Three links, all to do with scams

[dolorosa_12]

I have an endless fascination with scams, pyramid schemes, and multi-level marketing schemes (whether they involve crypto bros or fundamentalist stay-at-home mothers selling leggings and essential oils). There’s something about the peculiar, cultish nexus of capitalism, evangelical religion and self-help that is both infinitely interesting, and desperately sad.

I’m not sure if the release of the glossy new Shondaland drama about Anna Delvey happening at the same time as these three deep-diving articles is a coincidence, but in any case it’s an interesting juxtaposition.

These Women Say Satan Has Taken Over An Essential Oil MLM

The elaborate con that tricked dozens into working for a fake design agency

‘I More So Consider Myself a Con Artist Than Anything’ What Danielle Miller learned at Horace Mann and Rikers. (With bonus Anna Delvey: apparently there is something of a revolving door of overlapping New York socialite financial scammers.)

All three stories are at once fascinating from a sociological perspective, and desperately sad when thinking about the individuals involved.

Comments

[darkmarcy]

You put if perfectly, these things are infinitely interesting and desperately sad. And I am going to read all of those links.

[lirazel]

I have an endless fascination with scams, pyramid schemes, and multi-level marketing schemes (whether they involve crypto bros or fundamentalist stay-at-home mothers selling leggings and essential oils). There’s something about the peculiar, cultish nexus of capitalism, evangelical religion and self-help that is both infinitely interesting, and desperately sad.


Saaaaame. I could have written these sentences myself.

And I will definitely check these out, so thank you for linking them!

[ermingarden]

Wow, those articles were fascinating – thank you for sharing!

I read a book last year you might like, since you're interested in scams – if you haven't read it already: Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope. It's about Jho Low and the 1MDB scandal, and it's almost unbelievably wild.

[olivermoss]

Oh cool! I'd just been reading about the fake design agency.

[blackcatofmisery]

"infinitely interesting and desperately sad" is the perfect description. I don't really understand the technicalities of their schemes; I get more of the psychology and reasoning behind their actions, which I find just as fascinating. My big takeaway is always these people are really ballsy to carry out their crimes. They're on a different level than a personal murder or break-in robbery.

=^..^=~

[naye]

Thank you for these links - I am absolutely the same with scams and MLMs (and also cults, because - honestly, where do you draw the line sometimes?). I wish the Anna Delvey thing had been a little more, hm. Concise? Or a straight up documentary. But man, what a story. Looking forward to reading these three!

[adore]

You might have seen this already, but here's a piece about the literary conman Don Mallory: A Suspense Novelist's Trail of Deceptions. The mindfuckery when I first read it. The guy tried to write a dissertation on Patricia Highsmith's Mr. Ripley. Apparently inspired by him, he became an emotionally manipulative impostor of the publishing world. He was an editor for Sophie Hannah who wrote about an impostor in her post-Christie Poirot novel, 'Closed Casket.' 'While Hannah was writing “Closed Casket,” her private working title for the novel was “You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Poirot’s About You.”' He told lies that were 'singularly advantageous to his career' and hurt people without crossing any legal lines. The publishing industry is wary of him now, but his first thriller about a guy who emotionally manipulates his victims was a bestseller.
Gah.

[author_by_night]

I need to check those stories out later! I find scams sociologically interesting as well.

[singedsun]

Highly recommend the podcast by Robert Blevins, Life after MLM. She exited LulaRoe and has taken on calling out the predatory nature of MLMs on a variety of platforms, but the podcast is really good.