Word: scam
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Sidetracked by cocaine and interior decorating, she dropped out of her acting studies at the University of Kansas. Then she read L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics, which Alley believes changed her life by making her take responsibility for herself. "I thought, O.K., this is either the world's biggest scam or it's fabulous. I stopped working, quit my job, and I drove my car to California to be a Scientologist...
...Even after her secret was out, Downs could not give up hope of recouping some losses. A few weeks later, she called her children to report, with great relief, that at long last she really had won something: two luxury cars. "Of course that was another layer of the scam," says Clute...
...different jurisdictions. In the bigger boiler rooms, jobs are specialized. "Fronters" make the initial call, working from lists of entrants into legitimate prize contests or from obituaries, or sometimes just looking through phone books for "elderly-sounding" names like Viola or Henrietta. The Sun City phone book is a scam artist's bible because it lists hometowns and former occupations of seniors. "Closers" make follow-up calls to likely marks; "reload men" make them to victims who have succumbed to previous scams. "No-sales men" make a pitch to the suspicious...
Riding the anti-lawyer wave, he didn't mince words with prosecutors: "I think frivolous lawsuits--what you do for a living--are a scam...
...scam came to light six years ago when citizens complained to the state police about spouses running off with their paychecks and parents unable to feed their children. Troopers raided a VFW post and, with the help of the FBI and the IRS, eventually uncovered a gambling empire that over six years produced $48 million for Belleville wheeler-dealer Thomas Venezia. It worked like this: tavern owners paid out real winnings to the video-poker players. The profits were split 50-50 between Venezia and his tavern-owning partners. In the course of the investigation, 27 taverns were raided. Venezia...