People Discuss The Biggest Scams in History

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Senior Editor
Jun 28, 2023 11:30 AM EDT

Dear Sir,

I have been requested by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. We need you to transfer at least $100,000 into an unnamed Nigerian bank account. What will you get out of this, you may ask? Just the satisfaction of helping out a well-meaning oil company trying its best in this dog-eat-dog world. We can also throw in an extra 10 million dollars sent straight to your direct deposit after you send the money, if that would help at all. 

Here at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, we love to reach out to intelligent and well-off American senior citizens like yourself. You all are so generous with your time and money. Even though you probably don't have any Nigerian ancestry and likely have never been to Nigeria, you're always free to lend a helping hand. If you're interested in reading about some of the greatest scams in history, you can scroll below to learn more! 

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  • 01
    Font - ? r/AskReddit u/GransShortbread • 1d What are some of the biggest scams to have happened in history?
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  • 02
    Font - pavioko 1d Fake selling of Eiffel tower. Twice. ... Reply 5.6k
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  • 03
    Font - SlainSigney 23h Victor Lustig, exactly who i thought of too. He had another scheme where he sold people with too much money and not enough sense a box that "duplicated currency", and then when they realized they had been scammed they would either be too embarrassed to do anything or scared of being busted for attempting to counterfeit. 42.4k
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  • 04
    Font - Gentleman-Bird - 15h He also told them that the box took 10 hours to complete the printing. This was to give him time to skip town. 4771 ↓ ...
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  • 05
    Font - Rrrrandle 13h and then when they realized they had been scammed they would either be too embarrassed to do anything Same reason the elderly are targeted by so many scammers today. Susceptible and too proud to admit they've been taken. G 464
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  • 06
    Rectangle - SnooChipmunks126. 1d Gregor MacGregor tricked a whole bunch of people into moving to a fake country in Central America. ... Reply 4.5k
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  • 07
    Rectangle - clkvang 15h I read this as Conor MacGregor and thought, wow what a career change. 2.5k
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  • 08
    Product - Zoxphyl. 20h This should be higher up. Dude made up his own world building project, as elaborate as that of any tabletop RPG or fantasy novel series; used it to lure hundreds of people to their doom; and died peacefully in Venezuela with full military honors: https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Gregor_MacGregor#Poyais_scheme 1.5k
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  • 09
    Font - neonblue3612. 1d 1 Award Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme Reply 5.7k
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  • 10
    Rectangle - Brainjacker 1d Charles Ponzi's scheme ... 42.1k 2.1k
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  • 11
    Vertebrate - insertstalem3me • 1d Damn, he was named after the term for scamming somebody, bad luck 1.4k
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  • 12
    Font - yalaket111. 1d US Telecom companies getting like 200 billion to expand infrastructure, which they didn't do - then using that money to fuck us over with the FCC's "fast lanes". ... Reply 2.4k
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  • 13
    Font - foxbones 14h Most of the money went to rural ISPs who just used the money to buy off all other rural ISPs and nearly bankrupt themselves with operating costs. CenturyLink and Frontier were the worst actors. Bought up a bunch of small local ISPs and cities that Verizon and ATT wanted to give up on supporting. Didn't make any improvements to infrastructure. Really should have had more regulation around it because that money was essentially stolen. 684
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  • 14
    Rectangle - SuvenPan • 1d 3 Awards The Church of Scientology 4 Reply 5.7k
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  • 15
    Rectangle - vokat17543. 1d 6 Awards Ticketmaster. .. Reply 11.7k
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  • 16
    Rectangle - 2221 aRealTattoo • 22h My hate for Ticketmaster is beyond anything in the world. 42.1k ↓
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  • 17
    Rectangle - G-Unit11111. 21h And they've got significantly worse in the post COVID era. ... 948
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  • 18
    Font - aRealTattoo - 20h Surprisingly I never had a problem with them prior to Covid. I was a nearly every week concert attendee for mostly smaller bands, but when Ticketmaster was used (especially wary 2010's) I didn't mind it all that much! I used to go to Walmart, go to the Ticketmaster machine in the electronic section and purchase and print tickets right there. It wasn't expensive and nearly every time I saw that all of my money wasn't going to $30 in "convenience fees." Instead I was spend
    via u/aRealTattoo
  • 19
    Font - SolarGum . 1d 1 Award The price of printer ink. ... Reply 6.4k
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  • 20
    Font - Chillypill. 23h This is really a thing the EU ought to regulate better. They have introduced USB-C for standardization, now please force printer companies to make new models that all adhere to one standard ink cartridge that must be able to accept any 3rd party made ones. 630
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  • 21
    Handwriting - Resident_World2191 . 1d It's literally cheaper by like $10-30 to buy a new cheap printer everytime you run out of ink than to buy more ink. It really is such a scam. 41.9k 1.9k
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  • 22
    Font - tefes13959. 1d For-profit colleges, especially ITT Technical Institute. Tuition for a 2-year, non-transferable degree is nearly $50,000. I taught there for almost 3 years. The horror stories stunned and saddened me. Reply 1.5k
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  • 23
    Font - No_Duck4805 - 16h I taught there for about a year. It was awful in so many ways. Clearly almost illiterate students who couldn't do the coursework but were paying crazy amounts for it and they falsified attendance records to force passage rates. I would not be surprised if they changed grades as well. I believe it did get shut down. 4146 ...
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  • 24
    Font - Tula 4ftTwelvelnches. 1d 1 Award American Hospital billing. The minute you ask for an itemized receipt and breakdown, they start removing charges left and right and the bill gets reduced by ~30%. Edit: added American ... Reply 6k
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  • 25
    Font - Lemonburn. 21h The last time I got a hospital bill, I sent it to my debt consolidation lawyers, and they were all like, "Don't worry about it." And they made the debt completely vanish. 1.8k 1.8k
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  • 26
    Font - SkootchDown • 19h Can confirm from both sides of that hospital bill! Source: I worked in billing for the largest hospital network in the South. PLUS when I was pregnant with my last child I had complications for which the treatment wouldn't be covered under insurance. We weren't advised of this ahead of time and received a bill long after delivery for $27,000 for just that portion. Because of my prior work in the billing department I knew to ask for an itemized bill. Magically, all those
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  • 27
    Rectangle - Aerobiesizer. 1d Tulips in the Netherlands in the 16th century. There was a point at which one tulip bud cost as much as a good house. Reply 2.7k
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  • 28
    Rectangle - PTVersa 1d ● The Trojan horse ... Reply 1.2k
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  • 29
    Font - bel_esprit 17h College textbooks (buying "new" editions every semester when they just rearranged a couple chapters around) ... Reply 484
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  • 30
    Font - Leothegolden • 1d 1 Award Bottled Water. Research suggests that for most Americans, the stuff in a bottle is not better for you than the stuff in your tap. In fact, a recent report found that almost half of all bottled water is actually derived from the tap, but may be further processed or tested for safety 300 percent profit for a natural resource in plastic bottle. ... Reply 1.9k 1.9k
    via u/Leothegolden

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ask reddit scammer history askreddit scammers reddit story pyramid scheme scams World History american history european history scam eiffel tower subreddit reddit thread Reddit
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