Phishing And Notorious Scams Throughout History

Scam artists use a lot of energy coming up with their scams, even ones as ridiculous as phishing. They have to work through all the intricate parts of it if it’s a good scam. Sometimes, they have to buy equipment and software if it’s on a big scale. Sometimes, they have to lease office space if it’s on a much larger scale.

What a world it would be if they put all that thought and energy into something legitimate. They’ve already proven that they have all the skills. At least, they’d have something to be proud of at the end of the day rather than taking advantage of people and ruining their lives. But there will always be scam artists among us and these are some of the most historical.

Jerome Jacobson

Jerome Jacobson was a police officer in Florida but an injury kept him from continuing as an officer of the law. He went on to get a securities job and that led him to become responsible for the McDonald’s Monopoly game pieces.

He had access to pieces that were worth up to a million dollars. With all that power, he decided to give pieces to family and friends where he would split the money when they cashed them.

Soon he had a whole network of people he was in business with and he netted over $24 million. When this scam caught up to him, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay $12.5 million in restitution. The others who were caught in his scam were given probation and ordered to pay back their winnings from out of their pockets.

Victor Lustig

Victor Lustig was a master con man who actually sold the Eiffel Tower twice. Another con he used to run was selling a money box to businessmen. He convinced them that it would duplicate money if they put money in it. With a sleight of hand, he was able to convince them, and they bought it. He even got himself out of an arrest by showing it to a Texas sheriff who bought one from him.

But the Eiffel Tower story is amazing. He was able to convince executives of scrap metal companies, “Because of engineering faults, costly repairs, and political problems I cannot discuss, the tearing down of the Eiffel Tower has become mandatory.” Bids came rolling in and he became rich.

Would this be considered early day phishing?

His crimes eventually caught up to him and he ended up dying in Alcatraz.

Sylvia Browne

I’m not going to spend too much time on Sylvia Browne because I knew she was fake when she was alive and what she was doing was just plain wrong. She claimed to be a psychic and she took advantage of parents who had missing children. She would charge them a huge fee for a consultation, and then she would tell them some of the most horrendous things. She told a few parents that their child was dead and in one case, she told the parents their daughter had been kidnapped into human trafficking and taken to Japan.

In the case of human trafficking, it turned out to be untrue because the child’s body was found in America and had been buried. Sylvia did eventually catch charges for what she was doing and was slapped with community service. Despite being proven to be a fraud, people still believed in her and bought her books so that she could live out her happy life on real dollars earned from her lies and deception.

Anna Sorokin

Anna Sorokin made herself infamous by acting as an heiress of a European tycoon. She was befriended by very influential socialites and people in the art industry. Her exploits became the subject of the Netflix series Inventing Anna in which her role was played by Julia Garner.

She was so influential and charming that she was able to write her own ticket at one time, staying in hotel rooms and working toward building an empire. She almost had the funds, but it all caught up to her and she was found guilty of attempted grand larceny, larceny in the second degree, and theft of services. She was sentenced to prison. She didn’t stay long and was released. But now she’s being detained by ICE and awaiting deportation.

However, her fame didn’t stop there. She has been the subject of documentaries, books, and articles. In fact, Paris Hilton had Anna on her podcast This is Paris.

Charles Ponzi

You might think Bernie Madoff belongs on this list. But he just ran a modern-day Ponzi Scheme which is named after Charles Ponzi who struggled through life when he was young and migrated to America to chase the American dream. After working at a bank that went belly up, he invented his own Securities Exchange Company that earned its money buying postal coupons from weak economic countries and of course, selling them in strong economic countries.

His scheme began as he started attracting investors. He would take their money and put it straight in his pocket. Then, he would pay older investors back their money with new investor funds. At one time, it was reported that he had a net worth of $8.5 million. It eventually caught up to him and he did time in prison before being deported back to Italy. But his name lives on forever with every new scam artist who gives the Ponzi Scheme a try.

Phishing schemes don’t have anything on this guy!

Elizabeth Holmes

Elizabeth Holmes in my book is one of the sickest people on the planet. When your scam involves giving people who have serious health issues a promise that you don’t plan on delivering, you have reached a whole new level of scum.

Theranos is the company she founded where she claimed that she could provide an on-the-spot medical diagnosis from a single drop of blood from a patient using her rapid blood-testing machine. Investments poured in the billions and she was highlighted in the biggest magazines that carried her story. But it was all a hoax. The machine didn’t work and anyone working for her who questioned it was fired.

Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou broke the story about her, “I think she absolutely has sociopathic tendencies. One of those tendencies is pathological lying.”

She has been found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors and faces up to 20 years in prison. Sentencing is set for October 17, 2022.

To pick up on a statement I made earlier. Phishing is a ridiculous scam. An email that shows up in your inbox might look like it’s from a legitimate company. If you click on a link, you might think you’re on a legitimate page. But if you pay attention to details, you won’t caught up in a phishing scam.

Look at the sender’s email. I’d be willing to bet that the domain is not the same as the “legitimate” company. That’s a red flag. If you click the link, I bet it doesn’t take you to the company’s official domain. That’s another red flag. The best practice is to google the company and contact them directly. Then, ask them if the email that you received is legitimate. Don’t take any action by clicking links through the phishing email itself.

Stay safe!

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