Have you ever fallen for a scam? In the old days, for which we can only feel nostalgia, there was the kind of sweet three-card Monte hustle on the streets of New York, the infamous sales of Florida swampland, and penny-stock offerings guaranteed to land a windfall. Sometimes, back in the day, there was the more sophisticated scam telephone call from a relative you might not remember who loved your mother, remembers her name and, by the way, desperately needs money wired immediately for emergency surgery.
Oh, it does go on and on. Getting caught in the web of fraud sometimes speaks to our own greed. We want to make a lot of money without working for it, and we are willing to be fooled into thinking it can happen. Some of us are also remarkably gullible. We have “sucker” written large on our backs, and there are folks out there ready to take us up on it.
There have been the notorious Ponzis and Madoffs and the likes of Anna Sorokin, who posed as an heiress to dupe rich friends, and, of course, legends like Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder, who wanted to be the next Steve Jobs but instead faces sentencing in September on wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Grifting has always been a part of the American landscape. Sometimes a certain romance has been associated with…
High season for online hucksters and frauds | Herald Community Newspapers
