Http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_je......eme.html

Sometimes people ask me why I never turned into a professional card cheat, hustler, etc. Well, a bit because people like the ones above, who are not very clever and yet form the vast majority of hustlers and cheaters of all kind. At least, those I have met.

89K / 21 ~= 4K. Facing several years of jail for 4 grand!! It's safer to stacks cards in small games.

Reads like a Who's-Who of imbeciles.

Stacking cards? I would be surprised if they could put their shoes on correctly.

Hahaha. I must say I'm with you about them...

My first thought before even clicking on this was exactly yours Arnie. 21 people? The cut per person is so small how is there even any temptation incentive with a cut that small? And that is best case scenario of an even share all around.

Then again, I worked in fraud detection for a bit and it is amazing the effort people will go to for very little return - especially for such a known scam that banks, casinos, etc. have been hip to for ages. Usually you discover that these people were involved in other fraudulent activity at the same time or got caught early while testing the waters.

The best part, if you read the article, is that the 20 other people in on it got a "small share" - further making one wonder, as Cag succinctly put it, "if they could put their shoes on correctly".

I recall 20 or 30 years ago in one of the Business Opportunity magazines there was a full page ad with a picture of a beautiful young woman purporting to reveal how she lost her job but was now making great money using a "unique" banking system that her banker boyfriend revealed to her or some such nonsense.

I think the system was sold for $35.00 or so and it was about a 20 page booklet with very large print. It advised opening up 4 or 5 bank accounts to kite checks with because in those days the float period was about 5 days or so. This "author" advised going from bank to bank using a portion of the kited funds taken from Bank A and opening an account in Bank B, then kiting a check in Bank B and using a small portion of those funds to open an account in Bank C and so on.

The system was offered with a money back guarantee if not satisfied and here is where they got in real trouble with the US Postal Service because they did not refund any monies to people who wanted a refund.

I don't know how many fools ordered and tried this system out but I do know the perpetrators who devised the method were prosecuted in Federal Court in Las Vegas and went to prison for postal fraud.

They also had a number of other ridiculous money-making schemes they sold in that same magazine using pictures of different pretty girls with different names at different addresses. The US Attorney tied these other schemes together during the trial and the perpetrators no doubt had a long time to think about what went wrong with their mail order "opportunity" while residing in federal prison for a few years.

Wow. In addition to oolluding to help others commit crimes they did it via the postal service. When caught that makes it a federal offense because they used the US government as an unwilling accessory to their crimes.

By the way, does someone know what kind of prison sentence those guys are facing? I mean, weeks, months or years?

@Cag

I like all those scams. Sometimes you just scratch your head wondering how stupid people are. And with the Internet age, it's even more dumb!

I receive at least 2 or 3 emails per week offering me to become a millionaire for free, or just for a small fee. Sometimes, I laugh a lot. I remember a guy offering to turn big bank notes into lower ones, but many more. For the sake of illustration, he would take a $100 bill and, by using a special liquid, would provide 6 or 7 $20 ones out of it... And you know what? He got caught by the police and was sentenced, meaning he found imbeciles...

I would not know that as I am not an attorney. I assume that the main perpetrator who received the bulk of the monies would get the longest sentence. If he had prior convictions, I sure that would enhance what he receives. Since he will probably have a lot of time on his hands while in prison, AMcD may want to send him some techniques on riffle stacking. He will have a lot of time to practice and will need another source of income when he gets out as his employment opportunities might be scarce.

The other fools involved in this scam will probably get lesser sentences based upon their prior convictions and/or arrest record. Petty criminals seem to continually do stupid things and frequently get into trouble with the law. Their learning curve is non-existent.

You get more time for the Postal Service than you get for anything else, its funny but its real.

The main leader kept most of it for himself, the rest probably only recied $2-3K for this. The other 20 people, or scammers, I believe they got scammed!

There is an old cheque scam in How to Cheat at Cards by Livingston the principle of which is good. It works in more ways than one.

My guess is that this was not worked out as an even split. most of these chuckleheads were likely just employees and significant others along for the ride.