“Andy Warhol looks a screm
Hang him on my wall
Andy Warhol, silver screen
Can’t tell them apart at all.” - David Bowie
It takes balls to be a swindler.
But sometimes even I am impressed by the braziness of some con artists.
Victor Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower. Gregor McGregor sold a country that doesn’t exist. George C Parker sold the Brooklyn Bridge twice a week for ten years.
You can add to that list a pair of Utah con artists who sold paintings by a dead man of a man who does not exist.
The couple sold six Andy Warhol paintings for $100,000 to their victim who ponied up a $25,000 deposit.
Problem is, the paintings were dated 1996 and Warhol died in 1987.
Not only that, the portraits were of Matthew Baldwin, the sixth Baldwin brother. There are only five Baldwins (thank god).
A man received a big surprise when he learned the six Andy Warhol paintings he purchased for $100,000 were fake.
They also tried to sell the man a lithograph of a pink cat that was actually a picture cut out of the newspaper!
I’m never one to blame the victim. We’ve all done stupid things in our lives. But the pay over $25,000 deposit for an artist you obviously know nothing about seems extraordinary stupid. Lindsay Lohen stupid. Sara Palin stupid.
A couple of days ago, a lot of my Australian friends changed their facebook status to:
All I want for Christmas is a Westfield Gift Card!
They’d added an application that is meant to give them a chance to with $10,000 from Westfield.
However, a few hours later, many more of my friends has a new status:
THE WESTFIELD GIFT CARD APPLICATION IS FAKE AND IF YOU ENTER THIS SITE THEY CAN HACK INTO YOUR PROFILE AND USING IT TO LOAD TROJON VIRUSES. FACEBOOK R IN THE PROCESS OF TRYING TO CLOSE THIS APPLICATION DO NOT ADD UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR IDENTITY STOLEN OR A CRASHED COMPUTER……COPY AND PASTE INTO YOUR STATUS.
So what’s the story?
Westfield is indeed running a promotion through facebook. You can find the offical link here.
It’s the latest in a long history of fake virus warnings and phony fear mongering.
Of course, you have little chance of winning and you’ll annoy all your friends when the crass message shows up on their home page probably leading to them ‘hiding’ you as a friend in the future.
In recent years, fictional con artists have taken a slick turn.
Con artists are either depicted as suave and sophisticated characters such as in the TV shows Hustle and White Collar.
Or we have the grim dose of reality in Nine Queens and Matchstick Men.
So it’s nice that a film like Brothers Bloom comes along, bringing back the classic caper con man last seen in films like The Sting or Paper Moon.
Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo play Bloom and Stephen, two brothers and con artists who reunite for ‘one last scam’ enlisting the help of eccentric heiress Penelope (Rachael Weiss) along the way.
Directed by Rian Johnson whose debut, the brooding and stylized teenager noir thriller Brick, is one of my favourites, Brothers Bloom, brings the fun back to the con artist film.
It feels like a Wes Anderson film, with the story packed with kooky characters and odd situations.
Like most con artists films, the swindle itself is overly complex to the point of leaving me a little disinterested but such great characters to watch and fantastic dialouge, I just don’t care.
FACTOID - The film was shot in Romania, the home to more con artists the most swindley country in Europe.
I’ve reached an age where all my friends are getting married. I’ve got half a dozen to attend in the next six months.
And the big problem for most of my friends is how to pay for the damn thing. Their baby boomer parents would rather blow the cash on self indulgent holidays and plasma TVs rather than pay out dowries.
A bride in the UK has figured out how to pay for her big day, by scamming her employer out of half a million pounds.
Joanne Kent of Kent has been charged with allegedly swindling 477,000 pounds from her employer Walsall in 2007
It’s odd that a company with only a 10 million pound turnover could not miss 5% of it’s income for two years.
Half a million dollars spent on the dress, flowers and deep fried mars bars.
Call me stupid but always though the idea of being sent to jail was to learn how to be a law abiding citizen. (and maybe learn a few things about how far your willing to go for a packet of cigarettes.)
Sure, I understand that criminals learn from each other and many people come out of jail with a few extra criminal skills.
But I was always under the impression they wouldn’t use these skills until AFTER THEY GOT OUT OF PRISON.
However, if they hang up the phone and dial *72 and then a long phone number, they’ll be put through to the doctor in charge who can answer all their questions.
In reality, the victim has just activated call forwarding and all ingoing and outgoing calls have been rerouted to a new number. The con artist can then run up expensive calls at the victim’s cost.
When police traced the calls they found that they originated from a nearby prison. Prisoners had been using the prison phones to run the simple scam.
Why can prisoners make phone calls at all? Let alone complicated, extra charges, three way calls?
Surely, the idea is to remove people from society when they do something wrong?
Had a pearler of a night last night. Came home early from dinner with friends to watch QI on ABC, my favourite show.
For those yet to experience this brilliant UK show, the quiz show, hosted by Stephen Fry, is based around the idea that the questions are almost impossible and so contestants are given points for funny answers rather than incorrect answers.
Contestants only lose points if their answers are wrong AND predictable.
It made my night when I sat down to see that the theme for the show was Fakes and Frauds. Instead of scratching my head, I knew all the answers.
What did Count Victor Lustig do to the Eiffel Tower? He sold it.
Where did the trio of phone box thieves hide their stash? In their bras.
Why did Robert McCulloch of Arizona buy the Old London Bridge? No, he didn’t think he was buying Tower bridge. He bought it to relocate it to Arizona is 1967.
For once in my life, I felt smart watching a quiz show.
AS FEATURED ON ‘SCAM OF THE WEEK’ ON ABC’s STATEWIDE DRIVE
If you could get away with a crime would you do it?
Most of my friends download movies illegally because they know they can get away with it.
Most people speed on quiet roads because they think the police are not around.
Most people shoplift from the women’s underpants section if no one is watching…or is that just me?
But how far would you take it?
Tony Muslin, a French van driver, has raised the bar when it comes to crimes of opportunity. While his colleagues stepped out of the van for a few minutes, Tony decided to take advantage and steal the contents of the truck….$19 million.
Three hours later, the truck turned up empty and Muslin was on the run with almost 50 sacks of cash. He hasn’t been seen since.
Following his impulsive crime, Tony has become some what of an internet sensation with fan sites and facebook groups popping up congratulating the everyday Joe for sticking it to the man.
JUSTICE IS BLIND (AND BLIND)Two teenagers in the UK have been busted pretending to be deaf and collecting money for Hearing Dog’s For The Deaf. Aside from having a donation form riddled with spelling mistakes the two girls (aged 13 and 15) got away with it until they were questioned by a local woman…in sign language.
RIP AMAZING BALLANTINE - Actor and magician Carl Ballantine has passed away. The general public will remember him as con artist Lester Gruber from McHale’s Navy but I’ll always remember him as The Amazing Ballantine.
ANZ SWINDLE - An ANZ teller has been convicted of ‘cunningly setting up a complicated system of false transfers, security circumnavigation and red herrings to steal $800,000 from her employer. She used the money to bet on the pokies proving that you can swindler and swindler.
TUNNEL VISIONS - Palestinians have been defrauded out of millions off dollars after they invested in tunnels out of the Gaza Strip. The tunnels are used to smuggle good in and out of the Gaza Strip and are the econonic lifeline for people living in the area.
GRANDPARENTS SCAM - Vulnerable nannas have been called by con artists claiming to be their grandchildren. They fake an emergecny and ask for money to be wired immediately. The scam operates via email, phone and facebook. Protect your nanna!
AS FEATURED ON ABC STATEWIDE DRIVE WITH KATHY BEDFORD
The big Aussie scam story this week is reports coming in of con artists flying in from Eastern Europe to skim credit cards, pick pockets and generally cause trouble at the spring racing carnival.
As an Australian con artist I’m not sure how I feel about these Romanian and Bulgarian swindlers coming in, stealing jobs away from hard working local.
But it could be far worse. The current cost of an airfare to Australia is around $2000AUD. So only the most dedicated swindlers are making the trip down under. However, in Europe, thanks to low budget airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet, you can fly almost anywhere for under $50.
Now, all of the major European cities are hit by con artists who fly into town, make as much money as they can and then move on to the next city. In June, I bumped into the same con artist in Barcelona and Stockholm in the same month.
If you do go the races and you find yourself up against these Eastern European hucksters, here are a few tips:-
1) Always keep your wallet in your inside jacket pocket. Better still, keep it in my inside jacket pocket.
2) Don’t make a big deal if you win. Your “Watch-Me-Rub-My-Thousands-Of-Dollars-Cash-All-Over-My-Body” dance may draw unwanted attention.
3) Avoid women in head scarves and peasant dresses or men with a single gold hoop earrings and a puffy piratesque shirt. This is how all Eastern Europeans dress.
4) Avoid situations where people rub up against you. This includes lines for the toilet, public transport and the Lambada – the forbidden dance.
5) Be aware if someone offers to help clean a mark of some kind off your coat. This is a classic ploy of pickpockets. They secretly spill ice-cream on your jacket then offer to clean it off, stealing your wallet. This is a criminal waste of ice cream.
You might also enjoy this video I put together from earlier this year. It’s from the 1959 film The Pickpocket and features annotation by me…
