12.06.2006

Real Hustles

The Real Hustle Real Scams

Here are five of the best (or, if you're on the receiving end, the worst) scams in the book, as explained by the real hustlers themselves...


1. Bluetooth hack
The con: Bluetooth is great for swapping photos with friends or connecting your mobile to a laptop. But did you also know that while you are accessing another person’s device with your Bluetooth, a hustler could be hacking into your mobile using an inexpensive PDA and software downloaded off the net?

How it works: A hustler takes control of your phone and makes it dial a premium rate number he is collecting the profit from.

You could be £1.50 a minute out of pocket until your phone runs out of battery!

A hustler hanging about in a public place like a train station can connect to, and take control of, up to 50 phones an hour.

Another phone fraud, and one of the most common frauds today, takes advantage of people's greed and lack of common sense. Fraudsters send out flyers offering a big-money prize. Then, after a £15 ten minute call to a bogus premium-rate number, the victim finds out they have won a keyring or some worthless vouchers.


2. The Monte
The con: The three-card Monte originated on the gambling riverboats of the Wild West, but is still played in major cities around the world. It’s a form of “find the lady” and if you're foolish enough to have a go, you'll never win.

How it works: The Monte is a classic group scam. Each gang member plays a specific role to perfection. Hustlers surround a victim, or "mark", and convince him to bet on a rigged game. Using about 10% sleight of hand and 90% psychological pressure and intimidation, the mark is forced to bet and, ultimately, lose.

If the mark refuses to bet, the gang often simply mugs or pickpockets him in the more conventional way.


3. The Jam auction
The con: Jam Auctions involve “jamming” a big crowd into a shop which has been taken over for a few days by the gang. "Lucky" customers are then persuaded to part with their money for apparently cheap-as-chips electronic items.

How it works: The shop is filled to the rafters with gadgets and gizmos which are offered at a bargain price to anyone willing to pay cash for a “mystery bag” – which the hustlers say will contain a selection of products worth many times the value of the cash handed over.

As soon as the victim parts with their cash they are bundled out of the shop and left to discover the harsh facts: they’ve just bought a pile of worthless rubbish – sometimes just stones in a box.


4. The Wi-Fi hack
The con: Hackers hide out in wi-fi hotspots (cafes, airports, stations) and re-beam the signals from their own equipment into hi-jacked laptops.

How it works: Using a laptop and a transmitter the size of a pack of cigarettes, they can set up their own wireless network in a public place. If the unwary log on, their credit card details can be stolen, as well as other sensitive information stored on their computers.


5. Cashpoint fraud
The con: In the UK, a fraudulent bankcard transaction takes place every seven seconds. Gangs of cashpoint fraudsters have been targeting ATM machines all over the UK and Europe to get our card information and PINs.

How it works: A magnetic reading device and a video camera is fitted to an ordinary cashpoint. When the victim uses the machine the thieves steal the magnetic strip information from their card and get a video record of the PIN.

They then produce a new cashpoint card using a blank such as a pre-pay mobile phone top-up card. They wait until five to midnight and withdraw the maximum daily amount, then at five past midnight they take out the next day’s limit as well.

New Chip & Pin technology is helping to safeguard against this, but teams of fraudsters can still take the information off British cards, clone them and pass them on to teams who use foreign cashpoints to clean out accounts.

Police and banks advise the public to never put their card into a machine which looks like it has been tampered with, and to always shield their PIN.

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