Speaker 1: What's popping Congregation is your girl? Lacey Mosley aka Scam Goddess.
Speaker 2: Welcome to an episode of Fraud Fridays, where we release
Speaker 2: older episodes from the Scam Goddess vault. That's right, Fraud
Speaker 2: Fridays is where we bring back your favorite episodes.
Speaker 3: From behind the paywall.
Speaker 1: Enjoy this episode from behind the paywall, and as always,
Speaker 1: stay scheming.
Speaker 4: Scam, come.
Speaker 1: Right, fro.
Speaker 3: Scam come.
Speaker 4: Right from.
Speaker 3: Goddess.
Speaker 1: What's popping Congregation, it's your girl. Lacey Mosley aka Scam Goddess.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Scam Goddess. The podcast
Speaker 1: all about robbery, fraud, and those who practices. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: love them, sometimes we ate them. We'll see along the way. Congress,
Speaker 1: y'all know what I am. You know what it is.
Speaker 1: I'm very yes excited, elateen for today.
Speaker 3: Guess what's a get y'all?
Speaker 1: Today we have an amazing stand up comedian, actor and
Speaker 1: the host of Netflix Drink Masters. Check out his first
Speaker 1: action movie check Her Warning, coming out soon on Netflix.
Speaker 3: Congregation. Please welcome Tom Bell to the show.
Speaker 1: Hey, no beautiful, thank you, because they gonna hear the edituniversity,
Speaker 1: so they're not even gonna.
Speaker 5: Know, well done, well done. Now that takes one was
Speaker 5: beautiful turn.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but we've run
Speaker 1: into each other a couple of times, and you know
Speaker 1: a couple.
Speaker 3: It's Erica and I.
Speaker 1: Can't remember her husband name right now, but he bawled anyway,
Speaker 1: they love you and told me about you years ago.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, don't even try.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, don't get and don't get me
Speaker 5: in trouble.
Speaker 3: I won't.
Speaker 1: I went to Vegas with my mom my dad, and
Speaker 1: they're like a part of the friend group, and so
Speaker 1: I was literally at cabanas and bottle service with my
Speaker 1: mom and my dad.
Speaker 5: It was I mean, first of all, that's pretty dope,
Speaker 5: Like my mom would kick it like that. My dad
Speaker 5: would be like, it is loud out here, and I
Speaker 5: mean also he kind of a creek now he don't
Speaker 5: know he's not staring.
Speaker 3: I was wondering where you were going with that.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, you do get to a certain age where
Speaker 1: you just you get the freedom to just stare at people,
Speaker 1: Like old people, they will stare at you and then
Speaker 1: you look at them in they eye and they'll be like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm still staring.
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 4: Okay, you ever noticed them dudes?
Speaker 5: Like I would see it occasionally because like I would
Speaker 5: see them old dudes when like the remember the watches
Speaker 5: you just have the cameras on them, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm talking about, Like like five years ago they hit
Speaker 5: like the smart watch with the camera on it, and
Speaker 5: so you see a bunch of dudes like over sixty
Speaker 5: just like acting like they're looking for something, but they
Speaker 5: just doing like eyes up.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 5: Oh man, my god, oh man, I see it all
Speaker 5: the time. It's like, bro, bro, you gotta get cleaner
Speaker 5: about that.
Speaker 1: That sounds like some technology people were just like I
Speaker 1: don't know what to make people think this is different
Speaker 1: with a camera, because that's what you need on your watch.
Speaker 4: Don't nobody need that? Don't nobody need a camera on
Speaker 4: the watch? James Bonds, Right, I ain't back.
Speaker 1: No PI for the for that rest, Like, what are
Speaker 1: we doing? I don't need those spy kids ask technology
Speaker 1: on my watch? Just tail time, maybe some texts.
Speaker 3: That's it. No, that's so funny. So tone.
Speaker 1: On this podcast, we always ask our guests what's your
Speaker 1: relationship with scams?
Speaker 3: Do you love them?
Speaker 1: Do you hate them? Have you ever been scammed? Have
Speaker 1: you ever run some scams that are outside of statute
Speaker 1: of limitations.
Speaker 3: It could be anything.
Speaker 5: Hated when it happens to me, love it when it's
Speaker 5: a low level crime and people get away with it.
Speaker 5: And yes, I used to have a in my former
Speaker 5: life decades ago. I uh, you know, I had some
Speaker 5: things going. I mean I would call it being a
Speaker 5: thief feeling. But uh but yeah, I'm a different person
Speaker 5: now and now I have things to lose, so I
Speaker 5: don't take from anyone else. But yeah, I used to
Speaker 5: get away with some stuff back in the day. And
Speaker 5: then I have been scammed. Yes, I have been scammed.
Speaker 5: Well I won't say scam, but I have almost fallen
Speaker 5: for something that I thought was that definitely wasn't scam.
Speaker 4: Scoop.
Speaker 3: Wait, what was it?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 5: Some check out dated back in college. Out of nowhere,
Speaker 5: it hit me saying she was in Africa and she
Speaker 5: needed me to Western Union of some money. And I
Speaker 5: didn't know this thing was going around. Do you remember
Speaker 5: when I was going around back in the day of like, ye, like,
Speaker 5: I need two thousand dollars because I can't get my
Speaker 5: flight back, so can you Western Union me the money?
Speaker 4: And I was like I said, oh ship, Vicky's in
Speaker 4: trouble and she's gonna called me a year, so I
Speaker 4: know it's got to be I mean, and I I'm
Speaker 4: out here calling Western Union, like, yo, I don't have
Speaker 4: it in cash, but I can take this credit card
Speaker 4: I'm good for and it like we don't, sir, we
Speaker 4: don't do credit and who is this for? And I
Speaker 4: was like, y'all don't have this number, and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 4: but it's not attaching no VICKI. And I was like,
Speaker 4: so then I just hit on like Facebook. I think
Speaker 4: Facebook was still popping at the time. Facebook, and it
Speaker 4: might have been my Space.
Speaker 3: Then you must have been a batting.
Speaker 1: You weren't even with Vicky anymore, and you're on the phone,
Speaker 1: like Liam Neeson from taking trying to save.
Speaker 3: Her from Africa.
Speaker 1: We had a very much general Africa.
Speaker 4: Africa was no country, no city.
Speaker 3: I was like, yo, we gotta got no continent.
Speaker 5: We got a fine VICKI, y'all. But we had a
Speaker 5: very mature operation from how things dissolved in college.
Speaker 3: Oh, I like that.
Speaker 1: See, y'all, y'all have to have amical breakups so that
Speaker 1: you can call up your ex and be like, I
Speaker 1: need two thousand dollars to get out of General Africa.
Speaker 5: And then and I was like, after we talked, and
Speaker 5: she was like, no, I'm in Houston. What you talking about?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: It was it was so I don't fall for that
Speaker 5: ship no more. But you got to send me. You
Speaker 5: want to get money from me, you have to send
Speaker 5: me a bill. I need to know where it came from.
Speaker 5: I need to see the bill. That's how I send money.
Speaker 4: Now if I'm I love that.
Speaker 1: What Now did they contact you through email? Was it
Speaker 1: a text message?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: How did the skimmer pretending email?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Because I had the logo, they had their email, they
Speaker 5: had the logo and all that, the logo, the Western
Speaker 5: Union logo.
Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know you could PayPal requests on Western Union,
Speaker 1: like to send people a link. That's different. Also very
Speaker 1: funny to be told that you were gonna put her
Speaker 1: life saving on credit. You were like, yeah, between four cards.
Speaker 4: What I was going through. I was like, I ain't
Speaker 4: got it, but I can get it.
Speaker 3: Oh, you're a good friend.
Speaker 4: I'm a great friend. I'm a great friend.
Speaker 1: If you get an email from my email just saying
Speaker 1: I'm stuck in General Africa, you know, go ahead.
Speaker 3: I know you got money, so go ahead. In the
Speaker 3: Senatic cash.
Speaker 5: General Africa is so funny, by the way, not even
Speaker 5: a coach they did have a coach in it.
Speaker 1: No, not a zip code, not nothing. How what airport
Speaker 1: are you flying out of? Sins bro Bro I was,
Speaker 1: and flight's changed depending on what airport you're at. So
Speaker 1: if you're just in General Africa, like it's different to
Speaker 1: fly from Egypt than it is to fly from South Africa.
Speaker 3: I'm confused.
Speaker 5: I never thought about it to just now, but like,
Speaker 5: she must have been good to me because there's some
Speaker 5: other people that could have called him to Like.
Speaker 4: She's just gonna have to be in Africa.
Speaker 3: She's gonna have to stay in whatever country she.
Speaker 4: Had to just stay in Africa. Ain't it didn't go
Speaker 4: well the first time? Why would I bring her back?
Speaker 3: It's like, it's probably good for me that she's not
Speaker 3: in the country no more.
Speaker 1: This is probably she could get a job over there
Speaker 1: and play of thriving countries in Africa.
Speaker 3: She're gonna do well.
Speaker 4: I would answer to collect car from big but let
Speaker 4: that go to Voice Metal.
Speaker 1: Oh man, you would have you would have kept the
Speaker 1: LaToya in the Friday night booking so over.
Speaker 4: The weekend she was a talker. She'd got out of it.
Speaker 3: I love that for both of us.
Speaker 4: Scam go.
Speaker 1: And it's time for What's Hot and frid This is
Speaker 1: where we warn our listeners about popping scams and the zeitgeist.
Speaker 1: More often than not these days, we get a little
Speaker 1: letter from you all as always snitch on your friends,
Speaker 1: your family, LaToya, your enemies at scam got his pot
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. Just make sure the scams retired.
Speaker 1: So retired so we don't what yes, suck up your bag? Amen,
Speaker 1: So Tom, I need a fake.
Speaker 3: Name from you. We don't care about gender. It could
Speaker 3: be anything.
Speaker 4: Lazarus, Samuels, Lazarus now.
Speaker 3: From the butt love it.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, he don't get love. Last Last Samuels.
Speaker 3: I feel like Lazarus wasn't a great due Last Last.
Speaker 3: I love Lazarus.
Speaker 4: Last Simpson. Let's go.
Speaker 3: It's Simpson. That's fairy.
Speaker 5: I don't understand show, Okay, Last Simpson. Doesn't he sound
Speaker 5: like he's sounds like somebody will pick your pocket, but
Speaker 5: go ahead.
Speaker 1: Last sounds sketchy as hell. I don't think if I
Speaker 1: ever met a Last Simpson that I would you know,
Speaker 1: do any business engagements with them. It's just like the
Speaker 1: name Matthew, like every matt is a scam, Like y'all
Speaker 1: not getting me.
Speaker 4: You don't trust no Matthews.
Speaker 3: Too many of y'all. Too many of y'all.
Speaker 5: I feel like Last Simpson. Somebody who say last and
Speaker 5: then say his whole name, last, Last Simpson.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 1: It almost gives me sportscaster, like a retired football player,
Speaker 1: and we have Last Simpson hall the field.
Speaker 4: It's been a lot of time since we've seen Last Simpson.
Speaker 1: Loved this for us. That reminds me of Best Man Holiday.
Speaker 1: And the only reason I bring this up is have
Speaker 1: you seen it.
Speaker 4: The TV show? Oh no, we're talking.
Speaker 1: About the what's it called The Best Best Man? But
Speaker 1: it's TV show. I don't know the name, but they
Speaker 1: had they have More Chestnuts forty five year old self
Speaker 1: returning to the NFL as a ruck and everybody was
Speaker 1: like what man?
Speaker 5: Enough people to talk about that, because I definitely have
Speaker 5: not watched it as on my cue, but yeah, that's
Speaker 5: that should have been trended.
Speaker 4: I did not see that.
Speaker 3: That's a plot.
Speaker 1: Hold Like, come on, now, he could maybe come back
Speaker 1: as a quarterback, like try to do a Tom Britten.
Speaker 4: No, forty five.
Speaker 5: You can't do nothing at forty five. You leave not
Speaker 5: off that long. You gotta be you gotta come right back.
Speaker 5: You gotta come right right.
Speaker 3: You got to come back as a water boy.
Speaker 5: I mean training in the summer, being like I think
Speaker 5: I changed my mind. That's not taking six eight seasons
Speaker 5: a decade off and then coming back and be like
Speaker 5: I still.
Speaker 1: Got it, and they trying to make it like, oh
Speaker 1: he looks great out there, and look, this is not ages. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is just what happens to your body, and you
Speaker 1: definitely can't go back to the NFL at forty five.
Speaker 1: I was very confusion, but we just let it rock, okay,
Speaker 1: because nostalgia.
Speaker 3: It was tasty.
Speaker 1: So last Simpson says, I'm a wedding photographer in Utica,
Speaker 1: New York. Last week I received a message from a
Speaker 1: bride whose wedding I second shot last summer, meaning I
Speaker 1: worked freelance for another photographer. The photographer who the primary
Speaker 1: photographer or photography vendor for this woman is refusing to
Speaker 1: give her her wedding photos.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: I picked this because I've heard of fake wedding photographers
Speaker 1: who are like yeah, yeah, I'm gonna shoot you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, give me my.
Speaker 1: Deposit, and then I'm gonna pull up on your special
Speaker 1: day and I'm gonna flick it up. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: photos of everything, your your something, borrow your something new,
Speaker 1: your something blue. Hell, we get your toes, we get
Speaker 1: your ankle bracelet, like whatever you're want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then they just don't come.
Speaker 4: Oh, didn't even show up.
Speaker 3: Yes, Like that's the normal scam that I've heard of.
Speaker 1: But I've never heard of somebody coming to the wedding
Speaker 1: taking all the photos and.
Speaker 3: Then be like you can't have them.
Speaker 4: See I have heard that, though you have.
Speaker 3: Are you berried?
Speaker 4: No? Oh, I've seen that twice. Like, never got the
Speaker 4: photos showed up. Eight, definitely eight.
Speaker 5: They had a meal, dance, open bar, drink, no photos,
Speaker 5: no photos been there for them.
Speaker 1: I feel like I would know I wasn't getting photos
Speaker 1: if the wedding photographer is over here having a full plate,
Speaker 1: you know, a fish or a chicken option and they're
Speaker 1: drinking at the bar.
Speaker 3: Bro you are at work, You're supposed to be taking
Speaker 3: photos of people. What you mean you over here?
Speaker 1: Let me get three shots of cosme goes. You are
Speaker 1: the wedding photographer.
Speaker 5: Just wearing three cameras but not shooting none of them.
Speaker 1: Just in got you see the wedding photographer doing the
Speaker 1: electric slide, bro, you're supposed to be taking pictures of that.
Speaker 3: What are you doing?
Speaker 5: You got a piece of a sparragus, He got a
Speaker 5: spear in one hand and then he just like got
Speaker 5: you got him right.
Speaker 1: I do not want to see the wedding photographer at
Speaker 1: the bouquet toss like, let me get I want to
Speaker 1: get married next. You're not gonna be a part of this.
Speaker 1: You aren't supposed to be on the periphery. We shouldn't
Speaker 1: really noticed you. You should be taking photos of our
Speaker 1: happy moment, not you all in it.
Speaker 5: That's too much, but like that's it's better now because
Speaker 5: at least you know people you know got photos. If
Speaker 5: somebody skimming like fifteen years ago anything that shit, then
Speaker 5: you just you out of there unless you got.
Speaker 4: It like that.
Speaker 3: You got a kode actor. I love that. We don't
Speaker 3: even know what it's called. Honestly, you gotta get divorced.
Speaker 1: If you don't have no footage from your wedding, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna look back on when you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you let this dirty draws in the bathroom again, like
Speaker 1: what are you gonna remin this sun and keep you
Speaker 1: in love if they don't have those photos.
Speaker 4: Cause you gotta have you gotta have that photo on.
Speaker 5: Like even when you mad, you gotta you gotta walk
Speaker 5: past it to be like this, why I'm minute, this,
Speaker 5: why I'm in, this, why I'm in.
Speaker 4: But remember that. But that's the thing, Like you gotta
Speaker 4: before they leave.
Speaker 5: You hire a photographer before they leave, Like give me
Speaker 5: a copy or the raw images before you leave, before
Speaker 5: you start touching up.
Speaker 1: So at least I got to back up, right, because
Speaker 1: you can send them to anybody to get them touched up.
Speaker 1: Let this be a lesson because the weddingghy. This is
Speaker 1: not the first time I heard of wedding photography scams.
Speaker 1: It's the first time I've heard of them doing the job.
Speaker 1: But then just saying you can't have it, which is wild.
Speaker 1: It's like getting in an uber and like you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's right here, and they're like, now I'm gonna keep
Speaker 1: driving out.
Speaker 4: I need to run by the house. Work man, we
Speaker 4: are not going by your house.
Speaker 3: We are not two seconds. I'm gonna stop it.
Speaker 1: In it out because like I guess the food for
Speaker 1: my kids, and then I'm gonna drop it off at
Speaker 1: the house and then I'm ana swerve back.
Speaker 3: I'm a flip a BNU to get.
Speaker 4: You over there. I'll admit this.
Speaker 5: I worked at a drug store in high school, and
Speaker 5: me and the dude that worked the photo department had
Speaker 5: a scam going.
Speaker 4: Where we would do. I told you I haven't always
Speaker 4: lived his life, and I love this for you. I
Speaker 4: didn't always.
Speaker 5: I didn't always live this, you know, very stable above
Speaker 5: board life, you know, like especially like when you come
Speaker 5: in and bring your little camera rolls right form a wedding.
Speaker 5: People bringing me in, I mean they got eight, ten,
Speaker 5: twenty rolls, and then so we'd already go all right,
Speaker 5: we're gonna print these free, will take out all the
Speaker 5: dummy with all the bad ones, and then all the
Speaker 5: good ones will throw in there, and it'd be like,
Speaker 5: I don't know, three four hundreds worth of photos and
Speaker 5: we straight up just go look, man, come back seven
Speaker 5: o'clock on Sunday. We got all your photos, Go pick
Speaker 5: out some frames, bring them up here. We put a
Speaker 5: whole box together, and then give us two fifty cash
Speaker 5: and then you.
Speaker 4: Get all the shit you want. I love that.
Speaker 3: That's scamming big corporations. They've been scamming us.
Speaker 4: I'm not bad. Yeah, I don't take from the I'm robinhood.
Speaker 4: We don't take from the little guys. I love that.
Speaker 1: That's we were all about in this podcast. I also
Speaker 1: loved like seeing Hustleman at the twenty four hour photo.
Speaker 3: Like, hey man, just seven o'clock, come back, have cash
Speaker 3: be discreeted it.
Speaker 1: Put it in a picture frame. Put it in the
Speaker 1: picture frame right below the eight x ten with the
Speaker 1: white people and a dog. Put it in there and
Speaker 1: it slid it over.
Speaker 4: We was out here getting catch catch because.
Speaker 1: Those photos are not worth what they're charging for them anyway,
Speaker 1: so everybody wins, they discount.
Speaker 5: That's actually when I've seen my first when I was
Speaker 5: working the photo department, that's when I seen my first
Speaker 5: news selfies.
Speaker 1: See, that's what I always thought about, and I saw
Speaker 1: there is like a movie many sweet for hour photo
Speaker 1: or something like that, where they do develop like what
Speaker 1: y'all were bowld back in the day, Like y'all wanted
Speaker 1: news so bad before smartphones that you were like, I
Speaker 1: gotta get these developed and then put them in the mail,
Speaker 1: not mail newds.
Speaker 3: Like y'all got stamps.
Speaker 5: I made for But you'd be like you fifteen six
Speaker 5: team working at the drug store, so you and then
Speaker 5: when the person that come pick them up, you'd be like,
Speaker 5: here you go, ma'am, ma'am, here you go.
Speaker 1: Also, taking news on a disposable camera is hilarious to
Speaker 1: me because you have no idea if you really got
Speaker 1: the shot, Like if you're doing it on your cell phone,
Speaker 1: you can look and be like, oh, let me turn
Speaker 1: my body to the left or whatever.
Speaker 3: But if you do not disposable camera, you don't even.
Speaker 4: Know what you took. That's that's like waiting on the
Speaker 4: real results. You like, I gotta wait five days.
Speaker 3: To see if my nudes go clear, and then I
Speaker 3: got to take my news to usps.
Speaker 4: You got new You ever got nuds? You ever got
Speaker 4: nudes in the mail?
Speaker 3: I have not received any nudes in the mail?
Speaker 4: No, I have not, have you, well, one out of
Speaker 4: two of us has yet one out of two.
Speaker 1: Y'all have to do the math to figure it out
Speaker 1: who it is. But so god, so were they in
Speaker 1: like a regular letter?
Speaker 3: Was it fed eggs? Wow?
Speaker 5: With the sticky pages, with the sticky pages where you
Speaker 5: put them. It was captioned with like a written caption caption.
Speaker 3: That's a coffee table book.
Speaker 4: Oh, it was straight up blue.
Speaker 5: It was blue with the gold trim and it was
Speaker 5: it was like you could flip through and went from uh,
Speaker 5: it went from clothed to but nick wow.
Speaker 1: And there's some intrigue to it because it's like we're
Speaker 1: starting with the clothes on and then slowly.
Speaker 3: That's that's art.
Speaker 4: Very good storyteller. She was.
Speaker 3: Love that for her, Love that for her. What's a dedication? Okay, right?
Speaker 3: She got some star stickers in there. It was yard.
Speaker 3: It was a little yard around the titties on one.
Speaker 5: You bullshit, that's what it looked like. It was all
Speaker 5: kinds of stuff in there. The effort was real.
Speaker 3: Going to joe Anees Fabrics to send news is wild.
Speaker 4: That's wild.
Speaker 3: She was like, wait, where do y'all keep the photo album? Okay? Great?
Speaker 3: And then where is the glitter glue? Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: That's wild. That's wild to you. You really got them
Speaker 3: out here. I love that for you.
Speaker 4: Life.
Speaker 3: This my moldment listen delivered, delivered. We all have a
Speaker 3: pass and I love it. So for the primary photographer
Speaker 3: was refusing to give the wedding photos.
Speaker 1: After two weeks of correspondence with the bride, we found
Speaker 1: that there are sixteen in all caps brides that she
Speaker 1: knows that who have not received their wedding photos dating
Speaker 1: back to twenty nineteen. The brides who do get their
Speaker 1: photos back had to fight tooth and nail, and even
Speaker 1: then only got about.
Speaker 3: Forty preview shots.
Speaker 1: So there were some brides who popped the trunk on
Speaker 1: the photographer and were like, listen, aluminum bats are very
Speaker 1: cheap online, and we come in.
Speaker 4: You gotta pull up. You gotta pull up on them.
Speaker 4: You got to pull up on them.
Speaker 3: Got a bridezilla, I mean, you got to brute somebody.
Speaker 5: You probably had to contact somebody else who's about to
Speaker 5: have a wedding, who they just hired to pull up
Speaker 5: on somebody else wedding that's not at the gas station.
Speaker 5: You pull up at somebody else's wet. Yes, you ruined
Speaker 5: somebody with your photos.
Speaker 3: I feel like they were probably stalking this person.
Speaker 1: They go to the place of business and studio and
Speaker 1: then they follow them to the game stations and when
Speaker 1: they got the pump in the car, they're like, bitch,
Speaker 1: they sitting there with a match like, let's I'm gonna
Speaker 1: like this whole bitch on fire if you don't give
Speaker 1: me my nuptial photos like that right now?
Speaker 5: Was that Jar Butler movie? Were like the police wouldn't done.
Speaker 5: So he's like, I'm gonna go find it myself. You
Speaker 5: try to call and he's like, I'm gonna time. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna take matters into my own hands. And then you
Speaker 5: just going out and you become somebody that you're not
Speaker 5: even like, you don't even think you was gonna beat
Speaker 5: this person.
Speaker 4: You kicking down doors with my fucking photos.
Speaker 3: Everybody on the ground. If somebody get the USB drive
Speaker 3: right now where your sim cars? Just taking all of them.
Speaker 3: So last simstances.
Speaker 1: I'm in a group with about five brides at the
Speaker 1: moment and they have a similar story. The clients wait
Speaker 1: the time stated in the contract before they start asking
Speaker 1: for their photos, and then they start reaching out for
Speaker 1: an Eta. She continues to put put it off, making
Speaker 1: various excuses such as she's busy with high profile magazine shoots,
Speaker 1: a brand new studio, her key, and sudden mysterious medical issues.
Speaker 1: So she was like, I'm sick. Also, I'm shooting for Vogue. Also,
Speaker 1: I got babies, and so I can't give you your what.
Speaker 4: I got a question. I got a question.
Speaker 5: Do you think that this person, this photographer, let's say,
Speaker 5: let's let's start the beginning wedding number one. I have
Speaker 5: a question about this, not the first wedding in the story,
Speaker 5: but this photographer's first wedding. Do you think this person
Speaker 5: happened upon a camera and was like, Ooh, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: shoot weddings right and then yeah, throughout these weddings, it
Speaker 5: wasn't that they didn't have the photos, is that they
Speaker 5: was all bullshit. These photos are trash, They don't know
Speaker 5: how to use this camera, and lightning is bad, so
Speaker 5: really you're taking the money. Yes, it's still a scam,
Speaker 5: but also they just a trash assw photographer.
Speaker 3: And the street that streaks all across all the photos.
Speaker 3: Everybody eyes rich.
Speaker 4: So they just practicing from wedding to wedding until they
Speaker 4: get better. Then she's gonna actually sell.
Speaker 3: It's giving.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do photoshop because blurry the
Speaker 1: photographer supposed to edit the photo, so maybe they're blurry
Speaker 1: out of focus.
Speaker 3: And also there she can't edit them.
Speaker 4: You can't. You can't practice on game night though, you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. You gotta just get no.
Speaker 5: You gonna have a friend put on a dress and
Speaker 5: go to a park and be like, let me, let
Speaker 5: me figure this out for you. But you can't be
Speaker 5: practicing at my web right.
Speaker 1: There's certain things that I don't want to be the
Speaker 1: first time that you did it, Like I'm going into
Speaker 1: surgery and you're like, this is my first one.
Speaker 4: No no, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 5: I don't want the first time pilots. I don't want
Speaker 5: a first time Dennis. I don't want a first time photographer.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's just certain things. Oh, definitely my first time Dennis.
Speaker 1: Who I've been there. I still am beefing with the
Speaker 1: dentists that I went to at sixteen, who I told
Speaker 1: her I wasn't numb enough and then she drilled into
Speaker 1: my nerve and I like, have you ever had tears
Speaker 1: shoot out of your eyes involuntarily? Because that's what happened
Speaker 1: to me. I feel like Dennis star scam. I feel
Speaker 1: like they invented rock candy because that shit looks pretty,
Speaker 1: but it tastes disgusting and it sucks up your teeth.
Speaker 3: I feel like they're.
Speaker 1: Into big rock candy and I'm not fucking with it.
Speaker 1: Sorry to the dds is out there. I found me
Speaker 1: a good one finally, but I had one that scammed me.
Speaker 1: And then even okay, he's I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: said this on the podcast, but I need to was it?
Speaker 3: So this is a different gennist. But the other one
Speaker 3: was in my molar.
Speaker 1: But this I had a lot of bad Dinnis experience,
Speaker 1: but this one I went to his office and he
Speaker 1: had but let's sea goa pillows. He was playing bad
Speaker 1: Bunny on the TV screen because I only go to
Speaker 1: Dnnis in expensive areas because I'm like, you gotta make rent,
Speaker 1: which means you can't fuck me up.
Speaker 3: So you gotta be a good dentnist.
Speaker 5: Nobody that has sales, no discounts, no christ charge me extra.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: No two for one root canal, no no no, but
Speaker 1: I wouldn't get one free moler, no no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 3: He was so mean to me.
Speaker 1: I remember he was like, oh my god, your teeth
Speaker 1: are is such a bad shape and dah dah da dah.
Speaker 1: Because I had waded through the pandemic because like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's a pandemic. Like the last person, I want to
Speaker 1: go someplace where y'all going to be in my mouth
Speaker 1: like breathing the covid into my tonsils.
Speaker 3: Why would I do that? Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: So when I went, I had like some cavities and
Speaker 1: he was like, wow, this is like he was just
Speaker 1: talking to the highgenders and I'm like, nigga, I'm here.
Speaker 3: And he's like, oh, this is so bad.
Speaker 1: And even the way he pulled my tooth, I had
Speaker 1: to have another tooth, my wizard teeth. I still had them,
Speaker 1: but I had to get him pulled. He pulled one
Speaker 1: of them. And why did this man brace himself? He
Speaker 1: put one foot on the chair and then like was
Speaker 1: yanking real hard. And I was like, oh, I'm at
Speaker 1: a prison dentist. And I thought because of the bilisia
Speaker 1: capillos and the bad buddy on the flat screen and
Speaker 1: all white, that I was at a fancy dentist.
Speaker 3: Tell me why this man died.
Speaker 1: And I had already moved on to another dentist, but
Speaker 1: this was a few months after I moved on from him.
Speaker 1: He died and I got an email saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: he died but also y'all could keep y'all appointments because
Speaker 1: we're gonna keep the dentistry place open, because that's what.
Speaker 4: He would have wanted.
Speaker 3: This man was not sick. He died suddenly. What do
Speaker 3: you mean that's what he would have wanted.
Speaker 4: He wasn't sick.
Speaker 1: Also, to put all that in one email, like you
Speaker 1: couldn't give us one email other was like y'all terrible news,
Speaker 1: he died.
Speaker 3: And then another one like y'all can keep your appointments.
Speaker 1: It was just like a blurb like okay, so he died,
Speaker 1: but hold on, y'all still coming for y'all cleaning.
Speaker 5: I was like, excuse me, you can pay your respects
Speaker 5: by keeping your appointment and showing up Tuesday to fifteenth
Speaker 5: when you said you was gonna be here.
Speaker 4: Your copain is the same. We'll see y'all there. R Ip.
Speaker 3: Sign an email. Now you can honor him by still
Speaker 3: coming to your appointments. Okay, that's what they were saying.
Speaker 4: I was like, this is insane, yo, it's crazy. I've
Speaker 4: never met anybody else.
Speaker 5: I never met anybody else who had that same experience
Speaker 5: because that shit happened to me years ago, to one
Speaker 5: of my dads.
Speaker 4: My dad's an engineer.
Speaker 5: One of my dad's clients, I didn't have deal assurance
Speaker 5: at the time, so one of my dad's clients was like,
Speaker 5: all I got him. I hook him up just telling
Speaker 5: him bring like eighty dollars cash. This dude numbed the tooth,
Speaker 5: the wrong tooth and started cutting a different tooth. Oh no,
Speaker 5: so now he's slicing. And I had like an impact
Speaker 5: tooth or mole or whatever it's called. And same thing
Speaker 5: when you said the leg, I felt that I refelt
Speaker 5: that leg because he threw that leg up like Lisa
Speaker 5: from Temecula and thats and l skirt put it on
Speaker 5: the chair, and I mean he get I mean he
Speaker 5: getting in there. I mean he just like trying to
Speaker 5: crack it. And I'm like, I don't think you a dentist.
Speaker 5: I think you were moved, but I don't think you
Speaker 5: a dentist.
Speaker 4: I don't think that supposed to go like that.
Speaker 3: I think they just been giving anybody a dds.
Speaker 1: Because then when I went back to my good dentist,
Speaker 1: because I lost him, I didn't know where he was
Speaker 1: for a while, and when I went back to him,
Speaker 1: I had just another story and care to all that,
Speaker 1: but they I had to get.
Speaker 3: Another wisdom tooth pulled.
Speaker 1: They numbed me, they did some little thing and like
Speaker 1: when I tell you, it was just like the easiest,
Speaker 1: like painless, no bracing yourself procedure. And I told him,
Speaker 1: I was like, wait, I thought y'all was gonna have
Speaker 1: to put the leg on the chair and yank it.
Speaker 1: And the dentists looked at me horrified, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what so and so did. And I guess the
Speaker 1: dental girls each other in that neighborhood. And he made
Speaker 1: this face like, oh yeah, Kabily.
Speaker 4: You know you know that Din's used to be a
Speaker 4: wedding photographer. You like what truly?
Speaker 3: Truly?
Speaker 1: So to end this so we could get onto historic
Speaker 1: hoods last, Simpson says, these brides have seen it all.
Speaker 1: The photographer has called one bride's screaming in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night, called her new in laws who have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the negotiations, and made threat after
Speaker 1: threat after threat. She states that she's going to archive
Speaker 1: photos and refund them. However, none of the brides have
Speaker 1: received a refund. To add insult to injury, this photographer
Speaker 1: post herself daily dancing around in lingerie in her new studio,
Speaker 1: bragging about all the new clients she's taking on. One
Speaker 1: bride states that she now lives in fear of the
Speaker 1: woman her dad has potentially cancerous tumored. All she wants
Speaker 1: to do is share the wedding photos of him walking
Speaker 1: down the aisle.
Speaker 4: Oh no oh.
Speaker 1: And then not only is this photographer receiving a minimum
Speaker 1: of three thousand dollars from each of the brides and
Speaker 1: not delivering the photos, but she's also robbing them of
Speaker 1: their precious memories that are to hold on happiness their
Speaker 1: entire lives and turning it into a living nightmare.
Speaker 4: Wow, I damn, damn.
Speaker 1: You hit me at the end last, because memories are
Speaker 1: important to people, and to take away people's memories, especially
Speaker 1: ones like that where you don't know how much time
Speaker 1: you have left with the person sick as fuck. Also,
Speaker 1: you calling people and threatening them, you being depot about
Speaker 1: photos that they paid for, and then.
Speaker 4: I gotta watch you online enjoy yourself.
Speaker 3: That's really the lick. That's what that's like, you that tiktoks.
Speaker 4: I can't look if I lend you money, I better
Speaker 4: not see you on vacation honestly.
Speaker 1: If I lend you money, I better not see you
Speaker 1: at Starbucks buying the coffee. I'm like, Oh, you got
Speaker 1: money for for a flat white, but you can't pay
Speaker 1: it back?
Speaker 4: What much?
Speaker 5: If I see you, you better have made that yourself.
Speaker 5: You better you made that yourself. I know nothing that
Speaker 5: came with a receipt that you don't.
Speaker 4: Turn an oven on for that. Shit better be homemade.
Speaker 1: I didn my it is and are Also you need
Speaker 1: to really cosplay as like the most down bad. I
Speaker 1: better not see you in a cute fit. You better
Speaker 1: wear burr lap sacks on the ground until you pay
Speaker 1: me back. Okay, you better look like a nineteen twenties
Speaker 1: pickpocket for real until I give my money back for Oh,
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 4: Man last getting me too? I am. I am upset.
Speaker 4: I am I am not happy.
Speaker 1: I don't want to see you at no restaurants, not
Speaker 1: even Applebee's, not even for the two for twenty two.
Speaker 3: No, you don't have twenty two till you pay me back.
Speaker 4: If I'm running to you, you you better have a
Speaker 4: camera with you and a laptop.
Speaker 5: You better be editing. I'm so far behind. I'm so
Speaker 5: far behind, girl. I got you as soon as I can.
Speaker 5: I will as soon as I can get to you,
Speaker 5: I will like you better be. You better be stressed.
Speaker 5: Baby on one arm, laptop camera slung around. I mean,
Speaker 5: you better be typing. You gotta you got an old
Speaker 5: school mouse.
Speaker 3: Look, you better be constantly sweating.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, down bad, I'm hot.
Speaker 3: But this is you know, y'all.
Speaker 1: You have to bet your photographers. I know, wedding, wedding.
Speaker 1: When you put wedding on anything, it's a scam. We
Speaker 1: said that a million times on this podcast. Y'all better
Speaker 1: telling me, y'all having a love party and and so
Speaker 1: you can get the price down. But bet your photographers.
Speaker 1: If you find a photographer you like, go online, see
Speaker 1: if they have go on Facebook, search their name on
Speaker 1: the internet. Make sure that they Because the girls will
Speaker 1: talk when they've been wrong, So Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, girls will talk when they have been wrong.
Speaker 4: Just then.
Speaker 5: That applies for a lot, not just wedding photography. But
Speaker 5: go ahead, oh men too, I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, sometimes have you seen all these podcasts with the
Speaker 1: men and I don't even think they were wrong. We
Speaker 1: need to stop selling Mike's to sis gend admit until
Speaker 1: we figure out what the hell is going on? Because
Speaker 1: y'all don't need microphones. Tone you good, but it's a
Speaker 1: lot of it's a lot of your counterparts, aquitter.
Speaker 4: I've gotten better. I've gotten If you.
Speaker 3: Say females on the regular, you do not need podcasting.
Speaker 4: Question that's difficult, and that's the question I'm from a
Speaker 4: question at the store.
Speaker 5: It took me a long time to stop saying female
Speaker 5: because I'm from Atlanta and that's just how we talk.
Speaker 4: But I've gotten better, and I love that for you.
Speaker 3: You don't scam. You don't say females. What a glow up?
Speaker 4: I thank you. We're my goal star, go star for market.
Speaker 3: Yes by.
Speaker 1: Run and we are back for historic hootwings. My favorite
Speaker 1: part of the podcast. I will regale tone with a
Speaker 1: famous concaper group of criminals.
Speaker 3: We don't know yet.
Speaker 1: We're going to see you just like you. I do
Speaker 1: have a note at the top because you don't. We
Speaker 1: don't scam journalists. This story is primarily research from Jeff
Speaker 1: Mashaw's New York article Donald Trump and the sweep Steak Scammers.
Speaker 1: Content warning, there is a mention of substance abuse. All right,
Speaker 1: so we're going back to the eighties, which that makes
Speaker 1: sense for a mention of substance abuse because apparently everyone
Speaker 1: was on cocaine. So in the nineteen eighties, sweet sticks,
Speaker 1: it's crazy right before we start putting ventanol in it.
Speaker 4: To this day, I can't try it. If I was
Speaker 4: grown an eighties I might have get given it a shot.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite jokes in Black Monday wish I
Speaker 1: waited too long to watch shout out to Yost Leicester. Yes,
Speaker 1: nobody comes into the office. It's all about like Wall
Speaker 1: Street people, which are notorious for doing cocaine. To this day,
Speaker 1: someone comes in office who does the drug dealing and
Speaker 1: he's like.
Speaker 3: Hey, y'all, I got a new drug.
Speaker 1: It's called crack and everyone was like, oh that sounds dope.
Speaker 1: Limp two cracks please, So.
Speaker 4: New people don't know how to order yet.
Speaker 1: No, because on the streets, and when you think about it,
Speaker 1: that's the risk you're taking with every drug never taken before.
Speaker 1: You know, people are like, oh I popped them ally
Speaker 1: or whatever, but like, yeah, you would be like two cracks.
Speaker 5: I got a story that probably should tell this podcast. Well,
Speaker 5: i'll tell you afterwards. Oh my god, okay, and every day, oh.
Speaker 3: Okay, I can't wait.
Speaker 1: So, in the nineteen eighties, sweepstakes were the craze and
Speaker 1: almost every major company and they all participated in them
Speaker 1: thousands interered competitions, hoping to win fabulous prizes. But unbeknownst
Speaker 1: to all but a few, these competitions were impossible to
Speaker 1: win thanks to the CD man that made them. Ooh,
Speaker 1: so this brings me back to one of our first scams,
Speaker 1: the McDonald's scam, where Homie was just stealing all the
Speaker 1: game piece.
Speaker 3: I watched that one, okay, so who.
Speaker 1: I didn't love macmillions just because it was such coppaganda.
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to see, you know, more
Speaker 1: of Homie, Like I don't want to see y'all be
Speaker 1: and like we went through his trash, Like I want
Speaker 1: to see what he was doing with the money. So,
Speaker 1: during the nineteen sixties, when Chuck Sideman was a teenager,
Speaker 1: his father, Jack Sideman, ran his own promotions.
Speaker 3: Business in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: Okay, Philly, Yes, I know the Eagles lost the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl MM So after finishing his service in World War Two,
Speaker 1: Jack developed and patent one of the first rub off
Speaker 1: lottery games, using gold leaf to conceal the prize.
Speaker 3: Underneath. Now, I love a scratch off. They calling her
Speaker 3: rub off, but that's a scratch off.
Speaker 4: Off was hilarious. But yeah, they had to turn they
Speaker 4: had to change that name. Go ahead.
Speaker 1: I got scratch off of my house right now because
Speaker 1: that was me and my grandma's thing. We go down
Speaker 1: to the corner store and get scratch offs. And I
Speaker 1: don't know every now and then I got to do it.
Speaker 3: Connection.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we're looking at the scratch off right now,
Speaker 1: the og. It's a spot of gold. Cash dividends.
Speaker 3: Everybody wins at the corn fair. I love this.
Speaker 1: I love this because it would have got me. I
Speaker 1: would have picked up how much five ten, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be a millionaire?
Speaker 3: So and I loved it.
Speaker 1: On this ticket, it doesn't say how much you could
Speaker 1: possibly win, because now scratches are like you could win
Speaker 1: up to.
Speaker 3: A million dollars or whatever. This just says cash dividends
Speaker 3: to just tell you how much.
Speaker 1: You don't know what your investment could you know return,
Speaker 1: They're just like money you could get.
Speaker 5: I wish I wish they did it right now. I
Speaker 5: could fall for like a spectrum a scratch off. I'd
Speaker 5: go in and like have a bill paid Verizon buy
Speaker 5: some companies. Yeah, for companies got to pay the bill
Speaker 5: his money. I give you actually tend to see if
Speaker 5: I can win a free month, right.
Speaker 1: Don't give them any ideas they already taken all our
Speaker 1: money from us. You know, if we went into the
Speaker 1: Verizon at and t any of those and they were
Speaker 1: like scratch off and you could win a new iPhone.
Speaker 3: Nobody would ever win the most you would get.
Speaker 4: It's like you.
Speaker 1: Got a pop socket, give us a case, you get
Speaker 1: a cleaning rag. Congratulations, Now pay for that phone like
Speaker 1: you was meant to where my money? So his company,
Speaker 1: his company spot O Gold, was one of the first
Speaker 1: to create such games and soon took over the market
Speaker 1: through offering rubofs and convenience stores and grocery stores. I
Speaker 1: want to call them scratch offs from here on off
Speaker 1: because ruboffs is giving me. It sounds nasty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's doing a good job for me. But go ahead,
Speaker 4: I understand why you change it.
Speaker 3: Rubbed me off? No, I don't want to rub nothing.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: So his sun truck was a serial high school dropout.
Speaker 1: How are you a serial high school drop out? I
Speaker 1: feel like you drop out and then that's you dropped up,
Speaker 1: so he's just coming back okay, and he was a
Speaker 1: teenage drug addict. According to Adult Chuck, I was in
Speaker 1: seven detoxes and none of them worked.
Speaker 3: That evolution was to hire seven seven.
Speaker 4: That's still a lot. That's still a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's still a lot. But I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of one of those things of like if you wanted
Speaker 1: to do it, then it works. But if somebody ships
Speaker 1: you in there and you're not ready, then it's not
Speaker 1: gonna work. And that's a scam of rehabilitation centers. I
Speaker 1: think they'd be hoping for repick customers.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah. It's like it's like a gym, I hope
Speaker 4: you get fat again.
Speaker 3: Not a gym.
Speaker 1: It's just like how planning fitness be serving pizza, Like
Speaker 1: what are you doing that? That is the intendenis of
Speaker 1: why we're here. I mean, eat what you want. This
Speaker 1: is not shaming like I love food. I love it's
Speaker 1: not shaming it. But it's just interesting to be like,
Speaker 1: oh I just got a great workout and they're like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, would you like to tell a lord before you leat.
Speaker 5: What the that's how they should get you. The gym
Speaker 5: is free, but parking is like twelve hours a day.
Speaker 1: Love that, but it's gotta be automatically charged, because you know,
Speaker 1: gym memberships are a scam. Like they used to make
Speaker 1: you write here like letters and mail them in to
Speaker 1: try to get out of your gym membership.
Speaker 3: Because I still do.
Speaker 4: We're not gonna write no letter. I am not writing
Speaker 4: an essay I'd rather pay you for.
Speaker 3: We're not going to usps.
Speaker 4: I'm not doing it.
Speaker 3: But nowadays you just got to pull up in person
Speaker 3: like the brides.
Speaker 1: You got to pull up and be like, if you
Speaker 1: don't take me out of this membership, I will fight
Speaker 1: everybody in this gym. Because during COVID my gym membership,
Speaker 1: they were trying to still charge and I was like, girl,
Speaker 1: we can't even go over there, Like what is we doing.
Speaker 4: We don't have antil later. No you're not.
Speaker 3: No, you're not. They're like, we got an online app.
Speaker 3: No that's not the same. I can go on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Give me my money, but we.
Speaker 4: Got some towels. Shut up and give me my money back.
Speaker 4: Don't give a damn you calyptus on that.
Speaker 3: Come on now, you don't want your signs path to.
Speaker 4: Be cleared up? Come on now, give it. We give
Speaker 4: it out locks for the lockers, and also.
Speaker 1: Gym's making like a breakup, like a romantic breakup. When
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, I don't want to come here anymore.
Speaker 3: They're like why not?
Speaker 4: What did we do?
Speaker 1: And it's like, bitchall said, I don't want to come
Speaker 1: here no more. Let's get to the termination process. They're like, no,
Speaker 1: but let's talk first, come in my office.
Speaker 5: No, bitch, like they don't cancel stop they closure method
Speaker 5: is trash, Like we broke up.
Speaker 4: What it is?
Speaker 2: What it is?
Speaker 4: One of us ain't happy. I gotta go it. Don't
Speaker 4: take both of us to break up. They only take one.
Speaker 3: They're like, there's a mutual relationship.
Speaker 4: No, it's no, I didn't get quit. What these goddamns
Speaker 4: on me?
Speaker 1: Come on?
Speaker 3: Feel how soft? We got fabric softener? Now? Stop it stop,
Speaker 3: give it, give it to a more week. And then
Speaker 3: we try to contact them.
Speaker 1: We'll give you a free smoothie literally, and they know
Speaker 1: they make it so arduous on purpose. So we're talking
Speaker 1: about Chuck right. Chuck says he was the seventy toxes
Speaker 1: so Jack his daddy. Jack's solution was to hire Chuck's
Speaker 1: friend Stephen Gross to work at Spot of Gold in
Speaker 1: the hopes to keep Chuck off meth.
Speaker 3: Okay, what some mad so yeah. So but according to Steve,
Speaker 3: meth is one of those drugs.
Speaker 1: And this is no shade to addicts or anybody, but
Speaker 1: meth is one of those drugs that if somebody was like, hey,
Speaker 1: come over, I got so much meth, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I'm I'm okay.
Speaker 3: I was at the crib or weed. Yeah, but like
Speaker 3: if you say meth or crack, I'm like.
Speaker 4: No, actually, I didn't know math was out that low.
Speaker 4: So wait, hold on.
Speaker 5: So Jack is the dad, and then Chuck is the son,
Speaker 5: and then Steve came over to work with dad, so
Speaker 5: the son.
Speaker 3: To get Chuck off math. Right, Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 3: And it's still confusing, but you got it.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: So but according to Steven, who's the friend, that was impossible.
Speaker 1: Chuck was this kind of narcissistic personality. You couldn't tell
Speaker 1: him what to do. At sixteen, Steven had already began
Speaker 1: to make a name for himself in the company's development department,
Speaker 1: even successfully pitching Basket Robbins cone O Gold campaign. So
Speaker 1: you predicted this tone, So now Basket Robbins has gotten
Speaker 1: into the like, we're gonna do scratch offs.
Speaker 3: Y'all come in here and maybe you'll get one of these.
Speaker 3: Already want flavors for free?
Speaker 4: Boom boom. I told you to do this, you know it.
Speaker 3: Oh love, love that you're here.
Speaker 1: So at the same time, Chuck discovered that he could
Speaker 1: take advantage of working at Spottle Gold and steal tons
Speaker 1: of two dollars lottery cards normally delivered in secure trucks.
Speaker 3: Wow, so now he's stealing from his daddy. That's very disrespectful.
Speaker 1: So Chuck won tons of cash, most of what he
Speaker 1: spent at the Atlantic City Boardwalk, which you know used
Speaker 1: to be popping before it died.
Speaker 3: And then all the casinos.
Speaker 4: What do you do with stolen money? You try to
Speaker 4: make more stolen money.
Speaker 1: Flip it flip Why this sounds like a business to me. Also, normally,
Speaker 1: will you work for a company that does sweepstakes or
Speaker 1: anything like that.
Speaker 3: You're not allowed to play cash in you ain't allowed
Speaker 3: to play.
Speaker 1: So as young adults, Stephen and Chuck parted ways, and
Speaker 1: Stephen went on to go to college and sell lingerie
Speaker 1: and later cars. Okay, Steven, go ahead, Chuck, fell deeper
Speaker 1: into his addictions, to the point where a local restaurant
Speaker 1: to who he was indebted to for his cocaine, blackmailed
Speaker 1: him into stealing a win, a gold spot of gold
Speaker 1: game ticket. So a restaurant that was also selling cocaine.
Speaker 5: You was gonna come back to this because I have
Speaker 5: never gone to a restaurant for cocaine. I've never gone
Speaker 5: anywhere cocaine. Definite at a restaurant.
Speaker 3: I worked at a restaurant that sold cocaine, and I
Speaker 3: can't get spe because you will figure out what it is.
Speaker 3: But the servers were selling cocaine. No, like would you
Speaker 3: like the branzino? Also an eight ball?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: I've been at places where this happened.
Speaker 4: I pick up what you put that. Yes.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen eighty four, Jack paid off sixty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in drug debt for Chuck, now thirty three. So
Speaker 1: Jack slid in even though Chuck was trying to steal
Speaker 1: these Spottle golds to pay off the coke man at
Speaker 1: RB's and his daddy pulled up and paid for him.
Speaker 3: Chuck is thirty three at this point, but he's you know,
Speaker 3: it's his son. He's trying to take care of him.
Speaker 1: However, Chuck's continued mistakes created enough tension in the relationship
Speaker 1: that they got into a fistfight, which prompted A Chuck
Speaker 1: to break off ties with his father and get his
Speaker 1: own sweepstake company with Steve.
Speaker 3: So Steve is back. I was wondering what we were
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean how I mean Steve out here,
Speaker 4: you rather partner with a crackhead than a dude.
Speaker 3: You're so estavaged Vincy and and cars. Why are you partnering.
Speaker 5: With dropped out of school as many times? But you
Speaker 5: know it's the sixties, right, the eighties.
Speaker 1: They named the Yeah, we've been in the eighties, So
Speaker 1: they named the company c B. Sideman Marketing Group or CBS,
Speaker 1: and the hopes that the television network would sue them
Speaker 1: and earn them more publicity. So they intentionally did copyright
Speaker 1: infringement so that they could hopefully get in the papers.
Speaker 1: And honestly, what an influencer move for the eighties, what
Speaker 1: a publicity stuff.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm not mad at them at all of this,
Speaker 4: I am not. I love it.
Speaker 1: They said, we're going to court and we're gonna surve fits,
Speaker 1: We're gonna make sure the paparazzi's.
Speaker 3: There, and we're gonna get our bag. So slowly Chuck
Speaker 3: again stealing his father's clients one by one for himself.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I gotta say this.
Speaker 5: That's probably how meth started out as like Crack two,
Speaker 5: and then Crack sued Meth because it's called Crack two,
Speaker 5: and they're like, for Cody Bright the freshman, they like,
Speaker 5: y'all just come up with a new name.
Speaker 4: It's like, but Crack two is pretty good.
Speaker 5: It's like, well, what math we met now, but now
Speaker 5: met already on the map because they decided to come
Speaker 5: after Crack, All right, go ahead.
Speaker 3: Crack is Kirkland brand, Meth, Cheerio Jaga and Circle weeks. Yes,
Speaker 3: I kind of love it.
Speaker 1: So his specialty was creating elaborate prizes, such as convincing
Speaker 1: a dog food company to give away luxury vacation to
Speaker 1: not just one winner, but forty nine of their friends
Speaker 1: and family. Chuck expanded CBS by opening that seems like
Speaker 1: a sweepstakes. That's too good to be true. Also, I
Speaker 1: don't think of forty nine friends and family that I
Speaker 1: would want to bring on vacation, Like maybe twelve forty.
Speaker 4: Nine forty nine. That's not like cheap.
Speaker 3: Also, what an obscure number? Why not fifty?
Speaker 4: Well, I guess you gotta go. Are you fifty? You're nod?
Speaker 3: It's given.
Speaker 4: Didn't nobody have fifty friends back then? No? Now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Chuck expanding CBS by opening arm of the
Speaker 1: company to handle mail in promotions, a department run by
Speaker 1: two teenagers he had met in a parking lot.
Speaker 4: Great job, great job.
Speaker 1: Y'all want to make some money, Yeah we got We
Speaker 1: got a part time job from the parking lot.
Speaker 3: I'm not taking no jobs from the parking lot.
Speaker 4: No. But they're teens, male openers. They work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're working, and you know teens, like the whole
Speaker 1: reason that they have a lower employment rate is so
Speaker 1: that you know, they can give kids like the smallest
Speaker 1: amount of money so that they can buy this, you know,
Speaker 1: kid ship and liability.
Speaker 4: They get in trouble, they ain't going to prison. Fact.
Speaker 3: So the teens were Timothy and Lewis, and they were
Speaker 3: convinced to work for pennies.
Speaker 4: Just they sound Timothy and Lewis, They sound like home.
Speaker 4: They do.
Speaker 1: Timothy and Lewis were probably in the parking lot trying
Speaker 1: to check doors to see if any were unlocked so
Speaker 1: they could steal goods at the glove compartment.
Speaker 3: And they're like, y'all want a legit job.
Speaker 4: There's probably stilling people mail out of their cars or something.
Speaker 4: He was like, do I have a job for you.
Speaker 3: That's recruitment, okay, Chuck, you lady.
Speaker 1: So they didn't have LinkedIn, I guess, so he had
Speaker 1: to go to the parking lot to see who was
Speaker 1: down to do crimes. Now that they ran the show,
Speaker 1: Stephen and Chuck realized they could sneak more prices from
Speaker 1: the sweep states by wreaking the competition and picking their
Speaker 1: own winner. The first win was ten supermarket sweep tricks
Speaker 1: to Toys r Rusts from a Royal Desserts company. So
Speaker 1: it's like a competition from Royal Desserts, and they're like,
Speaker 1: if y'all bodies desserts, y'all bring these scratch offs, Like
Speaker 1: y'all could win a trip to Toys r Ust, which
Speaker 1: I guess is only really appealing to parents. So at
Speaker 1: the time, no one seemed to be breaking any enforceable
Speaker 1: all in order to create an appearance of well, Chuck
Speaker 1: and Steve, who had much better credit Steve had much
Speaker 1: better credit than Chuck. They purchased three limos to ride
Speaker 1: to meetings, in addition a BMW and eluxury Cadillact, so
Speaker 1: they were giving the vibes of rich when they pulled up.
Speaker 1: They pull it up to the Burger king in a limo.
Speaker 4: I'm living with.
Speaker 5: Steve, of course, had better credit than Chuck because Chuck,
Speaker 5: by all his shit cash.
Speaker 4: Chuck don't make no credit purchases. Chuck all catch he
Speaker 4: all cash.
Speaker 1: Like now, if we were talking street cred, Chuck would
Speaker 1: have better credit because he's been out here with.
Speaker 4: The mob absolutely buying his drug. He'd been alive this long.
Speaker 4: He's good for it.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I think street crad should be a part of
Speaker 1: credit credits. Already a scam. I should be able to
Speaker 1: get five references that I paid back to get a
Speaker 1: home loan. I don't understand why that's not a thing.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not like a website we needed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the new credit home me credit Street that
Speaker 3: we need that street credit.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 1: So at the same time, his father's business was failing,
Speaker 1: between the loss of clients and the introduction of scratch Off,
Speaker 1: which was a patent of Jack's ruboff, which made his
Speaker 1: business obsolete. Now I'm gonna say, Jack, I'm sorry. I
Speaker 1: did not love ruboff. I wish that you had thought
Speaker 1: of scratch off. It's just sexier.
Speaker 3: And I hate that somebody got up under you and
Speaker 3: stole that from you. That's not right. They did crack
Speaker 3: two to you.
Speaker 4: We don't like that like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, we hate that for us.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, maybe Jack, he should he should
Speaker 4: have transitioned early, but like maybe maybe you know.
Speaker 3: It's a blockbuster of scratch off.
Speaker 5: His name is also Jack, and his product was a ruboff.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna sit that right there. I'm just gonna leave
Speaker 5: that right there and say he was trying to do
Speaker 5: it together.
Speaker 4: I just put it together, I know. And it's sticky
Speaker 4: when you think about it. So I will move on.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: I know this is not what you get in my
Speaker 4: coffee shows, I promise you. But but for people understand
Speaker 4: what I just said. That wasn't too bad.
Speaker 3: That was I think we got it. Oh wow, wowzers.
Speaker 1: So Jack and Chuck remained unreconciled while Jack died of
Speaker 1: a heart attack in May of nineteen eighty six. I'm
Speaker 1: sure he was so stressed because his business got stolen.
Speaker 1: His son stole his business. Damn, I feel bad for Jack.
Speaker 1: With his father's death, CBS took Spot of Gold and
Speaker 1: its remaining clients. Damn, Chuck, you ain't right. By this point,
Speaker 1: the sweep stakes industry was now a billion dollar industry
Speaker 1: that nearly every top brand seemed to participate in.
Speaker 3: But with the increase of success came increase of Chuck's
Speaker 3: substance abuse. So they're living high. He's full with Wall
Speaker 3: Street and it's not good. So, according to him, I
Speaker 3: was on ten valume pills or xanax pills a day
Speaker 3: and several tranquilizers. So he's moved on from the uppers
Speaker 3: to very very down.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: His wife Susan became so frustrated that she called it
Speaker 3: heart named jam Yeah. You know your wives, you know,
Speaker 3: straight man, and you don't got to be shipped to
Speaker 3: get away.
Speaker 4: I mean because crag du be having chicks though, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just we see it. I don't even know how fast.
Speaker 1: So his wife Susan became so frustrated she called this
Speaker 1: hypnotist right James Parker, and hopes that he could fix
Speaker 1: her husband.
Speaker 3: James Parker.
Speaker 1: So James has sudden hypnosis since his first witness at
Speaker 1: a carnival at seven years old.
Speaker 3: Now, carnival. If you see your profession at a carnival
Speaker 3: and then you're trying to say it legit, I don't
Speaker 3: know about that.
Speaker 1: So his ultimate dream has become a famous traveling hypnotist,
Speaker 1: which is why he almost immediately found himself in Chuck's
Speaker 1: living room, putting him in a trance.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're getting very sleepy's giving that.
Speaker 1: When Chuck woke up, he claimed to be cured and
Speaker 1: declared that he was going to make James the most
Speaker 1: famous hypnotist in America. However, James had to help him
Speaker 1: just with one favor. Poe's is the winner for the
Speaker 1: Trump Plaza sweep Steaks.
Speaker 5: Time out Hypnotists. You a great hypnotist. You can't be
Speaker 5: hypnotized and then wake up being like, guess what, I
Speaker 5: don't do crack no more? You're not supposed to remember crack?
Speaker 4: What kind of hit.
Speaker 3: Him into a crime?
Speaker 4: Would you? You love crack? But when I wake you up,
Speaker 4: you're gonna be like, I don't like crack no more.
Speaker 4: Just get cracked out of here, make it.
Speaker 3: I hate cracked, but I love crime and you have
Speaker 3: to help me.
Speaker 1: But anybody who gets a profession from a carnival and
Speaker 1: it's then we already know what he's on. So it's
Speaker 1: a part of CSB Operations was creating turnkey sweep sakes
Speaker 1: promotions for companies. They had created a campaign for one
Speaker 1: of Trump's flagship casinos, the Trump Plaza Casino and Casino.
Speaker 3: Why am I saying that wrong?
Speaker 1: In Atlantic City, Trump built a thirty million dollar parking
Speaker 1: garage to entice more visitors. However, not enough people were
Speaker 1: using it, so he turned to CSB, who suggested he
Speaker 1: print promotional parking tickets that, when collected, could win prizes.
Speaker 1: So now you just parking. They were like, it's plenty
Speaker 1: of street parking, but if we do this, rub off,
Speaker 1: we might win a prize.
Speaker 4: I might strach off some free parking and other pricess
Speaker 4: what kind of prize would be, talking.
Speaker 3: Jack, A prize for going to a parking garage is
Speaker 3: wild to me. So these prizes included.
Speaker 1: Walkman's that was the time cash, an eternity of vacations,
Speaker 1: not vacations till you die, till you go to the
Speaker 1: Upper Room, or even a Cadillac Chuck simply needed James
Speaker 1: to pose as the winner of the grand prize and
Speaker 1: sell it for cash with a kickback to the company CBS.
Speaker 1: Over several days, an assistant collected enough tickets until James
Speaker 1: came to claim the Cadillac Alante Convertible Grand Prize worth
Speaker 1: fifty five thousand dollars, which is about one hundred and
Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars today with inflation. So this is a hypnotist.
Speaker 1: It kind of still look a little clean. It's definitely
Speaker 1: given eighties cars were so square in the eighties.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 1: I rocked that right Now they're like square, looks like
Speaker 1: the future. So for three days after j right, it
Speaker 1: looked even though it's not over.
Speaker 5: There about it, making it like a brick bridge, beat
Speaker 5: fast but with a wheels with wils a brickle wheel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go get everybody.
Speaker 1: They're gonna know I got money, okay when I'm driving
Speaker 1: out with my rectangular vehicle.
Speaker 4: Loved that.
Speaker 1: However, three days after James won, the nineteen eighty seven
Speaker 1: stock market crash occurred a course also known as black Monday.
Speaker 1: That's so why because I brought up Black Man Day
Speaker 1: earlier that TV show on Showtime it's so good y'all
Speaker 1: three seasons get into it.
Speaker 3: Suddenly no one wanted to buy the car.
Speaker 1: They eventually sold it for half price, and James ended
Speaker 1: up keeping four thousand dollars but was stuck with the
Speaker 1: tax bill on the entire price.
Speaker 3: That comes back to that Oprah. You get a car,
Speaker 3: you get a car.
Speaker 4: You get a car.
Speaker 1: When Oprah gave out all them cars, they didn't pay
Speaker 1: the taxes for them teachers to have them cars, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them ended up having to sell it
Speaker 1: or having to pay like seven grand in gift tax.
Speaker 5: So actually got Poniac gt G six money at GT
Speaker 5: or something like that. Anyway, I can't remember.
Speaker 3: I thought it was a Toyota.
Speaker 4: No, it was that. Now I don't think it was
Speaker 4: no Toyota. I think it was a Pontiac or something
Speaker 4: from Michigan.
Speaker 3: That was a mean lick because they were so excited.
Speaker 1: And then Uncle Sam was waiting right outside the door
Speaker 1: of the studio like, hey, before you get these keys mine.
Speaker 3: Like the whole point is we're bro.
Speaker 4: That's what people be like. This is too good to
Speaker 4: be true. And I never say stuff like that. I go, man,
Speaker 4: it's too good to be true.
Speaker 3: Right, and was yeah, yep, was alive. Still.
Speaker 1: He immediately used the money to book a plane ticket
Speaker 1: to Paris for a date with an opera singer. So
Speaker 1: he's still flexing with this little bit of cash he got,
Speaker 1: you know. So, in addition to continuing to use James
Speaker 1: to help him win prizes, Chuck also recruited his former cableman,
Speaker 1: Anthony Dandris. So somebody came and gave him some bootlet caboy.
Speaker 1: He was like, hey, man, you want to make a
Speaker 1: little money on the side as well. Oh so, how
Speaker 1: you have the same person, How do you have James
Speaker 1: winning multiple prizes? Nobody saw in the newspaper and were like,
Speaker 1: ain't that the same doodles?
Speaker 5: And that's back when people read a newspaper, so they
Speaker 5: knew James was, yeah, well James is probably man, James
Speaker 5: probably you know what, James knew the game. James go,
Speaker 5: I better win again because I got seventeen thousand DOLLARSD
Speaker 5: taxes to pay and I ain't bring home before. So
Speaker 5: I'm thirteen in the whole Your boy gonna win again,
Speaker 5: you hear me, I'm gonna call it a.
Speaker 1: Real advertized to him. It's like, give me another brush.
Speaker 1: So Chuck was like, yeah, cool, cool, and I'm definitely
Speaker 1: not doing cracking one.
Speaker 4: I will make you. Don't think I won't.
Speaker 3: I'll take it back.
Speaker 1: I'll hypnotize you back into it. Let me say the
Speaker 1: magic words. You're gonna be dawn back. Don't maybe get
Speaker 1: to the cup okay, whah, don't maybe get to the loss? Okay,
Speaker 1: better better give me money. So Anthony the cableman was
Speaker 1: lured by Chuck's promises to turn him into the next
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee. Okay, Now what does the cableman want to
Speaker 1: be Bruce Lee? Okay, as he had recently opened a
Speaker 1: kung fu school in Richmond, Virginia. So I love how
Speaker 1: he lures these men with like I'm gonna get your
Speaker 1: school popping. He's like, we are your aspirations in life,
Speaker 1: as he's installing the spectrum, like I want to be
Speaker 1: a kung fu mask?
Speaker 4: What that's how? You know?
Speaker 5: Like cable man, I always wearing them one piece jumpers.
Speaker 5: We got off work, he just put the belt on
Speaker 5: around and went straight to the karate school.
Speaker 1: He said, right now, everybody's not kung fu fighting, but
Speaker 1: if you would like them to be, come win you
Speaker 1: sake prizes with me.
Speaker 5: Shaking him by the hands. He was just bowing up front.
Speaker 5: He's like, yo, man, just shake my hand and stop bowing.
Speaker 5: Why why are you doing it? Oh, I ain't tell
Speaker 5: you I do kung fu. No, man, that's not why
Speaker 5: I invited you here. Why I'm gonna need a little
Speaker 5: somethings the cable I was talking to James.
Speaker 1: He was telling your cable shop. No, no, we don't
Speaker 1: want that, we don't need that. Why is he doing
Speaker 1: karate hands to my cable box? What is happening? So
Speaker 1: if Anthony won the two hundred thousand dollars prize money
Speaker 1: from Alpo Dog Foods, he would be allowed to keep
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand to start a national martial arts academy,
Speaker 1: where Chuck kept the rest. Okay, So Chuck and Stephen
Speaker 1: thought that they'd never get caught is there were no
Speaker 1: laws yet written about sweepstakes.
Speaker 3: However, it was one call from a once teenage employee Lewis.
Speaker 1: Not Lewis coming back, It's Lewis's girlfriend to the United
Speaker 1: States Postal Inspection Service. I have told you all about
Speaker 1: fucking with the US mail. They will get you that
Speaker 1: to their downfall. So getting caught. We're wrapping it up.
Speaker 1: So Catherine Wojahowitz called when Lewis, which was her ex boyfriend,
Speaker 1: arranged for her to win an Alpo dog food sweepstakes,
Speaker 1: and she felt something wasn't right.
Speaker 3: So her baby was like, Oh, you're gonna win this
Speaker 3: Alpo sweepstakes. Why are you called the US Inspection on
Speaker 3: your man? Yeah, but he must have been a trash boy.
Speaker 5: She was supposed to win and didn't win. So because
Speaker 5: she didn't win, she called the authority, Like, that's how
Speaker 5: everybody get caught.
Speaker 3: If somebody scoring. You can't cut people out of the
Speaker 3: money when you're doing crime.
Speaker 4: Hast win. We all don't win. I'm taking everybody.
Speaker 1: Down because now I have no liability. I didn't actually win.
Speaker 1: I can act like I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 5: Hey, him, him, him him. They told me I was
Speaker 5: gonna get twenty five thousand and then and then what happened?
Speaker 5: Her plane crash?
Speaker 4: Damn.
Speaker 1: So, as a us pis agent, Dan it was just
Speaker 1: a professional hater job. Dan Smiers begin investigating the company
Speaker 1: behind the competition. James and Chuck were running into trouble
Speaker 1: with the winners as they ran through their roster of
Speaker 1: friends of winners and quotes they called on more questionable people,
Speaker 1: which led to the posers actually winning the competition and
Speaker 1: making off with prices before CBS could demand their cut.
Speaker 1: So basically, as this inspection hater man starts to dig
Speaker 1: into it, the winners, the fake winners are like, ooh,
Speaker 1: it's hot over here.
Speaker 3: Y'all get in trouble for crime.
Speaker 1: I'm actually gonna just win and then I'm above board
Speaker 1: and I'm not giving y'all cut.
Speaker 5: You know who that is? That's them forty nine close friends.
Speaker 5: That's exactly what that's in. Forty nine close people that
Speaker 5: you would have took on vacation with you. That's exactly
Speaker 5: who that was. Because you go outside too far, somebody
Speaker 5: gonna end up talking. So you try to keep it close.
Speaker 4: But don't.
Speaker 5: Can't nobody to keep their mouths because here's the thing.
Speaker 5: If I show over with a boat, you know I
Speaker 5: ain't got boat money. You put up to that apartment
Speaker 5: complex with a boat, like, man, I know you have
Speaker 5: boat money. Oh, bro, Now you gotta explain to somebody.
Speaker 5: Let them win something. Then they come out with this
Speaker 5: catare whatever it's called. And then now you just got
Speaker 5: a bunch of apartment people with shit that they don't
Speaker 5: know how to use.
Speaker 3: And these are liabilities.
Speaker 1: Because they're like, I'm gonna snitch on you if you
Speaker 1: don't let me keep the whole prize, because now what
Speaker 1: is your hold on them? Before they were in on
Speaker 1: the grid, But now that they know the government on
Speaker 1: the your ass, they're like, listen, you either let me
Speaker 1: keep the full two hundred k or I'm calling ninety
Speaker 1: one one.
Speaker 4: I'm telling everybody. I'm telling everybody aving lived with his mama,
Speaker 4: how he got a jet ski.
Speaker 3: He's talking about, we're going to the beach. He gonna
Speaker 3: give us all a.
Speaker 4: Rod, we go on to the beach. We live in Nashville.
Speaker 3: There's no beaches beach here.
Speaker 1: They were like, look, Chuck, Steve, if y'all don't let
Speaker 1: me keep all this prize money, I'm gonna start mailing
Speaker 1: out letters. Okay, it's gonna take three or five business days,
Speaker 1: but people gonna know your business. They're gonna know you're
Speaker 1: up to they're gonna know you're up to something shady.
Speaker 1: So as they ran through their roster of friends to
Speaker 1: be winners, they called them more questionable people because now
Speaker 1: the homies who used to do it. They're not giving
Speaker 1: the prize money, so now they're just going to you know,
Speaker 1: back to the parking lot to find whoever's questionable, which
Speaker 1: led to the posers actually winning the competition and making
Speaker 1: off with the prizes before CBS could demand their cut.
Speaker 1: So even now like everyone's taking their cut and being
Speaker 1: like fuck CBS, Chuck became more frustrated and unpredictable, even
Speaker 1: removing Stephen from company accounts and threatening his family when
Speaker 1: he spoke about it. So again, just like the wedding
Speaker 1: photographer pulling up threatening, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, what you really gonna do exactly?
Speaker 5: I mean, if I'm all win fifty thous and then
Speaker 5: I'm saying I'm keeping fifteen to go. I think I'm
Speaker 5: gonna keep this fifty thout or what you really gonna do?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Who gonna check me?
Speaker 5: Boo, you take me to court, lets you send some
Speaker 5: people after me. But I got fifty thous Now I
Speaker 5: can hire protection for a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Chuck should have invested in the mob, but then
Speaker 1: he would have had even more money taken from him
Speaker 1: because they're gonna get there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, in nineteen eighty eight, with mounting lawsuits from former
Speaker 1: employees and clients Chuck's unpredictable behavior. Steve left CBS and
Speaker 1: started his own promotions company with Lewis. So now Chuck
Speaker 1: left CBS and then took the kid from the parking
Speaker 1: lot who had called the Feds and made his own company.
Speaker 3: That doesn't seem smart.
Speaker 4: No, Lowis girlfriend did that. Louis probably didn't know nothing
Speaker 4: about that. That was Lewis Booth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you're already making weird moves. Why is your
Speaker 1: booth selling you out? I mean you can't get her
Speaker 1: another for Valancie?
Speaker 5: She probably well, no, you know what it was, because
Speaker 5: she died in the plane crash two days later, wasn't it?
Speaker 5: Or two weeks later.
Speaker 1: No, she died a plane crash in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: so she was very much alive at this point.
Speaker 4: Oh oh oh, I'm sorry to continue.
Speaker 3: That was just a detail Kaitlyn gave us.
Speaker 1: So. Not long after, Agent Smyers, the hater who's been snooping,
Speaker 1: was able to track down the hypnotus James and kung
Speaker 1: fu master Anthony Woo. He gathered enough information to show
Speaker 1: CBS had been illegally rigging the games, and you're and
Speaker 1: a half later Chuck, Steve, James, Anthony, and Lewis were
Speaker 1: officially charged with mail fraud. Mail Fred is that's how
Speaker 1: they get you. It's a bitch with sentences up to
Speaker 1: thirty years. You can't do fraud in the mail, y'all.
Speaker 1: You gotta walk to their door, hand it to them.
Speaker 1: That's how you do Fried. Don't put your frid in usps.
Speaker 1: They will come get you. Okay, they got them forever stamps.
Speaker 4: That's for your's Federal Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, you don't mess with them.
Speaker 1: So they were collectively estimated to have won around two
Speaker 1: million dollars five million dollars in today's money in cash
Speaker 1: prizes after admitting to taking LSD four hundred times. During proceedings,
Speaker 1: Chuck pleaded guilty. What you at court on LSD?
Speaker 4: What Chuck? Chuck?
Speaker 5: Chuck is an American hero against all odds against dropping
Speaker 5: out of high school and then get introduced to crack
Speaker 5: and met and then working his way up to scam
Speaker 5: getting I mean he lasted way long the Indian I mean,
Speaker 5: if you're gonna go down, go down the flames. And
Speaker 5: then he was in the courtroom like I don't look me,
Speaker 5: I don't I'm high right now.
Speaker 1: We need to like a poster'll talking about Chuck.
Speaker 3: That's how he played guilty. I would I would retract that.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I was high on LSD when I
Speaker 1: played guilty. I didn't even know what you were talking about.
Speaker 1: So Steven also played guilty while James and Anthony and
Speaker 1: Lewis I was guilty.
Speaker 4: I was hypnotized. Talk to James, I've been hypnotized this
Speaker 4: whole time.
Speaker 1: He told me to scam and then he never gave
Speaker 1: me the magic word so I could stop. He never
Speaker 1: said you feel me, So that's why I was scamming.
Speaker 1: So but I love that Anthony, Lewis and James were
Speaker 1: like we innocent, and they were like, we're going to
Speaker 1: try out to fight this, and they were like, no,
Speaker 1: you're going to jail.
Speaker 3: You're definitely guilty.
Speaker 1: So the latter were sentenced to five years probation in
Speaker 1: order to pay thousands of dollars in restitutions. So James,
Speaker 1: Anthony and Lewis only got five years of probation. They
Speaker 1: just had to pick up trash, which means they definitely snitched.
Speaker 1: They went in there and just started listinglip love that
Speaker 1: they're doing more flips than Simone Biles.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, it's hard to go to like
Speaker 5: real prison for something federal when you mail come on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nah, I would have flipped too. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: how many names y'all want? If my mama got unpaid
Speaker 1: parking tickets?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: How much do you need?
Speaker 4: Get me out of here, Give me a penny piece
Speaker 4: of paper, A big maggots and fries. I got write down, everybody.
Speaker 4: I can't go to real prison.
Speaker 3: No, we're not going to prison prison.
Speaker 1: So Stephen and Chuck were ordered to pay more than
Speaker 1: a million dollars of restitution to the companies that they
Speaker 1: had ripped off, and both were sentenced to two years
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 3: Ain't bad.
Speaker 1: Both were permanently banned from the sweep sex industry, But
Speaker 1: by the time Chuck was sent to prison in nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: he had set up a new company and ran a
Speaker 1: number of competitions for his old client, Donald Trump. Y'all
Speaker 1: both criminals, y'all, both scammers. It seems like a good partnership,
Speaker 1: fake recognized faith.
Speaker 5: I told you, I'm impressed. As much as I hate
Speaker 5: these people, they know how to do wrong right they do.
Speaker 4: Once again, I love Chuck.
Speaker 3: He's a very good guy. He's just visiting jail for
Speaker 3: a couple of year.
Speaker 4: I never heard of him, never heard of him that.
Speaker 3: You're right, that's what it would be like.
Speaker 5: I never met the guy, Chuck. It sounds like something
Speaker 5: I had for lunch when I was eight. I've never
Speaker 5: heard of him.
Speaker 3: You're true, that's exactly what would happened.
Speaker 1: So the industry almost immediately died down after Craft mistakenly
Speaker 1: printed five hundred thousand winning tickets for one of its
Speaker 1: campaigns instead of one, resulting in four million dollars of compensation.
Speaker 1: Damn I was not buying singles at this time.
Speaker 3: I wasn't alive, damn it.
Speaker 1: So James has since made a career as a Las
Speaker 1: Vegas hypnotist, specializing and hypnotizing NBA players struggling with confidence problems.
Speaker 4: What for the league? James, I was like, I need
Speaker 4: to go. I need to get out of scam business
Speaker 4: and go do the lawyer's work through magic.
Speaker 3: It's like Shacks. He's like, you're gonna make the free throws.
Speaker 3: You're gonna make the free throws.
Speaker 4: My, oh, my cowboys kicker who couldn't make these field goals?
Speaker 1: I'm a cowboysy Cowboys fan.
Speaker 3: Oh so you love pain.
Speaker 4: It's a it's a hard.
Speaker 3: Get your hopes up.
Speaker 4: It's an abusive relationship. It's all emotional abuse. But it happened.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 1: And then Jerry coming out trying to keep the black
Speaker 1: people from going to school. I was like, Jerry, no West,
Speaker 1: cool lord, not you in the black and white photos
Speaker 1: doing the we're doing. We figured you was a racist, but.
Speaker 4: Like, like quiet, what olden racism I get? But come on, man,
Speaker 4: burn these pictures.
Speaker 1: Bro right, you got so much money. We got new stadiums,
Speaker 1: even though we haven't won a super Bowl. Like I
Speaker 1: was a Cowboys mini camp when I was five, by
Speaker 1: pictures of me in the uniform, like my.
Speaker 5: First it's my first started jacket. Was was it nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety two? Actually I had to pro start it. I
Speaker 5: just got the real starter two years ago for Christmas,
Speaker 5: like like to throwback from like a consignment venture store.
Speaker 5: So yes, I've been I've been on. I've been on
Speaker 5: for a minute.
Speaker 3: Anyways, our scam being scammed by loving the Cowboys.
Speaker 4: So absolutely.
Speaker 1: Stephen went on to own a Philadelphia strip club called
Speaker 1: day Dreams. All right, everyone, Stephen has had many careers.
Speaker 1: He is a serial entrepreneur, and I love that for him.
Speaker 1: He was selling panties, cars, scam ruboffs, and now he's
Speaker 1: owning the strip club.
Speaker 3: Okay, Stephen.
Speaker 1: So Anthony was able to expand his kung fu operations
Speaker 1: to fifteen other states.
Speaker 4: Wow, options, that's what I'm talking. Yeah, that's how you
Speaker 4: say that. Kong Fu operations. Hell, you better have you LLC.
Speaker 3: It's giving LLC Twitter. It truly is kung Fu.
Speaker 4: Operation, kung Fu operations.
Speaker 3: He went out and bought a bunch of different colored
Speaker 3: belts and said, let's go.
Speaker 4: He been.
Speaker 5: He've been out there, like on the power poles. Hey man,
Speaker 5: my cable working. Soon as I finished this set.
Speaker 3: He can break a cable bus a half with his hands.
Speaker 1: The kids are like, why don't we have one? He's like,
Speaker 1: now y'all better break these cable boxes.
Speaker 5: He been here trying to point like they're gonna take
Speaker 5: this poll out of two weeks. Now, give me eight hours.
Speaker 3: I get this shit down, just keeps shopping away at it.
Speaker 1: I also feel like at his kung fu schools, it's
Speaker 1: not just like white belt and then yellow or whatever.
Speaker 1: He's like white belt cream belt off cream. He's like
Speaker 1: he's been him coming back.
Speaker 5: You have reached zebra belt. Okay, man, ain't no zebra
Speaker 5: bels around here. What kind of school is it?
Speaker 4: What kind of karate school is this?
Speaker 1: You got cheetah belt? Okay, you're so close to black.
Speaker 1: Just keep working and keep coming and paying for my kungs.
Speaker 5: Trying to make you an animal with an animal with discipline,
Speaker 5: I think. Okay, Anthony, next week we open in Ohio.
Speaker 4: Okay, stopping Anthony.
Speaker 3: We got a new location. It was cass the corn Belt.
Speaker 1: Also, all of this was taking place in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: which makes absolute sense. So after prison, Chuck developed an
Speaker 1: internet scratch off game and even partner with Microsoft to
Speaker 1: run them. I love the Chuck can't lose Microsoft.
Speaker 3: Bill Gates.
Speaker 4: This give me a real catch me If you can't,
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 3: He did a little stint in jail. They're like, oh,
Speaker 3: your resume has a gap.
Speaker 1: He was like, oh, yeah, I took I took two
Speaker 1: years off to find myself in general prison.
Speaker 3: That's quiet, frost, silent.
Speaker 4: Do you know what you're doing. I'm the best baby,
Speaker 4: I'm here. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I took some time to work out read you know,
Speaker 3: be on in the yard.
Speaker 4: Yo, if you could scam people this long. You got
Speaker 4: to be the best, truly.
Speaker 1: So he passed away in August of two thousand and
Speaker 1: nine from liver cancer. Donald Trump continued to use sweepstakes
Speaker 1: in his political campaigns, promising a chance to win a
Speaker 1: dinner with President Donald Trump in New Orleans for donations
Speaker 1: of any amount not you doing the dinner with Jay
Speaker 1: Z Donald Trump. However, no winner was ever announced, and
Speaker 1: a Trump representative said there had been an administrative error.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what was that error?
Speaker 4: Fraud?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start to I'm gonna start celeffict. Shouldn't be like, oh,
Speaker 1: y'all didn't get the stuff. There was an administrative error.
Speaker 1: We forgot to administrate the stuff that we told you
Speaker 1: you would gain.
Speaker 4: I've been buying stuff on what's the website? I've been
Speaker 4: buying stuff on what's the one where people make stuff
Speaker 4: at home and then you.
Speaker 5: Buy it et Etsy. Yeah, the bought my dog a
Speaker 5: collar three times. Because the people call me back, I
Speaker 5: ain't gonna I forgot about it. I'm like, give my
Speaker 5: money back.
Speaker 4: Then? Why because you didn't make what we agreed on,
Speaker 4: that's why.
Speaker 3: But why they gave you the gym membership like.
Speaker 5: You?
Speaker 3: Because you didn't get what I said. I was what
Speaker 3: you were supposed to.
Speaker 4: That's what you did.
Speaker 3: You didn't do what you supposed were viving. Weld mail us,
Speaker 3: mail us a letter and tell us what we.
Speaker 4: Did, because you know, I ain't write no goddamn letter.
Speaker 4: You know I ain't write no letter.
Speaker 1: Go to the post office. That's what we did in writing.
Speaker 1: And then what suits you the money back? Okay, Well
Speaker 1: that brings us to the satisfy of the show, the
Speaker 1: part where I have to let tone go. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, a quick scammer of the week. This
Speaker 1: is where we highlighted Charlotte and worthy of our praise
Speaker 1: are maybe not? And today we're talking about nineteen year
Speaker 1: old Madison Russo who's been caught after scamming thirty seven
Speaker 1: thousand dollars from forty nine concerned donors after falsely claiming
Speaker 1: she had pancreatic cancer. So Maddie was arrested on January
Speaker 1: twenty third on first degree felony theft.
Speaker 3: This teenager, Oh she's a teenager. Oh let her free.
Speaker 3: She's a kid. She is playing on the internet. Oh
Speaker 3: it's not giving teenager.
Speaker 5: I mean that's a hard ship face. That's why people donate,
Speaker 5: They're like, she must have it rough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's giving. She's been living hard.
Speaker 4: That's a that's a lot of ware.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: So she documented her cancer in quotes battle on TikTok
Speaker 1: and threw her go fundme page and claimed to have
Speaker 1: had a tumor the size of a football wrapped around
Speaker 1: her spine. Content warning, this girl is wearing an offensive
Speaker 1: amount of tanner.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, can I'll kill you.
Speaker 1: She is wearing a lot of tanner and it might
Speaker 1: be contributing to her old age. Look, it's giving fruit leather.
Speaker 3: But you know, see listen if you saw Charlie and
Speaker 3: the Chocolate factory and you were like, that's my little.
Speaker 5: Face face, Like you know when a car dripping oil
Speaker 5: and they pull out a parking spot but it's rained
Speaker 5: and they had like that rainbow.
Speaker 4: Listen.
Speaker 1: I don't know what trash shot kids, but she scammed
Speaker 1: people very serious disease. So yeah, it s fucked them
Speaker 1: kids for this one. So she also claimed to have
Speaker 1: given talks about her health at events for the National
Speaker 1: Pancreotic Cancer Foundation, which the foundation denies. So she was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was just doing a speaking engagement.
Speaker 3: Well we couldn't video in there. It was no cameras.
Speaker 4: Face like a raw cinebun like it just got all
Speaker 4: of it, but it ain't been baked yet.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that's a perfect description. And it's tearing me apart.
Speaker 1: And I love this mud shot because her eyes are
Speaker 1: so wide.
Speaker 3: She's like, dang, they got it, they got it. It
Speaker 3: looks like she startled.
Speaker 1: It looks like they snatched her from wherever she was
Speaker 1: and immediately made her take a photo.
Speaker 3: Like she's still in shock that she got caught.
Speaker 4: Nowe she got halfway through a makeup right, she was
Speaker 4: probably on.
Speaker 1: TikTok beating her face talking about her fake cancer, like
Speaker 1: like how it hurts today?
Speaker 4: Like what girl, she didn't get below the nose all
Speaker 4: that raw?
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, we're given two different skin tones they got.
Speaker 1: They call her mid bronzer for sure. They were like,
Speaker 1: hands up, put the bronzer down, put.
Speaker 4: Drop, then.
Speaker 3: Drop the beauty blender. Put your hands in the air,
Speaker 3: lay on your face.
Speaker 1: So Maddie began to be discovered in early January when
Speaker 1: witnesses claiming to be medical professionals anonymously contacted authorities saying
Speaker 1: they believe there'd be many medical discrepancies in her social
Speaker 1: media posts. Now Google is free, Maddie, why did you
Speaker 1: google this? This included incorrectly and potentially life threatening use
Speaker 1: of medical equipment, in addition to it allegedly stealing photos
Speaker 1: from actual cancer patients and posting them as her own.
Speaker 1: The gofam me page was still taking donations until it
Speaker 1: was taken down in late January with a message Maddie
Speaker 1: is currently undergoing vigorous chemotherapy and radiation treatments that are
Speaker 1: making her very sick. Meanwhile, it was like Maddie is
Speaker 1: has transferred these funds to her Bag of America, so
Speaker 1: all donors will be refunded and Maddie is permanently banned
Speaker 1: from the platform. She was released on a ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars bond hours after her rest, and it is currently
Speaker 1: a waiting court. I don't know if we put Maddie
Speaker 1: in jail for a fake go fund me. I just
Speaker 1: feel like that platform. You gotta know that maybe when.
Speaker 3: You give your ten sympathy dollars, they're not going to
Speaker 3: the right place. Who gives a shit?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I think look, maybe not prison, but she should have
Speaker 5: to go teach something to inner city school with people
Speaker 5: to come teach.
Speaker 3: She just go, you want to stick this person on us?
Speaker 5: No in person, in person and just let these You
Speaker 5: know how rude high schoolers are. Now they give her hell.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 5: They gonna snap so hard that I mean, her emotions,
Speaker 5: her insides feel you can feel like she had a too,
Speaker 5: was gonna feel like it's gonna feel like she had
Speaker 5: a tumor. By the time these high school kids get
Speaker 5: done when it let them have their cell phones and TikTok,
Speaker 5: they ruin her ego.
Speaker 4: That's what that's what they should do.
Speaker 1: Hey, youplicano, oh two, I mean you definitely.
Speaker 3: Needs community service and something that's productive. I don't know
Speaker 3: if I would say jail.
Speaker 1: But also uh not pictured here, but I saw photos
Speaker 1: about this when I saw the story, she was using
Speaker 1: medical equipment and like taping fake things to her chest
Speaker 1: and like really, when I say she was giving cosplay
Speaker 1: like she was in the hospital, she really sold it.
Speaker 5: That's why you should have a licensue. I mean, because
Speaker 5: you can go get it. If she go to a
Speaker 5: medicical medical supply store, were wearing scrubs, somebody gonna sell
Speaker 5: it to it.
Speaker 4: And she just changed clothes and put a gown on.
Speaker 4: You can't be trusting these pictures, man, like.
Speaker 1: You can buy hospital gowns all willy nilly. You're right
Speaker 1: about that, you know how people look at She keeped
Speaker 1: it to her face. She got a pair of cord
Speaker 1: iPhone phone hands are stuck them.
Speaker 4: Deep and we can't tell. She just she just she
Speaker 4: just out here like this.
Speaker 5: She just y'all can't see me at home, but she
Speaker 5: just out here and she's like, oh wait, wait, let
Speaker 5: me talk it in wait was that as the door?
Speaker 4: Let me talk it it? Let me talking it deside?
Speaker 4: There we go? Do I look sick? Do I look sick?
Speaker 4: That's sad man.
Speaker 3: Also, who are her friends and family?
Speaker 1: She has good friends and family because they did not snitch,
Speaker 1: and clearly they would know if she was in treatment.
Speaker 1: The medical professional snitched on her on TikTok now her
Speaker 1: mama and her daddy not any friends. She got a
Speaker 1: loyal community and circle, unlike Chuck and Steve.
Speaker 5: I wonder if her parents are around. What her mama say,
Speaker 5: they got some quote from my mom or something down there?
Speaker 5: What her mama say, I know your mom was like,
Speaker 5: I don't know her, Like Maddie's always been distant with
Speaker 5: mental health, like, come on man.
Speaker 1: Maddie agreed there also, why would you think that you
Speaker 1: could go this public, especially TikTok. That's where the girls
Speaker 1: are like gonna research you, They're gonna be in the comments.
Speaker 1: They got all the terminology for every illness disease.
Speaker 3: Why would you think? And they love to be detectives. TikTok.
Speaker 3: People love to be like, oh y'all can't solve this
Speaker 3: cold case, I will.
Speaker 5: Tiktak ain't nothing but social saluts. That's exactly what they are.
Speaker 5: That's exactly what they are. I want how you get
Speaker 5: did you say?
Speaker 4: How she got called? How'd you get caught? Again?
Speaker 1: It was medical professionals starting to tip off, like the
Speaker 1: police and stuff, because they were like, none of this
Speaker 1: is adding up, and these photos they're reverse image searching
Speaker 1: and realizing they're not her photos.
Speaker 3: Yeah, TikTok is a Harriet the spy app.
Speaker 1: Don't go on their line because they got magnifying glasses
Speaker 1: and they will find you. They will find you, and
Speaker 1: then they'll make their own tiktoks about you.
Speaker 4: You shouldn't even have as much energy within this state
Speaker 4: to put a TikTok like this.
Speaker 1: Well, Madison. I hope you don't have to go to
Speaker 1: the clink, but I hope you learned your lesson. I
Speaker 1: think Madison's done. If you lie that hard you went
Speaker 1: on Amazon and brought you some medical equipment, She's gonna
Speaker 1: be like Chuck. She'll continue doing And.
Speaker 4: It's probably round one.
Speaker 5: This is probably she probably did a soft one just
Speaker 5: to open up, and then this one took off quicker
Speaker 5: than she could like shut it down.
Speaker 3: Soft loge scam.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm telling you. I'm telling you that's how I
Speaker 4: would have done it.
Speaker 3: And you are an expert that we got an expert
Speaker 3: on the book.
Speaker 5: Expert, ex expert, ex expert. I never did stuff with
Speaker 5: it with the computers, with the computers. I never did
Speaker 5: stuff with the computer.
Speaker 3: Yes, no, and allegedly did other stuff.
Speaker 4: We don't know what. You know what.
Speaker 3: I don't think you did anything.
Speaker 1: These days, truly allegedly allegedly. And that brings us to
Speaker 1: the end of an amazing podcast. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Tom for being here. We always ask our guests where
Speaker 1: would you like to be found? Any socials shows websites?
Speaker 5: With the end all of the watch drink Masses on Netflix,
Speaker 5: I got a new show coming out with Michelle Buea
Speaker 5: and Tasha Smith Coss Survival The Thickest on Netflix out
Speaker 5: in a few months. I'm sure trigger warning Kudi versus
Speaker 5: act me coming out in theaters this summer. Instagram is
Speaker 5: just tone bell t O N E B E O
Speaker 5: L And I just started TikTok. Actually I didn't have
Speaker 5: a TikTok and then so I just got on TikTok.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to figure that out. Uh, and then I'll
Speaker 5: be out here in the streets just on tour making
Speaker 5: people laugh. So uh yeah, that's that's.
Speaker 1: Uh, that's me, Yes, And it's always gonna stitch on
Speaker 1: your friends and family at Scam got his pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: And if you want to find me, d I V
Speaker 3: A l A c I d BA Lacy on all platforms.
Speaker 1: If you want to see all of these wild house photos,
Speaker 1: Scam got his pod on Instagram.
Speaker 3: If you want to chat with me, Scam got his
Speaker 3: pod on Twitter. Congregation, stay chucking, you know, get out there,
Speaker 3: get your chuck on, never quit, never stop. Damn gotess.
Speaker 3: This has been an Earwolf production in association with Team Coco.
Speaker 1: Scam got his stars and it's hosted by me Lacey
Speaker 1: Mosley aka the scam Goddess. Our producer is Judith Kargbo,
Speaker 1: our recording engineer is Abby Aguilar, and our audio editor
Speaker 1: is Jesse Karen.
Speaker 3: Research for the show is done by kaylen Brand Stay
Speaker 3: Scamming