Content tagged with “fraud” under “The Interesting List”

“ Scam call center operating from East Asia hold victims’ passports and keep them in debt bondage, while presenting themselves – and even internally operating – as legitimate businesses. ”

“ A researcher found that many records of people living over 100 years were concentrated in places that had no birth records and high rates of pension fraud. ”

“ Details of a brazen hack of the multi-state lottery system by one of the key security employees that resulted in multiple lottery winnings. ”

“ Pretending to have native heritage is not uncommon in Canada, where financial incentives are often involved. This is the story of how a mother and her two daughters played the system for gain. ”

“ The tiny subculture of coast-to-coast racers is accusing one of their own of faking a record run. ”

“ Multiple female Indian journalists were tricked into accepting teaching positions at Harvard which were entirely fake. No one knows who targeted them or why. ”

“ A car company claimed to have driven their car at 331 mph. But some viewers proved they didn’t, using nothing a stopwatch and Google Maps. ”

“ A long-retired baseball player gets a nice paycheck every year because the owner of his former club thought Bernie Madoff’s financial gains were real. ”

“ It’s very common for famous people to lie about their athletic accomplishments in an attempt to sound inspiring. ”

“ This video is ostensibly about suspected cheating in a specific speedrun attempt, but it also explains and demonstrates some of the fascinating intricacies of that subculture. ”

“ A retired mathematician discovered a flaw in a state lottery game. He exploited it for a decade and won millions. ”

“ In 2016, a guy playing around with data discovered too many similarities between crossword puzzles, all centered around a specific editor. ”

“ In the early 1990s. Pepsi accidentally created a contest where a million people were grand prize winners, and Pepsi couldn’t pay the total prize money owed. ”

“ Cheating in high-stakes chess is rampant, occasionally blatant, and sometimes conspiratorial. ”

“ An examination of bizarre psychic martial arts, ending with a discussion of the practicality of MMA versus more traditional martial arts, and the implications on human psychology and national identity. ”

“ Jean Calumet was supposedly 122 when she died. However, a Russian scientist has long-claimed that ‘Jean’ is actually Jean’s daughter, impersonating her mother. ”

“ A sales guy for the Sacramento Kings came ridiculously close to getting away with an audacious theft from the team. ”

“ For every kid who bribed their way into a college spot they didn’t earn, another kid lost a spot. This is one story. ”

“ For 15 years, there was a Wikipedia page about a fake concentration camp. The page is gone, but information taken from it is littered all around the internet. ”

“ When a coach is convicted of doping, what does that do to the legacy of the athletes that trained under them? How strong is that stigma? ”

“ An enormously entertaining documentary about the steroid era in baseball, and the lengths A-Rod went to avoid punishment. It takes the odd step of recreating scenes using child actors, but, amazingly, it works. ”

“ A big predictor of whether someone will live to age 110 seems to be their birth into a region lacking accurate, preserved birth certificates that could prove their age wrong. ”

“ A guy comprises the computers (including the webcams) of a scam call center in India. He shows how the scams work (they claim to have accidentally over-refunded people, then ask for money back), and ultimately disrupts the scam, hilariously. ”

“ An older male runner has been accused for many years of cheating his marathon times. (Two weeks after this article was published, he was found dead in an LA river in a suspected suicide.) ”

“ An attempt to find evidence of something which seems inexplicably fabricated. ”

“ A museum for a lesser-known artist in France grapples with the revelation that most of its works were fakes, and some of them blatantly so. ”

“ A video game speedrunner cheated and then tried to cover it up. Interesting for reflections and observations on a niche community and the psychology of acceptance by a group. ”

“ Infuriating discussion on American televangelists and the phenomenon of how they prey specifically on the poor with promises of financial reward. ”

“ A man got AIDS, and, thinking he was going to die, embarked on decades of fraud to finance his lifestyle. He’s still alive. ”