Be not deceived

Have you ever wondered how some people come up with their career of choice?  Fireman?  Policeman? Nuclear physicist?  Scam artist?  OK, scam artist might not have been a first choice but I gotta wonder if it's not up there in priority.  I mean, for years, I've witnessed a parade of people posing as wolves in sheep's clothing who claim to be working in people's best interests.  These people work hard at what they do.  They are flim flam men (and women) who infest the halls of justice and are the smoothest, silver-est tongued slime balls you'll ever meet who would as soon prey on their own mother than get a 9-5 job.

Slick as they may be, in some cases, they're not all that bright.  Take, for instance, Amanda Zieminski and Clyde Forteau, both of New York City.  Seems these two scammed millions from elderly persons.  To celebrate, they used the money stolen from their victims to pay for courtside seats at a 2012 NBA Finals game, a vacation to the Dominican Republic, and a vacation to Disney World, where they got engaged in front of Cinderella's castle and then posted their pictures to their Facebook account. Yeah, you go and steal millions and then brag about it on Facebook - not too bright.

Or how about the people who get sucked in by those Nigerian scams or false offers of employment?  Yeah, turns out a guy gets a random call saying they got his name/number from someone.  A few questions later, he gets a call on his cell saying they're interested in hiring him. The end result was to get his SS# and other sensitive information over the phone.

What's a real pisser is that many of these scams can be avoided simply by staying informed about what is going on.  For instance, did you know you could read up on scams and flim flam artists at your local county law library?  Sure you can.  Might I suggest you take a look at Antidotes for estate planning scams, botched trusts, and other disasters (CEB), No more sham Chanel, rip-off Rolex, phony Ferragamo or copied Cartier? : anti-counterfeiting in the twenty-first century (Brinks), or Work@home scams, they just don't pay: a high noon bullet (USPS).

Yep, there are a whole lot of people (other than the IRS) trying to separate you from your hard earned cash.  One way to prevent (or at least minimize) this is to get educated about scams, scamming, and the scammers who are trying to scam you by you reading the resources about all things scams at your local county law library.