Do you like your true crime to be rather less…murder-y? Do you’re keen on a narrative about somebody who cons folks prefer it’s their job (as a result of it’s)? Are you fascinated by the intricacies of pulling off the proper rip-off?
Possibly your obsession with scamming started with fraudsters who ended up with Netflix offers like Soiled John, the story of Debra Newell, whose new boyfriend John Meehan was too good to be true within the worst manner potential. Or perhaps it was with the tiny pinprick of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.(opens in a brand new tab) Or Anna Sorokin(opens in a brand new tab), who defrauded her manner into the higher echelons of society.
Podcasts about cons and the individuals who carry them out abound proper now. So we have compiled an inventory of one of the best true crime scammer podcasts on the market, every little thing starting from the hilarious to the deeply unsettling to the mysterious and sure, even the extremely fibrous.
Laci Mosley’s podcast about scams is on many “better of” lists, and there is a motive for that. Each week, Mosley dissects the artwork of the con alongside a visitor comic.
The present has three components: scams to be careful for, through which Mosley reads emails from listeners (members of her CONgregation) who’ve fallen sufferer to a con, adopted by a dissection of a historic con, and concluding with listening to from her visitor about cons they have been concerned in, willingly or not, and each episode culminates in telling us the story of the Scammer of the Week.
Do not miss out on this one—you will snigger your face off.
The excellent news: Within the information greater than ever is catfishing, the observe of making a fictional persona, often on social media, with the intention of focusing on somebody for cash or simply to be terrible.
The dangerous information: Individuals are nonetheless catfishing different folks, even their family members. Candy Bobby is the story of British radio presenter Kirat Assi(opens in a brand new tab), who spent nearly a decade within the grip of a rip-off perpetuated by “Bobby,” who—spoiler alert—turned out to be her feminine cousin, Simran Bhogal.
Whereas the truth that Assi’s catfisher was a member of the family is stunning, understanding that entering into would not take away from the expertise of listening. Candy Bobby is not solely a narrative about being scammed, it is a story of communities and their norms, sufferer blaming, and the query of whether or not or not justice is ever actually achievable.
In case you’re fascinated by tales of fraud and in addition love TikTok, Scamfluencers is the podcast for you.
Hosted by Scaachi Koul and Sarah Hagi, every episode is a take a look at an influencer whose life we will not assist however envy, and who additionally convinces us to make them richer, at our personal expense. There are imaginary luxurious resorts, predatory yoga instructors, pretend royals, and even the downfall of a Actual Housewife.
Scamfluencers is a captivating mixture of sobering and humorous, and it may need you checking your Instagram much more usually, and with extra skepticism.
Untangling true crime: Contained in the ethics of Hollywood’s biggest responsible pleasure
Who would not love pyramid scheme, in any other case generally known as Multi-Degree Advertising? Properly, lots of people, in all probability, particularly these victimized by them.
Season One among The Dream goes deep into the world of MLM, together with its historical past, methods, downfalls, and host Jane Marie’s private connections to the scams—lots of her feminine relations eat, breathe, and sleep them. It is a cozy and disarming examination of gender, socioeconomics, and relentlessly striving for achievement, even when it comes on the expense of your family members.
Season Two can also be an incredible pay attention. It dives into the world of wellness, together with important oils, crystals, drugs, powders, and different routes to changing into your best, most engaging, healthiest self. However is any of it regulated? Is it secure? And if we actually can dietary complement our manner into residing ceaselessly, at what value?
Hosted by New Yorker author Maria Konnikova, The Grift is a disturbing journey into the minds of con artists. From psychics to cults to artwork fraud and past, this podcast has one thing for everybody who needs to understand how you get began in conning, the way you maintain the con, the way you get caught, and the way you spoil folks’s lives.
It isn’t an Fool’s Information to Scamming, although. As an alternative, every episode is a reminder that anybody could be lured right into a rip-off, so long as the con artist can get them to let down their guard, by urgent down on the components which might be most tender.
In “The Faith of the Black Canine,” Konnikova attracts a direct and durable line between a rip-off and a cult. Individuals are sure they’re too good to fall for each, nevertheless it’s merely a matter of assembly the improper particular person on the improper, or perhaps proper, time. It isn’t a matter of intelligence, The Grift reminds us that it is the truth that everyone seems to be lonely and susceptible in some unspecified time in the future, and that is when the rip-off swoops in.
“Everyone seems to be so completely satisfied and so goddamn filled with fiber!,” declares Casey Wilson, the host of Fed Up.
After all, which means issues had been about to go downhill quick for Tanya Zuckerbrot. The superstar dietitian and founding father of the F-Issue weight-reduction plan(opens in a brand new tab) guarantees “everlasting” weight reduction whereas sustaining a sense of fullness, achieved by stuffing your self with fiber (35 grams day by day, 10 greater than what’s really helpful for girls(opens in a brand new tab)) within the kind complete grains, nuts, greens, and clearly, F-Issue bars and dietary supplements.
Fed Up follows the continuing feud between Zuckerbrot and influencer and entrepreneur Emily Gellis(opens in a brand new tab). Gellis stated she skilled a scary aspect impact after attempting the GG cracker and a powder, staples of the weight-reduction plan, and finally determined it wasn’t for her. Gellis realized in regards to the experiences of different girls on the F-Issue, together with reported hair loss, allergic reactions, bloating, disordered consuming, and even miscarriages, in addition to allegations Zuckebrot suggested these on the weight-reduction plan to cease taking their anti-anxiety medicine in an effort to drop some pounds.
She used her social media platform to gather and submit the customarily nameless claims of F-Issue individuals who acquired sick. Then got here the articles, the threats, the lawsuits, the trolling, the catfishing, and a story of how the very wealthy, the very linked, and the very highly effective can gaslight us into believing nearly something.
Kast Media’s The Opportunist zeroes in on the lives of the folks we should always in all probability worry probably the most: those that look like aggressively extraordinary.
Everyone seems to be simply attempting to get by, so why ought to we be suspicious of a household enterprise or a small-town physician? It is as a result of opportunists are ready for simply the best second to let down the guise of normalcy and pounce on probably the most susceptible folks, these on a perpetual quest for household, love, vanity, and safety, inflicting not solely a monetary catastrophe, however an emotional one for these on the receiving finish of the rip-off.
Host Hannah Smith unfurls every story with an eye fixed for element, and it is the eye to those particulars that usually causes issues to disintegrate for the scammer. Take a look at the newest episode, the place a Ferrari idles in entrance of a psychic store for a bit too lengthy.
AARP (sure, that AARP(opens in a brand new tab)) actually doesn’t need us to fall for scams, so that they made a podcast about it. The Excellent Rip-off is about standard scams (10+ seasons price), these which might be so extraordinary we’d not even acknowledge them as such.
You would possibly know to not reply a Robocall, however what occurs should you do? Have you ever heard in regards to the pretend COVID take a look at rip-off? What about pet scammers? There are work-from-home scams, GoFundMe scams, Zelle fraud, cryptocurrency, and naturally, folks pretending to have terminal sicknesses.
In our day after day, we’re on the verge of getting scammed on a regular basis, and perhaps it is solely by sheer luck that we handle to keep away from it, however for the way lengthy?
On this Audible Unique podcast, host Dov Fox, a legislation professor who researches the legality of genetic privateness, investigates the repercussions of deceit.
Wendy Norman seen one thing was improper along with her youngest kid’s psychological well being, however she did not be taught till years later, through a information broadcast, that it was linked to one thing a lot bigger and extra sinister.
Norman and her spouse Janet, together with 36 different households, had obtained sperm from Donor 9623, a person whose profile at Xytex Corp., an Atlanta-based sperm financial institution, led them to consider he was clever, formidable, and achieved. Not solely had he lied about what levels he had, however he’d did not disclose that he was additionally schizophrenic, based on experiences.
It seems that whereas Xytex claimed to confirm what donors informed them about themselves, they reportedly did not, and there was little or no oversight in relation to egg and sperm donation(opens in a brand new tab) typically. So what occurs to the households who fall sufferer to this significantly nefarious sort of fraud? The implications go far past what’s thought-about authorized.
Cass Alcide and Taylor Davis love getting all the way down to the nitty-gritty of the rip-off, particularly its implications within the bigger context of race, class, and gender. There’s the insufferable whiteness of the Faculty Admissions Scandal, the entitled mess that’s the Prosperity Gospel(opens in a brand new tab) behind Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s Evangelical empire, and the obvious misogyny of the Hustlers rip-off.
Taking a look at scamming by a lens of intersectionality is important to understanding how and why folks get scammed, and the way we’d have the ability to stop it earlier than it occurs. There aren’t very many episodes of Rip-off Metropolis, so treasure what we do have, and let the much-needed evaluation make you assume.