers In the white van speaker scam, low-quality loudspeakers are sold—stereotypically from a white van—as expensive units that have been greatly discounted.
The salesmen explain the ultra-low price in a number of ways; for instance, that their employer is unaware of having ordered too many speakers, so they are sneakily selling the excess behind the boss's back. The "speakermen" are ready to be haggled down to a seemingly minuscule price, because the speakers they are selling, while usually functional, actually cost only a tiny fraction of their "list price" to manufacture. The scam may extend to the creation of Web sites for the bogus brand, which usually sounds similar to that of a respected loudspeaker company. They will often place an ad for the speakers in the "For sale" Classifieds of the local newspaper, at the exorbitant price, and then show the mark a copy of this ad to "verify" their worth.
People shopping for bootleg software, illegal pornographic images, bootleg music, drugs, firearms or other forbidden or controlled goods may be legally hindered from reporting swindles to the police. An example is the "big screen TV in the back of the truck": the TV is touted as "hot" (stolen), so it will be sold for a very low price. The TV is in fact defective or broken; it may in fact not even be a television at all, since some scammers have discovered that a suitably decorated oven door will suffice. The buyer has no legal recourse without admitting to the attempted purchase of stolen goods.
Iraqi Dinar Iraqi currency is sold to would-be investors with the belief that economic/financial circumstances will drastically increase the value of their investment. In fact there is no credible rationale or information to indicate that those circumstances will materialize or, if they do materialize, that they will have significant effect on the value of the currency. Moreover, the dealers sell currency to these investors at substantial mark-up such that a significant appreciation of the currency would be required just to make their investment break even. Noorseekee The Noorseekee (нурсики) scam is a multiple-round variant of the gold brick scam which has entered Russian urban legends from unverifiable incidents during the Afghanistan conflict.
The scam consists of multiple "seller" and "buyer" rounds, the sellers and buyers both being Soviet officers in on the con. The "sellers" initially offered a small amount of a mysterious item—small shiny gold-colored cups called "noorseekee"—at a prominent bazaar for cheap ("seller" round). The first "seller" round ended with a minor deal, as the merchants were traditionally expected to buy at least a sample of a new and unknown good "just in case". Then the "buyers" visited the same bazaar demanding any noorseekee available and credulously paying more than the "sellers" had demanded. The merchants, making easy profits, were thus much more enthusiastic toward the next "sellers".
Noorseekee were small, stackable, reasonably durable, light-weight and would neither spoil nor rust, making the trade especially easy. This went on for several rounds to build trust, form messaging pathways and establish the noorseekee as a special ware or even a Soviet-specialized secondary currency. On the pre-final round the "buyers" emptied the bazaar's collective supply of noorseekee and left with the announcement of returning soon with an exorbitant amount of money, while leaving an equally exorbitant order for more noorseekee (and even a down-payment). The "sellers" gladly agreed to provide the demanded amount of wares, but demanded a higher per-unit price citing e.g.
the need to pay more hush money to their commanding officers. Then the "sellers" fulfilled the order and the merchants bought massive amounts (e.g. literal truckloads) of noorseekee expecting to make a large profit due to the size of the outstanding "order", regardless of the reduced per-unit profit and regardless of the high investment it demanded of them. The size of the final noorseekee order would usually exceed the bazaar's cash reserves, causing the merchants to access their savings and / or barter away stockpiled premium goods. Obviously, the "buyers" would never be seen again, leaving the bazaar's merchants with truckloads of noorseekee and no means to sell them.
Establishing new contacts with the Soviets would then reveal the noorseekee as worthless brass caps from Soviet gunships' unguided air-to-ground missile packs (нурсики derives as the diminutive from НУРС, i.e. неуправляемый ракетный снаряд, said unguided missile). These caps were used during shipping (and discarded when the missile packs were slotted to the gunships) by the millions and were essentially worth nothing (due to recycling and ecology being non-issues with the Soviet military). Extortion or false-injury tricks Badger game The badger game extortion was perpetrated largely upon married men. The mark is deliberately coerced into a compromising position, a supposed affair for example, then threatened with public exposure of his acts unless blackmail money is paid.
Bogus dry-cleaning bill scam A mail fraud that is typically perpetrated on restaurateurs, this scheme takes a receipt from a legitimate dry cleaner in the target city, duplicates it thousands of times, and sends it to every upscale eatery in town. An attached note claims a server in the victim's restaurant spilled food, coffee, wine or salad dressing on a diner's expensive suit of clothes, and demands reimbursement for dry cleaning costs. As the amount fraudulently claimed from each victim is relatively low, some will give the scammers the benefit of the doubt, or simply seek to avoid the nuisance of further action, and pay the claim.
The scam's return address is a drop box; the rest of the contact information is fictional or belongs to an innocent third party. The original dry cleaning shop, which has nothing to do with the scheme, receives multiple irate enquiries from victimised restaurateurs. Clip joint A clip joint or "fleshpot" is an establishment, usually a strip club or entertainment bar, typically one claiming to offer adult entertainment or bottle service, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor, or no, goods or services in return. Typically, clip joints suggest the possibility of sex, charge excessively high prices for watered-down drinks, then eject customers when they become unwilling or unable to spend more money.
The product or service may be illicit, offering the victim no recourse through official or legal channels. It is a very popular in the nightclubs of Prague. Coin-matching game Also called a coin smack or smack game, two operators trick a victim during a game where coins are matched. One operator begins the game with the victim, then the second joins in. When the second operator leaves briefly, the first colludes with the victim to cheat the second operator. After rejoining the game, the second operator, angry at "losing," threatens to call the police. The first operator convinces the victim to pitch in hush money, which the two operators later split.
Fraudulent collection agencies A consumer inquires about a payday loan or short-term credit online and is asked for a long list of personal information. The lender is a shell firm; the loan might never be made, but the victim's personal information is now in the hands of scammers who sells it to a fraudulent collection agency. That agency then launches into a series of harassing phone calls at all hours (often to the victim's workplace), attempts to obtain bank account numbers (allowing the account to be drained through direct withdrawal) or impersonates police (sometimes with caller ID spoofing) to threaten the victim with arrest.
Fake debt collectors often refuse to provide a legally-required written "validation notice" of the debt, provide no evidence a debt is actually owed and demand payment using a money transfer service like Moneygram or Western Union with poor traceability and no chargeback protection. The underlying debt either does not exist, is not valid due to a statute of limitations or does not lawfully belong to the entity making the calls; in some cases, the victim is a target of identity theft. The scammers operate under multiple names, many of which are intended to be mistaken for official or government agencies.
The fraudulent calls often originate from abroad; any money extorted is immediately taken out of the country. Fraudulent law firms A bogus or dishonest law firm is a valuable tool to a scammer in various ways. It can send requests for upfront payments in relation to inheritances coming from unknown relatives, a form of advance fee fraud. It also makes an effective fraudulent collection agency, as victims fear having to pay their own counsel hundreds of dollars per hour to defend against frivolous, vexatious or completely unfounded claims. In some cases, the dishonest lawyer is merely part of a larger fraudulent scheme.
A real estate fraud may involve taking deposits for a project under construction where, in theory, the lawyer is holding the money in escrow, guarding down payments as trust fund assets until a real estate deal closes. When the project is never completed, investors seek their money back but find the supposed trust fund is empty as both lawyer and real estate developer are fraudulent. Insurance fraud Insurance fraud includes a wide variety of schemes in which insureds attempt to defraud their own insurance carriers, but when the victim is a private individual, the con artist tricks the mark into damaging, for example, the con artist's car, or injuring the con artist, in a manner that the con artist can later exaggerate.
One relatively common scheme involves two cars, one for the con artist, and the other for the shill. The con artist will pull in front of the victim, and the shill will pull in front of the con artist before slowing down. The con artist will then slam on his brakes to "avoid" the shill, causing the victim to rear-end the con artist. The shill will accelerate away, leaving the scene. The con artist will then claim various exaggerated injuries in an attempt to collect from the victim's insurance carrier despite having intentionally caused the accident. Insurance carriers, who must spend money to fight even those claims they believe are fraudulent, frequently pay out thousands of dollars—a tiny amount to the carrier despite being a significant amount to an individual—to settle these claims instead of going to court.
A variation of this scam occurs in countries where insurance premiums are generally tied to a bonus-malus rating: the con artist will offer to avoid an insurance claim, settling instead for a cash compensation. Thus, the con artist is able to evade a professional damage assessment, and get an untraceable payment in exchange for sparing the mark the expenses of a lowered merit class. Melon drop The melon drop is a scam similar to the Chinese version Pengci in which a scammer will cause an unsuspecting mark to bump into them causing the scammer to drop an item of alleged value.
The scam originally targeted Japanese tourists due to the high price of watermelon in Japan. The scammer may receive upwards of $100 for "compensation". The scam has also been called broken glasses scam or broken bottle scam where the scammer will pretend the mark broke a pair of expensive glasses or use a bottle of cheap wine, liquor or a bottle filled with water and demand compensation. Asian tourists are often the primary target. Pengci Pèngcí is a scam originating in China in which scammers feign injury in traffic accidents in order to extort money from drivers. Scammers also may place ostensibly expensive, fragile items (usually porcelain) in places where they may easily be knocked over, allowing them to collect damages when the items are damaged.
Gambling tricks Baltimore Stockbroker / Psychic Sports Picks The Baltimore stockbroker scam relies on mass-mailing or emailing. The scammer begins with a large pool of marks, numbering ideally a power of two such as 1024 (210). The scammer divides the pool into two halves, and sends all the members of each half a prediction about the future outcome of an event with a binary outcome (such as a stock price rising or falling, or the win/loss outcome of a sporting event). One half receives a prediction that the stock price will rise (or a team will win, etc. ), and the other half receives the opposite prediction.
After the event occurs, the scammer repeats the process with the group that received a correct prediction, again dividing the group in half and sending each half new predictions. After several iterations, the "surviving" group of marks has received a remarkable sequence of correct predictions, whereupon the scammer then offers these marks another prediction, this time for a fee. The next prediction is, of course, no better than a random guess, but the previous record of success makes it seem to the mark to be a prediction worth great value. For gambling propositions with more than two outcomes, for example in horse racing, the scammer begins with a pool of marks with number equal to a power of the number of outcomes, and divides the marks at each step into the corresponding number of groups, thus insuring that one group receives a correct prediction at each step.
This requires a larger number of marks at the beginning, but fewer steps are required to gain the confidence of the marks who receive successful predictions, because the probability of a correct prediction is lower at each step, and thus it seems more remarkable. The scam relies on selection bias and survivorship bias and is similar to publication bias (the file-drawer effect) in scientific publishing (whereby successful experiments are more likely to be published, rather than failures). Several authors mention the scam: Daniel C. Dennett in Elbow Room (where he calls it the touting pyramid); David Hand in The Improbability Principle; and Jordan Ellenberg in How Not to Be Wrong.
Ellenberg reports often hearing of the scam told as an illustrative parable, but he could not find a real-world example of anyone carrying it out as an actual scam. The closest he found was when illusionist Derren Brown presented it in his television special The System in 2008. Brown's intent was merely to convince his mark that he had a foolproof horse race betting system rather than to scam the mark out of money. However, Ellenberg goes on to describe how investment firms do something similar by starting many in-house investment funds, and closing the funds that show the lowest returns before offering the surviving funds (with their record of high returns) for sale to the public.
The selection bias inherent in the surviving funds makes them unlikely to sustain their previous high returns. Fiddle game The fiddle game uses the pigeon drop technique. A pair of con men work together, one going into an expensive restaurant in shabby clothes, eating, and claiming to have left his wallet at home, which is nearby. As collateral, the con man leaves his only worldly possession, the violin that provides his livelihood. After he leaves, the second con man swoops in, offers an outrageously large amount (for example $50,000) for what he calls a rare instrument, then looks at his watch and runs off to an appointment, leaving his card for the mark to call him when the fiddle-owner returns.
The "poor man" comes back, having gotten the money to pay for his meal and redeem his violin. The mark, thinking he has an offer on the table from the second conspirator, then buys the violin from the fiddle player who "reluctantly" agrees to sell it for a certain amount that still allows the mark to make a "profit" from the valuable violin. The result is the two con men are richer (less the cost of the violin), and the mark is left with a cheap instrument. The fiddle game may be played with any sufficiently valuable-seeming piece of property; a common variation known as the pedigreed-dog swindle uses a mongrel dog upsold as a rare breed but is otherwise identical.
Lottery fraud by proxy Lottery fraud by proxy is a scam in which the scammer buys a lottery ticket with old winning numbers. He or she then alters the date on the ticket so that it appears to be from the day before, and therefore a winning ticket. He or she then sells the ticket to the mark, claiming it is a winning ticket, but for some reason, he or she is unable to collect the prize (not eligible, etc.). The particular cruelty in this scam is that if the mark attempts to collect the prize, the fraudulently altered ticket will be discovered and the mark held criminally liable.
This con was featured in the movie Matchstick Men, where Nicolas Cage teaches it to his daughter. A twist on the con was shown in Great Teacher Onizuka, where the more-than-gullible Onizuka was tricked into getting a "winning ticket". The ticket was not altered, but the daily newspaper reporting the day's winning numbers was altered with a black pen. In the USSR this scam left 3 people dead in 1977, after a mark re-sold a fraudulent ticket and the second buyer engaged a criminal to "clear the issue", leading to the murder of the original mark and two family members.
The investigations using a fake lottery uncovered a large group of marks all targeted by a single artist, a disgruntled former employee of the Mint who used his insider knowledge and skills to produce the high-quality forged tickets. Three-card Monte Three-card Monte, "find the queen", the "three-card trick", or "follow the lady" is essentially the same as the centuries-older shell game or thimblerig (except for the props). The trickster shows three playing cards to the audience, one of which is a queen (the "lady"), then places the cards face-down, shuffles them around, and invites the audience to bet on which one is the queen.
At first the audience is skeptical, so the shill places a bet, and the scammer allows him to win. In one variation of the game, the shill will (apparently surreptitiously) peek at the lady, ensuring that the mark also sees the card. This is sometimes enough to entice the audience to place bets, but the trickster uses sleight of hand to ensure that he always loses, unless the con man decides to let him win, hoping to lure him into betting much more. The mark loses whenever the dealer chooses to make him lose. A variation on this scam exists in Barcelona, Spain, but with the addition of a pickpocket.
The dealer and shill behave in an overtly obvious manner, attracting a larger audience. When the pickpocket succeeds in stealing from a member of the audience, he signals the dealer. The dealer then shouts the word "aguas" – colloquial for "Watch Out!" – and the three split up. The audience is left believing that the police are coming, and that the performance was a failed scam. A variant of this scam exists in Mumbai, India. The shill says loudly to the dealer that his cards are fake and that he wants to see them. He takes the card and folds a corner and says in a hushed voice to the audience that he has marked the card.
He places a bet and wins. Then he asks the others to place bets as well. When one of the audience bets a large sum of money, the cards are switched. Spurious qualifications or endorsements Diploma mill Governmental bodies maintain a list of entities which accredit educational institutions. The US Department of Education, for instance, oversees higher education accreditation in the United States. Most diploma mills are not accredited by such an entity, although many obtain accreditation from other organizations (such as accreditation mills or corrupt foreign officials) to appear legitimate. Graduates of these institutions risk that the qualifications gained at these institutions may not be sufficient for further study, lawful employment or professional licensure as their issuers do not hold locally-valid accreditation to grant the degrees.
Some diploma mills perform no instruction or examination, instead issuing credentials based on payment and "life experience". A few have unknowingly issued degrees and credentials to companion animals. The Doctor of Divinity title is particularly prone to misuse. In the United Kingdom it is an earned postdoctoral credential which requires a string of publications, but in the United States any church may confer it as an honorary title; ordination mills readily grant this doctorate for a moderate fee and token amount of study. Vanity publications and awards A vanity press is a pay-to-publish scheme where a publishing house, typically an author mill, obtains the bulk of its revenues from authors who pay to have their books published instead of from readers purchasing the finished books.
As the author bears the entire financial risk, the vanity press profits even if the books are not promoted (or badly promoted) and do not sell. The growth of print on demand, which allows small quantities of books to be printed cheaply, has accelerated this trend. Vanity publishing is not the same as self-publishing, in that self-published authors own their finished books and control their distribution, relying on a print shop solely to turn camera-ready content into printed volumes. In a vanity press, the author takes the financial risk while the publisher owns the printed volumes. A vanity award is an award which the recipient purchases, giving the false appearance of a legitimate honour.
These are closely related to the Who's Who scam, where a biographic subject pays for a vanity listing in a printed directory. Who's Who scam Operators of fraudulent "Who's Who"-type directories would offer listings or "membership" to purchasers who are often unaware of the low rates the directories in question are consulted. World Luxury Association The World Luxury Association is a self-proclaimed international organisation based in China that offers "official registration" for luxury brands, and inclusion in an "official list" of luxury brands, in return for a fee. Online scams Fake antivirus Computer users unwittingly download and install rogue security software, malware disguised as antivirus software, by following the messages which appear on their screen.
The software then pretends to find multiple viruses on the victim's computer, "removes" a few, and asks for payment in order to take care of the rest. They are then linked to con artists' websites, professionally designed to make their bogus software appear legitimate, where they must pay a fee to download the "full version" of their "antivirus software". Phishing A modern scam in which the artist communicates with the mark, masquerading as a representative of an official organization with which the mark is doing business, in order to extract personal information which can then be used, for example, to steal money.
In a typical instance, the artist sends the mark an email pretending to be from a company, such as eBay. It is formatted exactly like email from that business, and will ask the mark to "verify" some personal information at the website, to which a link is provided, in order to "reactivate" his blocked account. The website is fake but designed to look exactly like the business' website. The site contains a form asking for personal information such as credit card numbers, which the mark feels compelled to give or lose all access to the service. When the mark submits the form (without double-checking the website address), the information is sent to the swindler.
A similar caller ID spoofing scheme exists with misleading telephone calls ("vishing") facilitated by Internet telephony. A fraudster can make calls through an Internet-PSTN gateway to impersonate banks, police, schools or other trusted entities. A random dialer computer or auto-dialer can impersonate healthcare providers to get Social Security numbers and birthdates from elderly patients recently released from the hospital. The auto-dialer call states it is from a reputable hospital or a pharmacy and the message explains the need to "update records" to be from the hospital or a pharmacy. Other online scams include advance-fee fraud, bidding fee auctions ("penny auctions"), click fraud, domain slamming, various spoofing attacks, web-cramming, and online versions of employment scams, romance scams, and fake rewards.
Fake support call Unsuspecting computer owners and users are being targeted by people claiming to be from Windows, i.e., Microsoft or from their internet provider and then telling them that their computer/machine is creating errors and they need to correct the faults on their computers. They can even get people to go to one site or another to show them these so-called errors, at which point they are required to give their credit card details in order to purchase some form of support, after which they are asked to allow remote connection to the "error-laden" computer so that the problem(s) may be fixed.
At this point the victim's computer is infected with malware or spyware or remote connection software Bank login scam A scammer convinces a victim to log in to a bank and convince them that they are receiving money. Some victims of the technical support scam may have their information sold or traded to a new organization that will cold-call them and tell them that they are entitled to a refund for the support they have previously paid for. Alternatively, the scammer may impersonate a security company and convince the victim that hackers are manipulating their bank account. The goal is for the scammer to transfer money between the user's accounts and to use HTML editing in the browser to make it appear as though new money has been transferred into the account by a legitimate company.
The scammer sends a large amount of money and convinces the victim that they must send the majority of the money to the scammer via a wire transfer, a money order, or gift cards. Religion-based schemes The Affinity Church scam “Affinity” simply means something like “a shared understanding, interest or belief.” And claiming to share someone else's viewpoint is the sneaky cover many church scam artists use. Pretending to share their faith lulls members of religious organizations into thinking a scammer is genuine. Often claiming some kind of divine guidance, using religious slogans, or claiming to be raising funds for a religious or other worthy cause, church scammers invite their new “friends” to invest in what turns out to be nothing more than a Ponzi Scheme paying for their personal lifestyle.
This is such a common crime that the state of Arizona listed affinity scams of this type as its number one scam for 2009. In one recent nationwide religious scam, churchgoers are said to have lost more than $50 million in a phony gold bullion scheme, promoted on daily telephone “prayer chains,” in which they thought they could earn a huge return. Other confidence tricks and scams Art student The art student scam is common in major Chinese cities. A small group of 'students' will start a conversation, citing a wish to practice their English. In short order they will maneuver the conversation over to education and will claim to be art students wishing to take the mark to a free art exhibition, which will usually be in a small, well-hidden rented office.
Once there the students will show the mark some art pieces which they claim to be their own work and will try to sell them at a high price, despite the pieces usually being nothing more than a worthless printout. They will often resort to 'guilt tricks' (e.g., introducing their "starving child") to overcome resistance or to discourage price negotiation on the part of the mark. Bar bill scam The bar bill scam is common in Europe, especially Budapest, Hungary. A mark, usually a man who is a tourist, is approached by an attractive woman or pair of women who start a conversation, such as asking for directions (pretending to have mistaken the tourist for a local).
After a bit of conversation, the women will suggest that they go to a bar that they know of. While there, they order many entrées and drinks and encourage the mark to do the same. Either the menu does not have prices on it or the menu is later switched with one that has higher prices. When the bill comes, it is many times larger than expected. The women have only a small amount of cash on them, and ask the mark to pay for the bill. The mark is forced to pay before leaving (sometimes with threats of violence), and directed to an ATM on the premises where they can withdraw cash.
The women apologize profusely for the situation and arrange to meet the next day to pay them back, but they do not show. In truth, the women are working with the bar and receive a cut of the payment. The con can also be performed with a well-dressed man or a gregarious local rather than an attractive woman. A variation on this is to have a taxi driver recommend the bar to the passenger, who enters alone and orders, not realizing that they will be charged an exorbitant bill. The taxi driver receives a cut of the payment. Beijing tea The Beijing tea scam is a famous variation of the Clip Joint scam practiced in and around Beijing and some other large Chinese cities.
The artists (usually female and working in pairs) will approach tourists and try to make friends. After chatting, they will suggest a trip to see a tea ceremony, claiming that they have never been to one before. The tourist is never shown a menu, but assumes that this is how things are done in China. After the ceremony, the bill is presented to the tourist, charging upwards of $100 per head. The artists will then hand over their bills, and the tourists are obliged to follow suit. Similar scams involving restaurants, coffee shops and bars also take place. Big Store The Big Store is a technique for selling the legitimacy of a scam and typically involves a large team of con artists and elaborate sets.
Often a building is rented and furnished as a legitimate and substantial business. The "betting parlor" setup in The Sting is an example. In 2014, a rural co-operative in Nanjing, China constructed an entire brick-and-mortar fake bank with uniformed clerks behind counters; the unlicensed bank operated for a little over a year, then defaulted on its obligations, swindling Chinese savers out of 200 million Chinese yuan. Change raising Change raising, also known as a quick-change artist, is a common short con and involves an offer to change an amount of money with someone, while at the same time taking change or bills back and forth to confuse the person as to how much money is actually being changed.
The most common form, "the Short Count", has been featured prominently in several movies about grifting, notably The Grifters, Criminal, Nine Queens, and Paper Moon. For example, a con artist targeting a cashier apologetically uses a ten-dollar bill to pay for an item costing less than a dollar, claiming not to have any smaller bills; the change of over nine dollars will include either nine singles or a five and four singles. The con artist then claims to have found that he had a dollar bill, after all, and offers to change it and the nine dollars for the original ten.
If the con artist can manipulate the clerk into handing over the ten-dollar bill first, the con artist can then hand it back to the clerk in place of one of the singles the con artist was expected to give the clerk. The con artist then pretends to notice he has "mistakenly" given the clerk nineteen dollars instead of ten; producing another single, the con artist suggests he add this to the nineteen and let the clerk give him back an even twenty.
The scam relies on the cashier's desire to keep small bills in the register, and the cashier's failure to notice that the con artist only ever provided twelve dollars (the original ten-dollar bill and two singles); the twenty dollars the clerk is left holding is a mix of the con artist's money and money from the store's register, while the con artist has stolen eight dollars (and, effectively, the cheap item that was purchased). To avoid this con, clerks should keep each transaction separate and never permit the customer to handle the original ten before handing over the ten ones.
Another variation is to flash a $20 bill to the clerk, then ask for something behind the counter. When the clerk turns away, the con artist can swap the bill he is holding to a lesser bill. The clerk might then make change for the larger bill, without noticing it has been swapped. The technique may work better when bills are the same color at a glance like, for instance, U.S. dollar bills. A similar technique exists when a con artist asks to use a very large denomination bill to purchase a cheap item. The con artist distracts the clerk with conversation while the clerk is preparing the change, in hopes that the clerk will hand over the large amount of change without realizing that the con artist never actually handed over the large bill.
Sometimes cab drivers in India try a similar con, when customers require some change back. For example, they may pay $100 for a $60 ride and expect a return of $40. But the con would say that he only received $10 and in fact needs $50 more. The mark is baffled, trying to remember and of course, the con has swiftly switched the $100 bill with a $10 one, waving it to show that this was really what the mark gave to him. Since the con has now made the mark look suspicious, the mark feels guilty and pays up.
This scenario can also be created in markets, when vendors sometimes team up and support each other's cons, if the mark tries to resist. Another variant is to use confusing or misdirected language. Fake casting agent scam In this scam, the confidence artist poses as a casting agent for a modeling agency searching for new talent. The aspiring model is told that he will need a portfolio or comp card. The mark will pay an upfront fee to have photos and create his portfolio, after which he will be sent on his way in the hope that his agent will find him work in the following weeks.
Of course, he never hears back from the confidence artist. In a variation on this scam, the confidence artist is a casting agent involved with the adult entertainment industry. The mark is taken to the artist's office for an interview, in which she is told that she will have to pose for nude photos or shoot a casting video, usually involving sexual acts. Upon her agreement, the mark is sent on her way, as before. She may not have to pay upfront for a portfolio, but any material generated during her "interview" may be used and sold by the confidence artist without any payment to the mark.
The fake-agent scam is often targeted against industry newcomers, since they will often lack the experience required to spot such tricks. Legitimate talent agencies advise that a genuine talent agent will never ask for money up-front, as they make their entire living from commissions on their clients' earnings. Phony job offer scam Very similar to the casting agent scam is the "job offer" scam in which a victim receives an unsolicited e-mail claiming that they are in consideration for hiring to a new job. The confidence artist will usually obtain the victim's name from social networking sites, such as LinkedIn and Monster.com.
In many cases, those running the scams will create fake websites listing jobs which the victim is seeking, then contact the victim to offer them one of the positions. If the victim responds to the initial e-mail, the scammer will send additional messages to build up the victim's assurance that they are in the running, or have already been selected, for a legitimate job. This will include asking for the victim's resume as well as assurances that a phone interview will be the "next step in the hiring process". The goal of the job offer scam is to convince the victim to release funds or bank account information to the scammer of which there are two common methods.
The first is to advise the victim that they must take a test to qualify for the job and then send links to training sites which sell testing material and e-books for a fee. The victim may also be provided with an actual on-line test which is usually a fake website created by copying questions from actual certification examinations, such as the Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification or the Project manager's exam. if the victim pays for the study material, that will usually be the end of the scam and the scammer will break off further contact. A second, more sinister variation, is when the scammer will advise the victim they have been hired for a job and request access to bank accounts and routing numbers in order to enter the "new hire" into the company's payroll system.
This may also involve e-mails containing fake tax forms attempting to gain the victim's social security number and other personally identifiable information. If the victim complies, their bank account will be emptied and their personal information used to commit identity theft. Fraudulent directory solicitations In this scam, tens of thousands of solicitations in the guise of an invoice are mailed to businesses nationwide. They may contain a disclaimer such as "This is a solicitation for the order of goods or services, or both, and not a bill, invoice, or statement of account due. You are under no obligation to make any payments on account of this offer unless you accept this offer."
(from ) or 'THIS IS NOT A BILL. THIS IS A SOLICITATION. YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO PAY THE AMOUNT STATED ABOVE UNLESS YOU ACCEPT THIS OFFER.' (from USPS Domestic Mail Manual §CO31, Part 1.2) but are otherwise designed to appear to be invoices or renewals of existing display advertising in a trade directory or publication. The correspondence is formatted like an invoice, often with a sequential identification number, date, personalized description of the information to be published, payment details and total amount due which includes a token discount if paid within a specified time period. In some cases, the company's current advertisement clipped from an existing publication (such as Thomas Register, Hotel and Travel Index or Official Meeting Facilities Guide) is attached to a solicitation for advertising in an unaffiliated, rival publication which operates from a drop box.
One variant sends a "Final Notice of Domain Listing" from an entity calling itself "Domain Services", which claims "Failure to complete your Domain name search engine registration by the expiration date may result in cancellation of this offer making it difficult for your customers to locate you on the web." The list of prospective victims is obtained from Internet domain whois listings and the solicitations look like a renewal of an existing domain name registration or listing. The "registration" actually offers nothing beyond a vague claim that the entity sending the solicitation will submit the victim's domain name to existing search engines for an inflated fee.
It does not obligate the vendor to publish a directory, renew the underlying domain in any ICANN-based registry or deliver any tangible product. A similar scheme uses solicitations which appear to be invoices for local yellow pages listings or advertisements. As anyone can publish a yellow page directory, the promoted book is not the incumbent local exchange carrier's local printed directory but a rival, which may have limited distribution if it appears at all. Instead of clearly stating audited circulation, the solicitations will confusingly claim to "offer 50000 copies" or claim "thousands of readers" without indicating whether the inferred quantity of directories was actually printed, let alone sold.
Public records listing legal owners of new registered trademarks are also mined as a source of addresses for fraudulent directory solicitations. The intent is that a small fractional percentage of businesses either mistake the solicitations for invoices (paying them) or mistake them for a request for corrections and updates to an existing listing (a tactic to obtain a businessperson's signature on the document, which serves as a pretext to bill the victim). One such vendor, World Trade Register (aka European Trade Register, World Company Register, World Business Directory, all related to EU Business Services Ltd), claims "To update your company profile, please print, complete and return this form.
Updating is free of charge. Only sign if you want to place an insertion." Only later does it become clear that signing the form incurs a nearly €1000/year fee for an advertisement of questionable value. Jam Auction In this scam, the confidence artist poses as a retail sales promoter, representing a manufacturer, distributor, or set of stores. The scam requires assistants to manage the purchases and money exchanges while the pitchman keeps the energy level up. Passersby are enticed to gather and listen to a pitchman standing near a mass of appealing products. The trickster entices by referring to the high-end products, but claims to be following rules that he must start with smaller items.
The small items are described, and 'sold' for a token dollar amount – with as many audience participants as are interested each receiving an item. The pitchman makes an emotional appeal such as saying "Raise your hand if you're happy with your purchase", and when hands are raised, directs his associates to return everyone's money (they keep the product). This exchange is repeated with items of increasing value to establish the expectation of a pattern. Eventually, the pattern terminates by ending the 'auction' without reaching the high-value items, and stopping midway through a phase where the trickster retains the collected money from that round of purchases.
Marks feel vaguely dissatisfied, but have goods in their possession, and the uplifting feeling of having demonstrated their own happiness several times. The marks do not realize that the total value of goods received is significantly less than the price paid in the final round. Auction/refund rounds may be interspersed with sales rounds that are not refunded, keeping marks off-balance and hopeful that the next round will refund. The Jam Auction has its roots in carny culture. Microphone blocker A person can wiretap conversations from persons they have deceived through social engineering that microphone blockers are safe to use with smartphones.
Smartphones are software controlled so microphone blockers are useless for them. This can easily be demonstrated by turning on speaker mode which also re-activates the internal microphone. Money exchange This scam occurs when exchanging foreign currency. If a large amount of cash is exchanged the victim will be told to hide the money away quickly before counting it ("You can't trust the locals"). A substantial amount will be missing. In some cases, insisting on counting to make sure the money is all there is the basis for a clever scam. The scam is sometimes called the Santo Domingo Sting, after an incident that took place there, reported by a journalist, Joe Harkins, who reported his involvement, in the early 1990s.
It works in countries where only banks and other designated parties are allowed to hold and exchange the local currency for US dollars at an "official" rate that is significantly lower than the "street" rate. It also requires a greedy tourist who wants to beat the official rate by dealing with illegal money changers. A person posing as an illegal money changer will approach the tourist with an offer to buy dollars at an illegal rate that may be even higher than the street rate. The changer offers to buy only large US currency, typically, a 100 dollar bill. As soon as the victim (the "mark") shows his $100 bill, the changer will actually count out and clearly show the promised amount of local currency.
He then will push the local currency into the hands of the "mark" and urge they be counted as he takes the $100. "See, you've got the money. I'll wait while you make sure. Count it out loud so there is no mistake." And as the mark's careful count exceeds "street" rate, the changer pretends to realise he has overpaid the mark, and he becomes irrationally agitated and angry, accusing the mark of cheating. He grabs his money back, pushes the mark's bill back into his hands and takes back the pesos. The scam has been completed. The tourist has just lost $99.
The mark has been handed back a prefolded $1 bill that has been swapped for the mark's $100 bill while he was distracted counting the local currency. (Until recently, US currency was largely uniform in size and color, meaning that when folded, a $1 and a $100 bill were almost indistinguishable. Even in 2014, careful folding of a US$100 bill easily conceals the switch). The money changer's pretended, but very credible, anger is a ruse to confuse the mark and delay his unfolding of the single bill until the scammer has departed. Mystery shopping There is a fraudulent confidence trick (a form of advance-fee scam) perpetrated on people in several countries who wish to be mystery shoppers.