Scams & Cons News for March 21, 2024Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Once you've decided to vanish, the question is: where do you go?In this episode we explore those possibilities and what you need to keep in mind when choosing a place.The odds are you'll end up somewhere that's not familiar and among people you don't know. That loneliness is one of the main reasons that a vanishing con fails. We'll tell you how people cope with that ... and sometimes it just means living on the street.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scams & Cons News for March 7, 2024Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The longest con of all may be vanishing -- leaving the place you know, going somewhere unfamiliar and never having contact with anyone or anything from your past life.In this episode, we tell you how to go missing and avoid those who will be looking for you.Private Investigative ServicesLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scams & Cons News for February 15, 2024Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A good scam creates a reality where the mark thinks it makes perfect sense to go along with the con. A great con is when everyone else is fooled and you are the only one to know the truth.The next few episodes are about the longest con of all -- vanishing. These are people who voluntarily disappear. It does not include those who are running for the law or legal obligations. It doesn't include those in witness protection programs. It's about people who want to abandon one life and start again.The mark is everyone in the world, because to be successful, you must never be heard from again.In this episode we talk about why someone would want to disappear and in future episodes, we'll tell you how it is done.Lastly, you'll hear from a woman whose husband vanished and she never saw him again -- even when they were granted a divorce.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Regular listeners are accustomed to hearing about different variations of a con in each regular episode. In season six, we're doing something different. We'll be focusing on one con -- vanishing.Vanishing may be the longest con of all because, if you're successful, no one will hear from you again.We'll talk about why people want to voluntarily disappear. We won't be talking about those trying to escape the law or legal obligations. Our focus will be on those who want to trade their current life for a new one.There will be episodes about why people want to disappear, how they do it and how they deal with the loneliness. You'll also hear from a woman whose husband walked out the door one day, never to return. She didn't know if he was alive until his lawyer contacted her about getting a divorce.This not a con on one or a few people -- it is run on everyone in the world. Let me tell you about those who never want to be seen again.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you being smed? It's a scam that involves both texts and social engineering. A dating app leads to a carjacking in Florida and a Swiss bus museum. A cashier stole more than $1 million between 2008 and 2019 by reselling museum tickets twice.These stories and MUCH more on Scams & Cons News.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Any con, any story of a con, begins in the head of the author. Lee Goldberg isn't a con artist -- unless you count how he leads readers toward wrong conclusions -- but he does write successful books and TV shows that involve cons.In this episode, Lee talks with us about how he does it, how he comes up with his ideas and what it's to deal with publishers and television story runners. It's a great listen.Lee GoldbergLee's WorksMalibu BurningDreamtownLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What time is it? 4:23? Thanks.You could have gotten the answer from your phone, a sign in front of a bank or dozens of other sources. So, why spend $150,000 for a Rolex to give you the same information.Luxuries are perceptions and scammers use those perceptions to make you think you're getting a very good deal on something that can perform the same function for far fewer dollars. Scammers have exploited those dreams for centuries, but now marketers have refined those techniques to scam us in legal ways.Listen in because, as always, we'll tell you how it's done and why we fall for it.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices