Quotes & Sayings About Scams

It's time to ask why [the United States] is the only country in the world where we permit our children to be saddled with tens - sometimes hundreds - of thousands of dollars of debt before they begin to earn a penny. — F.H. Buckley

I committed to directing 'Catch Me If You Can' not because of the divorce component, but principally because Frank Abagnale did things that were the most astonishing scams I had ever heard. — Steven Spielberg

While the Texas prison officials remained in the dark about what was going on, they were fortunate that William and Danny had benign motives. Imagine what havoc the two might have caused; it would have been child's play for these guys to develop a scheme for obtaining money or property from unsuspecting victims. The Internet had become their university and playground. Learning how to run scams against individuals or break in to corporate sites would have been a cinch; teenagers and preteens learn these methods every day from the hacker sites and elsewhere on the Web. And as prisoners, Danny and William had all the time in the world.

Maybe there's a lesson here: Two convicted murderers, but that didn't mean they were scum, rotten to the core. They were cheaters who hacked their way onto the Internet illegally, but that didn't mean they were willing to victimize innocent people or naively insecure companies. — Kevin D. Mitnick

Ben laughed. "You think all religions are scams, don't you?"
"Yes, I suppose I do," Epstein said. "But the religions are mostly scamming themselves. That they scam others is usually a side-effect. — James L. Halperin

The Senate was holding hearings on deceptive sweepstakes practices. These companies target the elderly, making them think they're going to get a bunch of money, when in reality they never see any of it. The most popular of these scams is called Social Security. — Colin Quinn

Whether or not he came to believe it - so many people, when they have a mission, come to believe something in a way that may have started out as a slogan. You know, L. Ron Hubbard, not to make a random comparison, started Scientology as a scam. — Alex Gibney

There are so many angles to follow up: government incompetence, sophisticated charity scams, how insurance companies treat victims, construction of the levees, who will start ripping off the billions of dollars available in new contracts. Every single one of these stories is going to be a big one. — Brian Ross

At their worst, message boards can subject you to mindless braying or outright stock scams. But at their best, they provide meaty insights on just about every stock imaginable. — Gary Weiss

I think one of the biggest scams in law enforcement is the monitor. — Raymond Kelly

One way [to recovery] would be by creating the best possible romance book or happy ending scenario for you ... out od your own experience. Another way would be to look at it as it is: a wake-up call to action to create a more humane world, without discrimination and sexism. — Elina Juusola

They've been changing the cry from 'global warming' to 'climate change' because there's so little evidence there's actually any warming going on. I believe that as little as a decade from now, global warming will be recognized as one of the greatest swindles in world history. It has so little scientific basis, it can only rationally be considered a political scam. — Doug Casey

The Gong Show was the greatest scam of all time. It was simple: We wanted to do a talent show. There weren't any venues for acts back then. We were gonna have a show of new, fresh, good acts. But we couldn't find any; they were all lousy. So rather than throw away the idea, I said, "Let's reverse it. Let's do lousy acts." Now, is that a scam? I'm telling you. — Chuck Barris

Hollywood is largely about scammers and con men. It was my main livelihood for about 25 years, and the scams were beautiful and ugly, cheap and expensive, but, wow, were there a lot of scammers. — Ben Stein

I tried the religion scam in Miami, so I know how hard that gig is. But, if you can get it to work, starting your own religion is a license to print money. — Lenny Bruce

The government doesn't really prosecute for polygamy anymore, but a lot of the arrests are of groups supporting themselves through welfare scams or for child abuse. So that was all I'd really heard about polygamists. — Jeanne Tripplehorn

A lot of hackers set up scam sites. They can impersonate a site like PayPal, for instance. — Michael Demon Calce

Wind is one of the greatest scams of the modern age. — Robert Bryce

When I was submitting my first novel, I had no idea that publishing scams existed. I never encountered any, but I could have - and knowing how easily I might have been taken advantage of makes me determined to protect others from falling into that trap. — Victoria Strauss

Madoff's scam was small compared to Ponzi schemes the government itself runs: Social Security and Medicare. — John Stossel

Being an artist is supposed to be a scam, not a career. — Wade Guyton

Huck is initially taken in by these two rogues, in the same manner that many Americans have been conned by progressives. The progressive scams, however, have endured for a while. Huck, however, is a quick learner. He soon figures out what his high-titled compatriots are up to. "It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings or dukes either, but just low-down humbugs and frauds."10 Assessing the pitches that progressives have been putting forward for at least the past seven years, from the reparations pitch to the inequality pitch to the "you didn't build that" pitch to the Lucky Luciano pitch, it is difficult to come to a different conclusion. — Dinesh D'Souza

First of all, I was running scams when you were at keggers at Kappa Kappa Werewolf. You don't know much about me but I am way smarter than Gabriel was. I'm a consummate liar. I can street fight with the best of them and I can cheat at cards like nobody's business. This on top of my computer skills. I may not howl at the moon and have superhuman strength but I can hold my own. — Lauren Dane

'419 scams,' named for a clause from the Nigerian penal code, are such a part of the white noise of the digital age that we no longer notice them. — Evan Osnos

As I've said before, free money scams are a problem. — Matthew Lesko

Much of the DOE green energy lending program is a scam. It is a slush fund of pork for paying back campaign contributors. — Dick Morris

I cannot see that keeping the status quo intact would help in any way to solve the problems of inequality or suffering in this world. I would go for taking action towards change instead of accepting the inevitable. — Elina Juusola

Being a celebrity you always get really good seats to sporting events but you never get as good seats as the photographers get. And I really love sports. So one of the scams I have going now is I want to learn sports photography so I can get better seats at a sporting event. — Drew Carey

In my dreams, I entered a world where success was based on ethics and proper dealings, not bribes and scams. My vision of sucess including marrying Sophia, having joyful children, unassuming friends, and warmhearted neighbors. I aspired for an environment where I would be valued for my good character, not the strength of my aggression. I wanted to leave West Beirut, the four square miles of a lesser world. — Sam Wazan

You only have to pick up a paper to see the sort of scams and injustices that are out there. There's a sense that people don't belong and just aren't very happy. They're outraged, in fact, and they're being shafted left, right and centre. — Sean Bean

The UID is a corporate scam which funnels billions of dollars into the IT sector — Arundhati Roy

Therefore, if we are a Nation of laws and a Nation of immigrants, immigration should occur within a legal framework, not through the machinations of illegal schemes and scams that threaten our national security. — J. D. Hayworth

Who is going to believe a con artist? Everyone, if she is good. — Andy Griffith

Westmoreland's body counts were bogus. He believed them - he was not the first general to welcome statistics he wanted to hear. But, in practice, there was every incentive for field commanders to inflate or even invent body counts. It was how their performance was assessed, and it became one of the greatest self-reporting scams in history. The absurd body counts and kill ratios were proof of his leadership. Westmoreland sold them to LBJ, who in turn presented them as fact to the American people. — Mark Bowden

Through it all, this wild life on and off the road , through Jordanian deserts , Spanish islands, German prisons, Caribbean tax scams, halls of fame,wine, women, and all the drugs under the sun - one constant companion has never abandoned me . My first true love : singing Its been the savior of many poor boy, and God I know I'm one — Eric Burdon

Cake baking has to be, however innocently, one of the great culinary scams: it implies effort, it implies domestic prowess; but believe me, it's easy. — Nigella Lawson

If cryonics were a scam it would have far better marketing and be far more popular. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

I never sold any of those "lose 10 pounds every week" scams. I've not changed my tune in all these years. I've seen everything pass by me, and I've been offered millions of dollars to put my name on products that were just lies. And I never did it. — Richard Simmons

It's one of these juvenile therapy scams," he went on, sprinkling a pinch of the Golden Virginia tobacco along the rolling paper. "They advertise help for your troubled teen by staring at the stars and singing 'Kumbaya'. Instead, it's a bunch of bearded nutjobs left in charge of some of the craziest kids I've ever seen in my life - bulimics, nymphos, cutters trying to saw their wrists with the plastic spoons from lunch. You wouldn't believe the shit that went on." He shook his head. "Most of the kids had been so mentally screwed by their parents they needed more than twelve weeks of wilderness. They needed reincarnation. To die and just come back as a grasshopper, as a fucking weed. That'd be preferable to the agony they were in just by being alive. — Marisha Pessl

From time to time, Ebony and I also ran credit card scams. — Jessica N. Watkins

Curiosity pulls people into the scam. — Frank Stallone