Buying the Brooklyn Bridge
People are so resourceful, especially in times of crisis.
There are thousands if not millions of snake oil sellers who are slithering out from under their rocks to take advantage of the misery of many in the time of COVID-19.
These con men know the value of the old cliche of a sucker being born every minute because it’s true. But don’t blame the mark. People want cures so badly that they are willing to stretch believability until it snaps or until their bank accounts disappear.
There have been the miracle diet of boiled walnuts or eating a dozen lemons to fight cancer. Or how about standing on your head to cure the hiccups or gulping ant venom, bee pollen, alfalfa or aloe vera to beat arthritis. Or all the phony cold and flu cures from the innocent chicken soup to costly overloads of supplements and vitamins.
And now, these charlatans are having a field day with the virus known around the world. Their offers are already taking a toll.
Scammers offer great on-line deals for toilet paper, hand sanitizers and protective masks. And the market for bogus cures for the virus is simply exploding. It seems that people will fall for almost anything to find their miracle cure.
An Arizona couple, both in their 60s, took the advice of President Trump that the anti-malarial drug chloroquine could beat COVID-19. It didn’t work. The couple ingested chloroquine phosphate, a chemical used to clean home aquariums. The man died; his wife was in critical condition although it wasn’t clear if they were able to avoid the virus.
Preying on the weak, victimizing the people who are defenseless, appealing to the better nature of their victims. It’s nothing new. They were around at the start of history, during the wars, depressions, pandemics and more; these people with the highly under-developed consciousness.
But compared to the great grifters of all time, most of these current-day swindlers are rank amateurs. Here’s a few of the biggest scams of all-time:
Back in 193 AD, the Roman Empire was sold to the highest bidder, Emperor Didius Julianus. The sap enjoyed owning the empire for nine weeks, before the fraud fell apart and he went the way of a great many Roman emperors, dead.
In more recent times, the chutzpah of Victor Lustig stands out as tall as, well, the Eiffel Tower.
Lustig was the known as “The Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower” not just once but twice in 1925. Paris was booming after World War I and Lustig came up with a plot. He posed as a government minister and convinced six wealthy French scrap metal dealers to invest in his plan to dismantle and remove the tower. Lustig pulled off the same scam a few month later. He again collected counterfeit documents and wooed a group of scrap dealers.
George C. Parker rivaled the guile and creativity of Lustig. Parker sold the Brooklyn Bridge twice a week for 30 years. The confidence man supreme took advantage of the New York scene in the 1880s that was filling with poor immigrants hoping to strike it big.
Parker had placed a for-sale sign on the bridge and convinced one immigrant to help pay for a new toll booth for the bridge. The immigrant would see a mountain of profit from the toll booth, or not.
According to the myth, Parker then went on to swindle people from $50 to $50,000 to buy the bridge. Parker was a success for more than 40 yeas until he was convicted of fraud and spent the rest of his life in New York’s Sing Sing Prison.
Charles Ponzi was so successful that they named a criminal act after him, the “Ponzi Scheme.” Ponzi laid the blueprint for the greatest fraud in history when Berni Madoff scammed $65 billion.
Like other scammers, Ponzi took advantage of one of the basest and oldest of human instincts: Greed and a willingness to suspend belief in hopes of a quick profit.
Ponzi came to the U.S.from Italy in 1882. After a series of odd jobs and time in prison, he came upon a plan. He learned about an offer from an Italian company to sell stamps in the U.S. that could then be cashed in a local post office. The company made a profit because it could buy the stamps at less than they charged customers in the U.S.
Ponzi started his own investment plan based on the Italian model. But he took it one giant step further, creating an investment scheme that turned into a pyramid scheme. He promised investors significant returns and paid them from new investments. But the scheme did unravel and Ponzi spent 14 years in prison.
So there is some swamp land for sale in Florida along with a snowshoe franchise.