Saturday, October 17th, 2026, 6:57 pm
Smelling a Scam
Filed under: Scams and/or scammers rely on misplaced trust
have a friend who keeps being scammed or falling for charlatans, repeatedly (despite my warnings about almost all of these scams). As a scholar, he has been scammed by Saudis, Chinese, Italians, and something in Malaysia and/or Korea. That last one nearly killed him, after it had wiped out all of his life savings.
I don’t know why he falls for it, I keep warning him about these things and he should know better, he’s a professor.
I think the first example goes back more than 15 years ago. He suggested I go work for some college in London, which probably turned to be somewhat of an unprofessional diploma mill. I smelled something wrong and didn’t go to an interview they had invited me to. Good. My friend later said they were horrible (he didn’t specify all the reasons; he was too focused on having a rowing machine in his office) and he inadvertently fooled some colleague from Manchester into going there; it turned out to be a mistake. Thankfully I wasted almost no time on it.
Strike 1.
A decade ago he tried to convince me to invest in some company he told me he had become a partner with. He said the head or founder was super-rich and had a castle. Not too long afterwards, after I told him he was likely faking the finances (genuinely rich people don’t need to get pretentious by getting castles), the guy filed for bankruptcy. So I was right about this.
Strike 2.
It seems like some people are naturally susceptible to work that does not pay them, making false promises or even takes money only to make it vanish away.
Strike 3 is the one he told me nothing about (until he swallowed his pride and it was already way too late).
The world is full of people who cheat, lie, and scam other people. It’s good to be cautious and presume no innocence.
