Scams & Cons
True Crime
Scammers don't steal your money, they create a world where it makes perfect sense to hand your cash over to them. Three-card-monte, the longest running show on Broadway, seems easy. You're watching the tosser and you always see the queen. What you don't see is a group of shills working you into the gate where you'll lose everything you have.Sometimes a large sum of money is accidentally sent to you and the sender asks for the additional cash to be sent back. In the meantime, they empty your bank account.We'll tell you all about the scams, how they work and why people fall for them. Don't become a sucker. Listen in.
Location:
United States
Genres:
True Crime
Description:
Scammers don't steal your money, they create a world where it makes perfect sense to hand your cash over to them. Three-card-monte, the longest running show on Broadway, seems easy. You're watching the tosser and you always see the queen. What you don't see is a group of shills working you into the gate where you'll lose everything you have.Sometimes a large sum of money is accidentally sent to you and the sender asks for the additional cash to be sent back. In the meantime, they empty your bank account.We'll tell you all about the scams, how they work and why people fall for them. Don't become a sucker. Listen in.
Language:
English
Website:
https://scamsandcons.com/
Email:
contact@scamsandcons.com
Episodes
Disaster scams
2/5/2026
Winter storms have swept the country recently and we've previously experienced other forms of severe weather or dangerous phenomena.
In this postscript edition, we tell you about the scammers who swoop in during disasters.
Don't make a crisis even worse. Listen in and find out how to protect yourself from those who want you to pay for services or say your charity money will go to help those in need.
Duration:00:11:01
Discover Unseen Influences
1/15/2026
Tell me what's on your mind.
Learn about our new podcast -- Unseen Influences. It takes you behind the scenes of the techniques others use to guide our behavior.
It officially launches in February, but Scams & Cons listeners can listen to early episodes right now. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts or by going to our website, unseeninfluences.com.
In this four-minute episode, I'll also bring you up-to-date on what's happening with Scams & Cons and give you details about what shows to expect on Unseen Influences.
Listen in -- you're the first to know.
Duration:00:03:12
The scammer's guide to easy money
12/25/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
The only ways I know to get easy money is to either to be born rich, marry a rich partner or have someone bequeath you a fortune.
If someone stepped up to us and said they have a way for us to make a lot of money fast, odds are we’d listen – listening doesn’t cost anything. Unless the person doing the talking is a scammer and they have now set the hook and may very well reel us in.
Today we'll talk about Easy Money scams and you'll learn just how easy it is for you to lose your cash.
Duration:00:18:29
The cons that helped the Texas 7 escape prison for 41 days
12/11/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
It's not easy to escape from prison, but when you have a lot of time on your hands and experienced con artists available ... well, it's going to be inevitable.
A few weeks ago, we looked at how con artists used their skills to escape a highly secure prison. This time we're looking at the case of the Texas 7 who managed to escape, but not without costing a police officer his life.
The Seven were on the lam for 41 days, but then police used cons of their own to bring them back to jail. We'll tell you how.
Duration:00:32:16
Our fears make us perfect marks for scammers
11/27/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
Fear gets your attention. It throws you off-kilter. It corrupts your judgement.
You recover quickly when surprised by a spider. The impact is greater if you awaken in the night and see a stranger standing at the foot of your bed.
In this episode, we tell you how scammers use fear to get us to do things that interfere with our ability to reason and recognize the scam for what it is.
Duration:00:14:24
Romance scams are getting more sophisticated
11/13/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
The basics of romance scams haven't changed all that much. Find someone who is lonely, gain their trust and affection, then bleed them dry of all the money and assets they have.
In this update to season one's story, we tell you how scammers are using new techniques and technology to make their efforts more effective and dangerous.
Duration:00:18:57
The cons that convicts use to escape prison
10/23/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
Why would a good scammer give up their trade just because they are in prison where those skills could be used to escape?
If they are bold enough, they wouldn't.
This is the tale of the Maze Prison Break. Maze is a prison within a prison within a military base. It took a lot of planning and a lot of cons, but they got out. We'll tell you how.
Duration:00:29:08
Scammers impersonate funeral directors to take money for video feeds
10/9/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
Nearly all scams are impersonation scams. They need you to believe they are someone else in order to get you to hand over your money.
In this episode, we tell you about some of the new ways scammers are using impersonation techniques to rob you and why it's only going to get worse in the future.
Duration:00:17:48
The objects tricksters use to distract you
9/25/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
In our last episode, I told you about social engineering -- how a con artist's patter can convince you to do anything. But sometimes props are needed to make that tale seem more real.
In this episode we talk about the devices and distractions tricksters use to keep you from noticing your money is slipping from your fingers.
Duration:00:16:41
When scammers speak, they leave you no choice
9/11/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
Nearly all scams are built around the technique of social engineering. Con artists know how to manipulate you, what buttons to push and allow you to believe you made a choice you never had.
In this episode, we explore the techniques of social engineering and why we're all vulnerable to them.
And you'll hear a scammer confess to her crime and said she took advantage of an elderly couple because they were "good people."
Duration:00:20:54
Season 9 begins Sept. 11!
8/28/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
We're ready to go back to school with Scams & Cons classes that begin Sept. 11.
Enjoy the long weekend, then it's back to the fun!
Duration:00:00:39
Someone in St. Louis is channeling my thoughts
7/24/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
It's time for our summer break so I can prepare new episodes for season 9. Listen in as I give you the details and respond to some listener notes.
Have a great summer and make some time away from the news to have some fun. You deserve it!
Duration:00:03:10
Scammers are pretending to be exorcists
6/19/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
If you bought tickets to a pop-up taco museum restaurant in San Antonio, you got scammed. If someone wants to hook you up with a priest who does exorcisms, beware. But we begin with the story of a brand new scam called call merging. It involves merging your phone call with a scammer and a bank’s two-factor authentication system, stealing your secret code.
Duration:00:09:27
Scamming for hotel rooms with roaches and used condoms
6/5/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
More than 60 hotels are conned by a man who dirtied rooms with roaches and condoms, and scammers are showing up at people’s doors to collect money they say they are owed. And I want to tell you the tale of a gambit that I can't call a con, but it's a great way to lose your money.
Duration:00:14:22
How to stay safe from nearly all scams
5/22/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
We're all vulnerable to scams, but we don't have to be willing victims. Today I'm doing something I should have done a long time ago -- tell you just what to do so thwart scammers.
Duration:00:21:47
New scam targets those who tap credit cards
5/15/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
A new scam is moving across the country that can capture the information on your credit card's chips, plus Minnesota legislators are considering a law that would reimburse victims of scams.
Duration:00:13:20
The Scopes trial was a scam -- but not necessarily a bad one
5/8/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
What some of you may remember as the Scopes Monkey Trial is a scam. If you don’t know about the trial, you may know about the movie, “Inherit the Wind,” which – and I’m being charitable here – took poetic license with the truth. Today, as we near the 100th anniversary of the trial, I tell you why.
Scopes 100 Celebration
Duration:00:32:49
Butcher scammed out of meat
5/1/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
Alabama leads the nation in losses from online scams and a Massachusetts butcher shop owner says he was scammed out of $60,000 of meat. Plus, we'll update you on the Frye Festival scheduled for Mexico, but who knows where in that country it will be?
Duration:00:25:41
The most notorius scammers
4/24/2025
Tell me what's on your mind.
There are con artists who have pulled off major cons. What they do is so ballsy, it’s hard to believe anyone would fall for them. Yet, in the annals of history, they live on.
Today on Scams And Cons, we'll tell you their stories.
Duration:00:26:22
Scammers begin work without authorization - and make the victim pay
4/17/2025
Send us a text
We'll tell you the story of con artists who preyed on the elderly with home remodeling scams. One was brazen enough to outright tell the homeowner what needed to be done and begin work.
Duration:00:16:34