DailyDirt: Scams To Get Rich Quick

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Tue, Aug 13th 2013 5:00pm — Michael Ho

There are all kinds of ways to make a little bit of extra cash -- and some methods are more unsavory than others. Maybe you think you can convince a bunch of people to join your new multi-level marketing scheme. Or maybe you think you've outsmarted an insurance company with your own (better!) actuarial formula. Here are a few stories on the topic of making some easy money, as long as you don't mind being a bit of a sleazeball.

Dmitry Argarkov didn't like the terms and conditions in a letter offering him a new credit card, so he modified the agreement, signed it, sent it back to the bank, and the bank accepted it and sent Argarkov a new credit card. According to Argarkov's terms, that card had a 0% interest rate, no fees and no limit -- and obviously there are pending lawsuits over this agreement. [url]
An extortion scheme that seems to work: step 1 -- publish public domain mugshots, step 2 -- ask for money to stop publishing aforementioned mugshots, step 3 -- profit. States like Florida seem to make it pretty easy to obtain mugshots... (so don't get arrested in Florida!) [url]
Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens and 27 other wealthy individuals already had enough money to live comfortably, but rich people live longer than the average Joe -- and taking out a life insurance policy could be an interesting way to finance a significant endowment to Oklahoma State University. The 'Gift of a Lifetime' plan fell through, but Pickens is rich enough that he's covering the financial hit for the university. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

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Filed Under: credit card, endowment, extortion, fraud, gift of a lifetime, life insurance, money, mugshots, oklahoma state university, plot, public domain, rich, scams, scheme, t boone pickens

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 13 Aug 2013 @ 5:13pm

Oh my, who could have EVER guessed that Florida would be involved in a scheme to blackmail people with a criminal record for a profit?

Surely NO ONE saw this coming after electing a governor who's medical company got the US's largest ever fine for Medicare fraud!

A real shame that there's no civil mugshots of him for his civil law breaking, then maybe he'd feel differently about mugshots on the web.
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Rekrul, 13 Aug 2013 @ 6:48pm

Man alters credit card contract
If the bank signed his altered contract without reading it, I don't see how they have a leg to stand on. "I didn't read the fine print" doesn't work for people who sign the standard contract and then get hit with hidden fees, so why would it be accepted if a bank does the exact same thing. I don't see how it's "fraud" to alter a contract and then mail it back. If they didn't like the terms, they shouldn't have signed it. Isn't that what they tell customers?
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PopeRatzo (profile), 13 Aug 2013 @ 7:18pm

Re: Man alters credit card contract
Banks have lobbyists. You do not. That's why "reading the fine print" is a standard you are held to, but oh my, you can't expect the poor bank to do that.

If you want to see the "read the fine print" scam by banks writ large, just read some of the stories at nakedcapitalism.com about the mortgage scandal. Banks paid a billion dollar fine because they had 100X that amount invested in mortgages for which they did not have the paperwork to even establish who owns the property. So, they just typed up whatever they damn well pleased and expected the courts to enforce them. Often, they weren't even the party holding the mortgage, but they still foreclosed. Tens of thousands of times. Part of the fine is that they get to keep it out of the media.
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PopeRatzo (profile), 13 Aug 2013 @ 7:20pm

Re:
Not only that, but the governor in question looks like an insane serial killer.

This is what happens when you let people who are too old to remember what they had for breakfast vote.
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Andrew Lee (profile), 13 Aug 2013 @ 7:35pm

one word
Prenda
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JustSomeComedian, 14 Aug 2013 @ 5:44am

Boone Pickens??
So Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens, surely he should be referred to as rich Pickens.

Boom boom, thank you, you've been a fabulous audience, I'm here all week :-)
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2013 @ 6:37am

Re: Man alters credit card contract
It should be noted that the man won the case, and only has to pay back his original balance (no fees or interest.) He then sued the bank for the cancellation fees that he had put into the contract, and the bank counter-sued him for fraud (signing a contract is apparently fraud)
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2013 @ 6:59am

Re: Man alters credit card contract
Why should one party set all of the terms of a contract? Mr. Agarkov isn't a sleaze for doing this. Actually, he's on the savvy side.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Aug 2013 @ 10:41pm

Re: Re: Man alters credit card contract
It's in Russian contractual law: sending you as a member of a public a document (like the credit card solicitation) is considered an "oferta" (offer); sighing it is "accepta" (acceptance of the offer) that makes the contract valid. However, many forget that the second party is allowed to come up with counter-offer, so now they are making the oferta to the original party, and tables get reversed � and that's precisely what happened to the bank.

Moreover, the guy intentionally failed to pay his minimal payment, so the bank took him to court, and the court has confirmed that that contract was legal and binding. And after then, the guy sued the bank for the one-sided contract modifications (he cleverly inserted "in case of one-sided modification, the party making one pays the other party $million per modification"), and the previous court *confirmed* that the contract is legal and binding, so the bank has its back against the wall now: they cannot claim the contract is fraudulent because it has already been tested in the court and stood.
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Merlin Arthur, 30 Oct 2013 @ 4:36am

hello
i want to get rich quick
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Carol, 29 Dec 2013 @ 1:04pm

To get rich quickly
i want to get rich badly so i want anyone to help. No scams. email me asiimweC5@gmail.com
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