The Greatest SCAM you have never heard of.steemCreated with Sketch.

in life •  8 years ago 

How a guy made over $1 million dollars in a scam and how you will me happy for him when you hear how he did it.

First of all I will explain that this TRUE STORY was told to me by a Tax-Fraud inspector working for the Government. After I had heard the story I realized that by shear coincidence, I had actually met this scam artist.

I will not mention any names but what I will say is that this Tax-inspector actually admired what this scam artist had done:-I quote: "This was the cleverest scam and tax swindle the Govt Fraud department had ever seen in 50 years. It was done right in front of everyone´s faces and we had to accept that the person who did this crime would never ever be caught"

What this tax-inspector was telling me was, this was the perfect crime and its ingenuity and simplicity had to be admired.

OK, now that I have got your attention, here is the story.

At a well known children´s theme park (that I will not name), they were having problems with parking. Basically, due to the growing popularity of the theme park, the official car park was showing that it had not been made big enough, in that there was not enough parking spaces to accommodate the amount of visitors.

A temporary solution came in the form a temporary car park, and the perfect place for this was an unused farmers field directly opposite the theme park.

I had visited this theme park a few times myself and had noticed this parking problem and so the next time I took my daughter there I was happy to see that this new temporary grass car park was now available.

The only negative thing was that you had to pay a small fee to park on there, whereas the official car park was free.

Obviously the theme park had done a deal with the farmer and the farmer had decided to make himself a bit of extra cash. However the fee was so small that it was not worth complaining about - $3 dollars for as long as you wanted.

And so when the car-park-attendant came over to me, I was happy to pay.

Over the years I took my daughter to this Theme Park several more times and almost every time I had to use this grass car park.

One day tax-inspector took his family to visit the children´s theme park and became suspicious and wondered if the farmer who owned the land, had declared his earnings from all the people paying to park on his land.

And so when this tax inspector went to pay for his parking space, he had a little chat with the car-park attendant asking for certain information.

How long had the carp park been there?

The name of the farmer/owner of the land and phone number if he had one?
The car park-attendant responded that he had no idea who his direct boss actually was and that he basically just did his job. 

He suggested the tax-man spoke with the people who owned the theme-park.

"I don´t know nothing Guvnor"

And so after the tax-man had spent a nice day at the park with his family he asked to see if he could speak with the person in charge (showing his inspector badge)

Now in the office of the theme park director the tax-inspector once again asked his questions.

How long has this temporary car-park been in use?

Who is the farmer who owns the land and their phone number.

What was the deal they have with the farmer?

The answer the tax-man got immediately rang alarm bells. Basically it was the same answer as the car-park attendant. "We have no deal with the farmer at all. We do not even know who he is. Basically one day it was there and we were grateful for it solved a problem for us. No one has ever complained so we just went along with it."  Explained the Theme park director

When the tax-inspector returned to his car he had a quick look around and made a guess-timate of how many cars were parked and made a approximate calculation of how many cars per day were parking there.

The following Monday the tax-inspector organised a meeting with the fraud department and informed them that there might be a big case for them.

They made a calculation:
200 cars per day at $2 = $600 dollars per day

The theme park was open six days a week so that was $600 x 6 = $3600 per week

The theme park was only closed for 2 weeks a year so that meant 50 weeks.

50 x $3600 = $180,000 per year

The car park had be running for about 7 years so - 7 x $180,000 = $1,260,000

One million two hundred and sixty thousand dollars - and this was just an estimate.

It was very easy to find out the name of the farmer and so the very next day two tax-inspectors went to visit him.

When they arrived they found an empty house. After further investigation it turned out that the farmer had been living in Australia for the last 8 years helping out his daughter.

The two inspectors then decided to go to the car-park to speak again with the car-park attendant as he was the only one who must actually know something.

However, when they got there, everything had gone. No car-park markings and no car-park attendant. Just an empty field.

So what happened?

Basically the scam was done by the car-park attendant and know one knew he was at all. I mean how many people ever look at the face of a car-park attendant?

Perhaps we can guess how it happened.

A guy visited the Children´s theme park and noticed it had a parking problem.

It did some investigation regarding the field next door and found out that the farmer was away. He bought himself a yellow jacket like the ones used for road workers. He also bought some plastic strips and a few sticks and marked out the parking area. Bingo ready to go.

Seven years later a tax-man asks him a question and the next day he packs everything away never to be seen again with absolutely no way of tracing him.

$1,260,000 dollars Tax free.

Now ask yourself this question.

How do you feel bad about this scam artist?


Thank you for reading and for visiting my blog.

A warm welcome back next time @arthuradamson

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Exactly my thoughts. You have to admired the ingenuity of it. I mean honestly, who was harmed here- Surely this was victimless crime

Oh, come on Arthur, tax-enforcers are much bigger and more dangerous scammers! You should tell the story the other way :)

lol! I totally agree but that was not the point. It was the ingenius idea that impressed me and that he beat the system. Very rare.

Sounds like Milo Minderbender, of "Catch 22" ..but less destructive.

Absolutely. I find it difficult to feel any animosity towards this guy. He committed a crime and beat the system but who actually got hurt here.

I swam to work on a giant bottom-feeder, just the other day. Then, I left him at the carp-park, and went on my merry way.

Ha ha ha ha good one

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Ilf and Petrov wrote a hilarious books about a scammer Ostap Bender, who brilliantly use ossified bureaucratic mind of Soviet Empire. This case is actually the same diagnosis to a Western Empire.

Wow I think I have to read that book thanks for the tip

Very interesting story... although I find myself pondering the validity of calling it a "scam." Nobody was actually harmed here... people got to park in an organized place for a nominal fee. The farmer's land clearly wasn't being used, so he didn't lose valuable crops. One of the theme park's problems was actually solved... so it looks a lot like a "victimless crime" to me...

I mean they could have done it for free tbh

I would say the same thing!

Totally agree.
It was the tax-inspector who called it a "scam".
They way they looked at it was - the land was not his ,so it was trespassing.
He was profiting off the theme park.
And he avoided tax - a serious crime considering the amount of money he made.
I forgot to mention that this happendd about 30 years ago so I should imagine the value of that $1,260,000 would be a lot more if it was today,
My intention with this story was to challenge the idea of what is actually a scam - as you pointed out, who actually got hurt here. If they had caught the guy and gone to prison, ten in m view that would have been the crime. Thus highlighting that some of our laws are not morally sound.

Wow what a great scam lol and interesting story thanks alot for sharing loved the read upvoted.

Hey thanks, I mean honestly, surely this can be classed as a pure victimless crime. Good on the guy in my opinion.

It sounds more useful and less harmful than most scams!

Exactly, I mean where is the victim here?
I forgot to mention but this happened about 30 years ago so I am not sure how much $1,260,000 would be in today´s money but I bet it is quite a bit more.
My father was an accountant and he would tell me that we all have a duty to pay our taxes but we also have the right to be clever about how much we pay using all the aw that allows. But he told me that not avoiding tax is a serious crime. Still I find it difficult to feel animosity towards this man.
It makes me laugh to think I had spoken to this guy quite a few times not knowing how clever he was. He actually pretended to be dumb ha ha. A Hollywood film here somewhere lol
I agree @donkeypong not really a scam in the world or real scams where people are swindled out of their life savings and so on.

Even for one million dollars, I would not have wanted to do this job, 6 days a week for 7 years!
Too boring!

Im not so sure.
I spoke with the guy a few times and he was very sociable and loved chatting with people. I guess he had no one to order him about either. Surely he paid others to work on some some days as well
I guess it depends on your view point I guess.
How many jobs pay over a million dollars in such a short time - and his was 30 years ago so that million today would be far higher

Theory is one thing, practice shows completely different

For sure

Awesome! intuitive! bravery!

Deserves a medal in my book. One has to admire the ingenuity of it .
Cheers @parklamson

Incredible story. I am wondering what he is doing now

Ha ha probably on a Yacht somewhere.
I forgot to tell, but this was 30 years ago, so how much would that money have been today?

Haha indeed I reckon he is in mexico or something cruising on hes boat living the life of retirement for years lol.

Well I did neglect to mention that this happened about 30 years ago, so I should imagine in today´s money it would be considerably more - so yes I recon he is living the life in mexico somewhere lol! Good luck to him I say.

Interesting story. Sounds like he got by with it. My luck I would be busted on the first day lol.

Ha ha ha yeah you and me both lol.
I forgot to mention that this happened about 30 years ago so how much would $1,260,000 be if he had done this today?

I guess he didn't really hurt anyone. Each visitor only lost a small amount that they probably didn't mind paying. There's a lot of minor tax dodging going on all the time. I would think the tax man should worry more about the companies and rich people who avoid paying a lot more than this guy would have owed.

Yea I agree it does annoy me that they often spend time going after people who arent doing as much harm and put them in prison for the rest of their life while others who do more serious crimes are out in a few.

Yes pretty much exactly my view.
However, I do remember the tax-inspector who told me this story said that any tax evasion is treated very seriously. In this case the sum would have been quite high. Also this happened about 35 years ago so $1 million back then is probably more like $5 today. Still, as I say, I felt happy for the guy. Smart fellow.

I'd feel more strongly about scumbags who con one person out of thousands. The taxman deals will billions, so I don't think they really suffered, but I know it all adds up.

Absolutely no argument from me there.
It makes me laugh to think that I spoke to this guy on a number of occasions and even had some short conversations with him and from what I remember he acted like he was rather dumb, not very intelligent. Little did I know he was a genius. Good luck to him I say - surely there is a film here somewhere lol!

Genius!

This is genius. And where is the money?

I know I agree, pure genius, even the tax-inspector who told me the story expressed that in the office the scam had to be admired for its simplicity and ingenuity. As to where the money is, I reckon it is in Mexcio lol

You have to hand it to the guy! He's an entrepreneur in my book!

Haha I was thinking the same thing this guy most see opportunity everywhere lol.

LOL.
Thanks for that tale, it brightened my day.

Ha ha ha glad to hear it, I must admit, when I was told this story it cheered me up no end, only I wished it had been me who thought of such a genius victimless"scam"

Definitely a hack worth boasting about. Thanks for the story!

I thought so, cheers!