29 Wild Scams People Have Witnessed

Scams and pranks are similar in one particular way. Neither are particularly fun when you’re the target, but they definitely hurt at least a hair’s-breadth less if they’re actually clever. After all, the artistry is the only thing that sets a scam apart from a good old mugging. If you’re going to have a chunk taken out of your checking account, you at least want to get a story out of it.

A user asked the Reddit community to share the best scams they’ve ever seen, and past victims, observers and even practitioners obliged. They offered a variety of scams that range from the devilishly clever to the beautifully simple, but all in their own way effective. 

Read ahead to prepare yourself in case you come face-to-face with one. Purely out of intellectual curiosity, of course. For obvious reasons, we can’t condone becoming a flim-flam man yourself.