Oh the Places You'll Go
Famous Liars
Infamous Scams
Name that Fraud/Scam Scheme!
George Santos Claimed...
100

This city's famous tower, constructed wholly of wrought iron bars, was built for the 1889 World's Fair. Since 2000, the tower has also included a sparkling light show for five minutes on the hour from sunset until 1 AM. 

Paris

100

This famous literary character from West Egg lied about a lot of things: His romantic life; his past; the origins of his ostentatious wealth, actually amassed through grubby bootlegging. But the small, practical lie is the fact that the handsome books in his library have uncut pages, proving that he hasn’t ever opened them.

Gatsby

100

Sam Bankman-Fried, the head of this cryptocurrency company, transferred at least $4 billion of his clients' dollars to an investment company run by (one of?) his girlfriends before filing bankruptcy and being arrested in the Bahamas. 

FTX

100

This type of scheme is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Bernie Madoff is probably the most famous recent example. 

Ponzi

100

That he graduated from two universities. Name one of them. 

NYU and Baruch College

200

The massive Christo Redentor statue is perched atop a mountain in this city. The city also hosts what is thought to be the largest carnival festival each Spring before lent. 

Rio de Janeiro

200

Believe it or not, this famous liar got his start in the 1930s publishing magazines that claimed, for instance, that the United States didn't have a national anthem (it did) before branching out into the museum industry.

Robert Ripley

200

In 1899, con artist and future mayor Peaches O'Day sold this bridge for $200, William McCloundy served two-and-a-half years in Sing Sing prison for selling the bridge in 1901, and George C. Parker sold it several times over the course of his life.

Brooklyn Bridge

200

Dear Sir/Madam,

A wealthy businessman has given you $10 million dollars after he dies. We just need you to wire us a $2000 processing fee so we can deposet the funds in your account. 

Best,

Reginald King esq.

Advance Fee Scam (will also accept Nigerian Prince scam).

200

That his grandparents fled this tragic event to Brazil. When reporters found out that no one in his family Jewish, Santos later said that he actually said that he was "Jew-ish."

The Holocaust

300

This city in China's largest according to population, with nearly 25 million inhabitants. It is also the fifth city in the world with the most skyscrapers. 

Shanghai

300

This trickster god in Norse mythology often bends the truth (and sometimes victims' perception of reality) to achieve his goals - or sometimes just to sow some chaos. 

Loki

300

In scams called this, the record industry manufactured hit songs by paying DJs large sums of money to give their records extra air time.

Payola

300

Scammers will often call people to tell them that they are from this federal agency and that the person needs to urgently pay a fine that has been levied against them for failure to pay taxes. 

IRS

300

That he started a gofundme to save this furry friend from dying of cancer. He later refused to give the owner, who is a veteran, the $3000 raised and the pet later died. 

A dog

400

This city was once the capital of the sprawling Byzantine Empire, a successor to the Roman Empire in the easter Mediterranean. The Byzantine emperors constructed the Hagia Sophia church, which has now been repurposed into a mosque. 

Istanbul

400

"I am not a crook." He was. 

Richard Nixon

400

This televangelist and his wife Tammy Faye had been bilking their supporters, viewers, and investors, a fact that came out only in the wake of a far more salacious scandal. After he paid church-secretary-turned-actress Jessica Hahn nearly $300,000 to keep quiet about a sexual affair of disputed consensuality, the public learned about the financial scam, and he landed a 45-year sentence, which was later reduced to eight years. He now hawks doomsday prepper equipment online.  

Jim Bakker

400
FGCU ITS hates these types of scams, where scammers will send you to fraudulent websites to enter important information like the login details for your banking account. 

Phishing

400

That this family member died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (they didn't). He later claimed that the family member actually fled from the south tower and later tied of cancer tied to toxic fumes from the attack (they didn't). It was later discovered that the family member wasn't even in the United States at the time of the attack. 

His mother

500

This African city includes the famous Table Mountain that looms over the city. It was first established by Dutch colonists in the 1650s. 

Cape Town

500

This famous cyclist denied for years that he hadn't taken any performance enhancing drugs before confessing to Oprah on her nationally televised show and eventually being banned from professional cycling. 

Lance Armstrong

500

This famous homemaker/businesswoman engaged in insider trading to make more money on the stock market. She was eventually convicted and spent some time in a federal lockup. She's also seemingly friends with Snoop Dog. 

Martha Stewart

500

Fraudsters using this type of scam will slide into your DMs professing deep and instant love, before an urgent family medical crisis leads them to ask for your monetary help. 

Dating/Romance scame

500

That he was a star in this sport (we wasn't) while he attended Baruch College (he didn't). He claimed that he led the team to a district championship as captain (he didn't). 

Volleyball