The story of a little-known 19th-century swindle
September 26, 2019 12:46 PM   Subscribe

We are presenting this overlooked chapter in the history of flimflam for two reasons. First, so that if you overhear someone loudly and repeatedly using the word infortunate in your local watering hole you do not wager money with them, and second, as inspiration for any screenwriters who need a plot device for a heist/scam/caper that's not a rehashed version of “charming protagonist steals money from unlikeable villain; hilarity ensues.”
posted by Etrigan (21 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's infortunate that such scams don't work anymore.
posted by gryftir at 12:56 PM on September 26, 2019 [4 favorites]


smart phones killed the trivia scam
posted by idiopath at 1:00 PM on September 26, 2019 [8 favorites]


I loved reading about frauds and scams, the weirder the better. This certainly qualifies.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:15 PM on September 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one who regularly takes a dictionary to the bar.
posted by mittens at 1:23 PM on September 26, 2019 [7 favorites]


I doubt anyone's gotten money for this, but do you know gullible isn't in the dictionary?

Well, it won't be if it's a sufficiently small dictionary.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 2:04 PM on September 26, 2019


Learned dandies are the worst dandies.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:06 PM on September 26, 2019 [6 favorites]


But that’s unpossible!
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:13 PM on September 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


You can update this with unpossible and embiggen.

(on preview, psych!)
posted by sjswitzer at 2:15 PM on September 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


The accomplice shills make it a little shady, but betting an easily verifiable thing is true isn’t much of a scam. Some people are just sore losers, I think.
posted by rodlymight at 2:59 PM on September 26, 2019 [4 favorites]


This description of the scam is as dry as a dictionary! The whole game rests on the performance of the three con artists, the way they work the crowd. The banter on approach, the shouted insult, the appeal to the local who thinks he's smarter than he is. The folks who worked scams like this were true artists; the fact the word is actually in the dictionary is the least of it.
posted by Nelson at 3:01 PM on September 26, 2019 [7 favorites]


The accomplice shills make it a little shady, but betting an easily verifiable thing is true isn’t much of a scam.

Think of it as a fake investment scam. Some guy says, "I'm investing $100! It's guaranteed to double when we win this bet! You should bet too." But he's not actually making a bet. He knows he's going to lose but he isn't going to lose because he's not really betting.
posted by straight at 3:37 PM on September 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


This brings to mind Damon Runyon, who has a character say
Some day, somewhere … a guy is going to come to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is never broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that the jack of spades will jump out of this deck and squirt cider in your ear. But, son … do not bet him, for as sure as you do you are going to get an ear full of cider.
The idea that this kind of thing can’t work with smart phones is ... perhaps missing the point. The problem isn’t that you can’t look up the answer, the problem is that the scammer works on your ego, so you become sure that you know without looking anything up. I am ignoring the fact that you can’t have an enjoyable conversation with anyone that is constantly looking shit up on their phone, because I expect this is a stands-and-sitters-level dispute...
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 6:03 PM on September 26, 2019 [6 favorites]


Bet you five dollars I can tell you where you got those shoes.
posted by Naberius at 7:56 PM on September 26, 2019 [3 favorites]


Delilah did NOT cut Samson's hair. Put your money on the table before you look it up...

(yep, all in with the 'sam' gag's)
posted by sammyo at 8:32 PM on September 26, 2019 [2 favorites]


(An even better version of that one is, "Did Delilah weave Samson's hair together with a loom, or did she shave it off?")
posted by straight at 10:00 PM on September 26, 2019


The idea that this kind of thing can’t work with smart phones is ... perhaps missing the point.

To me the reason smart phones make this scam unpossible is that once the bet is agreed on, rather than going to the OED or whatever everyone will just google the word, and some will find out it's a real word, and others will find this article and realize they didn't just lose a bet, they got scammed.
posted by solotoro at 5:59 AM on September 27, 2019 [3 favorites]


hey if strangers try to pull me into a disagreement about some fact by arguing it loudly, I guarantee I'm looking it up before I even acknowledge they exist

smart phones don't just change the availability of information, they change the social conventions about interacting with strangers in public
posted by idiopath at 7:58 AM on September 27, 2019


But that’s unpossible!

Unconceivable!
posted by The Bellman at 8:15 AM on September 27, 2019


To me the reason smart phones make this scam unpossible is that once the bet is agreed on, rather than going to the OED or whatever everyone will just google the word, and some will find out it's a real word, and others will find this article and realize they didn't just lose a bet, they got scammed.
It's good that no scammer would ever choose another obscure fact for a bar bet. Also, note that the scam is not a fake fact, it is an obscure fact. If you made the bet, you lost "fair and square," even though your bet was imprudent. If you feel comfortable saying "gee, I was a dumbshit so I'm not paying even though I lost," more power to you. Most people feel pressured by various social norms and find it hard to back out at that point.

I myself got taken by the "I can tell you where you got your shoes" one in New Orleans. I was asshole enough to tell the guy he could either have all the change I had in my pocket or we could call the cops, but it wasn't in a bar filled with his confederates either, which could also be a consideration.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 11:40 AM on September 27, 2019


I am having a lot of reactions to your comment! One being that I'm grateful, because I use the construction "note that" a lot, and I hadn't realized how condescending it could feel to be on the receiving end of.

Yeah, of course other people can find obscure true facts to build this scam on. It's still a scam. If the person worked alone, well, then ok, it's just someone who has a go-to bar bet. But if they have a confederate making fake bets, that is still a scam and there ain't nothing fair nor square about it. They are falsely driving up the perceived value of the bet in precisely the same way a fake bidder on eBay falsely drives up the perceived value of an object being bid on. THAT'S the scam. The word is just the hook.
posted by solotoro at 12:23 PM on September 27, 2019


smart phones killed the trivia scam

great, now I have that song playing in my head. thanks.
posted by panglos at 1:07 PM on September 28, 2019 [1 favorite]


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