People are easy to trick- you come up with an idea, promise them a lot of money and they will bite the bait. The choice is big- for credit card fraud of checks to million frauds with large companies. Scammers don’t exist only in movies and some scams sound really unbelievable, but people can be persuaded into everything.

One of greatest and “most talented” scammers of all times was Czech Victor Lustig, and one of his most famous scams was the selling of Eiffel tower. He came up with the idea after an article in newspapers about huge maintenance expense of the Eiffel tower. He called sic biggest iron traders and presented himself as a minister in the government. He explained that the maintenance expenses are too big and that the sale it a state secret. He gave the traders one day to present to him their offers. The victim was Andrea Poison, he paid the advance for the Eiffel tower, and when he found out that he was cheated, he was so ashamed, that he didn’t report the scam to the police. From recent past we should mention the American Bernard Madoff, who lightened his clients for total of 65 billion dollars and was sentenced to 150 years in prison.