We made a bracket to crown the greatest scammer in recent history
It’s Cheat Week at Mashable. Join us as we take a look at how liars, scammers, grifters, and everyday people take advantage of life's little loopholes in order to get ahead.
Summer is the season of scams.
In 2018, so many con artists, grifters, schemers, and elaborate scammers flexed their dishonesty during the summer that the season was literally dubbed "Summer Of Scams." Now, as August 2019 comes to an end, we have even more infamous scams to reflect on. So we thought it'd be nice to look back on the most noteworthy scams in recent history, and perhaps even crown one The Greatest.
(To be clear, scams are not good, but at times they are extremely impressive.)
To help you decide which scam reigns supreme, we've gathered 12 of the best from 2017 to present day and created a bracket.
Some scams include a classic case of identity deception, like @ElleOhHell, a female comic on Twitter who turned out to be a husband impersonating his wife; Becca Schultz, the teen girl who posed as a married man for 8 years so she could write about baseball; Tommy Muscatello, the dude who pretended to be British while covering the Royal Wedding; and of course, Jed Wyatt, the guy who went on the Bachelorette to promote his music career even though he had a girlfriend.
There were scams associated with luxury, such as SoHo grifter Anna Delvey, who identified herself as a fake German heiress to con hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy people, and Caroline Calloway, an Instagram influencer who's made her followers a slew of promises — from events, books, and television shows — that she never kept.
There were lower-stakes scams, such as the thieves who attempted to steal a shark from the San Antonio Aquarium by putting it in a baby stroller; YouTube creators Yes Theory who tricked the internet into thinking Justin Bieber was eating a sideways burrito; and Bonnie, a cow that pretended to be a deer.
And, of course, there were high-level scams like the story of Jamison Bachman, aka "The Worst Roommate Ever"; Billy McFarland and Ja Rule's failed music festival, Fyre Fest; and "Operation Varsity Blues," the major college cheating scandal that included actresses like Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.
After you take some time to refresh yourself with this mess of scams, your bracket awaits.✨
Nicole is a Senior Editor at Mashable. She primarily covers entertainment and digital culture trends, and in her free time she can be found watching TV, sending voice notes, or going viral on Twitter for admiring knitwear. You can follow her on Twitter @nicolemichele5.
