00:00:00
Speaker 1: Sca R scam come right, goddess? Oh my god. Well, hi guys, welcome back to Scam Goddess. This is a pod dedicated to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week we break down famous scams and capers and bring on hilarious comedians to tell us about their own relationships with scams as well. And today I'm so honored to have the Jamie loftest actor, stand up, one woman performer, everything in front of me. Thank you so much for doing the show.
00:00:50
Speaker 2: Of course, I'm so excited.
00:00:51
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I'm a big fan of Jamie. I love doing She has a podcast called The Bechtol Cast, which I guess you could plug later, but.
00:01:00
Speaker 2: We've already plus beloved guests on that show.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: So good. I love that show so much. Well, let's get into it, Jamie. We'll start with What's Hot in Fraud. So What's Hot in Fraud is a segment where we warn our listeners about popular scams. If you want to warn us or tell us about a scam that you have experienced in your life, please email us at Scam gooddesspod at gmail dot com. We'd love to share it on the show. All right, So We're gonna start with what's hot in fraud. So this is a segment where we regale our listeners with the hottest newest scams, you know, to protect them from getting scammed. We only want our listeners doing our scams right, and we fully support those. If we call you it's legitimate, it's right.
00:01:44
Speaker 2: Because we care. And you know, I think that podcasters really form this false sense of trust with the people that listen to them, and that's why podcasters said gray scammers.
00:01:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, but podcast podcasts are scams, yea. So enjoy. This scam came for me on Twitter and I'll just read what he wrote. Somebody called me with this phone number. I'm not going to say the phone number because I want that guy to keep scamming. Telling me he was doing some registration online and he mistakenly put my number on what he was registering. He said that my number is similar to his number, and that the password of what he was registering was sent to my phone. He was actually now appealing to me to give him a reset code that was actually sent to my phone so that he could finish his registration. I got online to find out more, only to discover that he was actually trying to reset my bank online Yahoo mail password and that he's a fraudster. Okay, So one, I just want to say, sir, why are you operating on Yahoo Male?
00:02:43
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean that's honestly not to say he's asking for it by.
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Speaker 1: Is for scam. That's a red flag.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker 1: Literally, like you use Yahoo Male when you go to a clothing store and they're like, we'll give you ten percent off if you give us an email, Like, you shouldn't.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: Still be using your first email. You gotta, you gotta. I still have my I have. If you ever want to email me and not and I won't see it, you should email poetry Punk eighteen at MSN dot com. That's where all the scams go from.
00:03:11
Speaker 1: I see that, and I raise you, Little Chica Bonita nine at aol dot com. Love it.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: Oh, you get the high school graduation year in there.
00:03:21
Speaker 1: It's a class and the litl It was all everyone was like lil back then, Like my cousin has an email that was a little Blue two thousand and seven. It was all about what year you were graduating and.
00:03:31
Speaker 2: Lil and what you were a little version of exactly he was a little version of the color blue and I was a little cheka Anita.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: Yes, I called myself beautiful in my own email. It was like email me at beautiful little girl, little girl graduating not yet. Maybe I should like look into that. I want to see what kind of emails beautiful little girl is getting, probably not good ones.
00:03:56
Speaker 2: I feel like that is like an email you would guess to send a scam to.
00:04:02
Speaker 1: Also like this. This intrigued me because I guess like anyone calling you with like any kind of elaborate story about how they need information from you is always a scam.
00:04:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I feel like they target people and I like I've I've come close to falling for it. I've never gone so far as to give them the info, but like when they sound like, hey, it would be really helpful if I am automatically like I don't want to disappoint anyone.
00:04:27
Speaker 1: So you're like an impath for scams, because there's different types. Because for me, I'm an incentive scammer. So if you call me and you're like, oh, you know, I'm about the why are you these this money? All I need is the taxes and fees, Like I'm more apt to do that scam than I am like can you help me out? Blah blah blah, Like nah, fuck you? What am I getting out of this?
00:04:45
Speaker 2: I fall for like the Nigerian Prince scams. I'm just like, I need It would be so helpful if you I'd be so I a stranger would be so disappointed in you.
00:04:55
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, no, I need that stranger. I need this stranger to like me. Yeah see, And I guess, like, and it's cool to kind of figure out the different strategies because there are people who I think you're a worst scammer. If you're appealing to people's good nature, I think that's more fucked up.
00:05:12
Speaker 2: I bet yeah, it's more fucked up, and I bet less effective too.
00:05:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:05:16
Speaker 2: I would think so too.
00:05:17
Speaker 1: But at the same time, people like to be liked. This scam is probably working for him. He's definitely resetting mad Yahoo accounts with What do you do with that?
00:05:26
Speaker 2: Do you think it's like the Yahoo people specifically he is targeting or is it? Like I guess, I'm like, how does he How do you get something like this off the ground?
00:05:36
Speaker 1: I have to admire Maybe he's like, Okay, once I get into your email, then I'll get like more information about you and then I'll use that.
00:05:44
Speaker 2: I think you just reset everything.
00:05:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right, because when you have an email, then you can really reset your whole life. That's the crazy thing is like Google is the biggest scam. My Google fucking crashed my Gmail because someone from BuzzFeed sent me a spam email and I opened it and then it set on a spam email to everyone in my email account, and they froze my account and my life fell apart, and I was like, oh my god, I've given so much power to Google. Like my calendar stopped working. I was like, where do I be? What do I do? Who am I? Like? Lose access to your bank? Raid? Yeah, couldn't send any emails, couldn't tell anybody that I was off the grid. It was like I had a full on, like meltdown, like panic attack. I think if that happened to me, I would just start over in a new city. Yeah all right, I get a stick and a bandannaut and I pack all my belongings and I would just leave this fucking skipped down. You're right, You're right. I think that's what you have to do when your email shuts down. It's like, all right, I quit.
00:06:41
Speaker 2: All right, I've been canceled for some reason, and I'll move on.
00:06:45
Speaker 1: It's been good America, not that good, but okay, now I'm leaving the country. But yeah, so that's interesting to me that, like this is one of those like can you help me out? Type scams? I am very not likely to fall for those. You A hang up. Yeah, although if guys, I call you and I meet your help like, I really care she's she means, so help me out and give me your Social Security number. I've already done it and your Yahoo password. Yes, Jamie. I told Jamie to do the show like she needed.
00:07:11
Speaker 2: To give me your social or she didn't like me anymore, and I was like, yeah, I'll do it.
00:07:15
Speaker 1: That was the only payment was my like and approval. Yep, I'll take it. Also, Jamie, Uh, what what is your relationship with scams? Have you ever been scammed? Have ever been involved in a scam? You don't have to talk about any current scams that you have going but.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: Oh no, just just retired scams at this point. Uh, there is a scam that I sort of fell for. I don't know it got murky, but I for the past year, I've been interacting a lot with the MENSA.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: Yes, I love your Messa. They're mean people.
00:07:47
Speaker 2: They're mean spirited people, so like, and it kind of goes without saying that a high IQ society that you need to pay eighty dollars to join it is a scam. Yeah, but it's also like it's so that's the one I just sort of I just had to saffronize with them because it was it just like I joined as like a joke for this piece I was writing and they're they're like, we'll pay the fee, just like go and see what they're like and stuff. And they were like, what a flex.
00:08:17
Speaker 1: She's like, I joined MENSA just to write a piece. They don't let you into MENSA because you pay a fee. You have to be a genius. I'm sitting with a genius.
00:08:26
Speaker 2: Well that's the thing is I think that even the testing is a scam, Like it was not a difficult test.
00:08:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you're a genius.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: No, Like I did it in my sleep.
00:08:39
Speaker 1: Why everyone can't do this?
00:08:41
Speaker 2: There was it was it was the thing that they were like when I was taking the test, like, I don't know, because you have to be like arrogant enough to think that you could be a genius. So there's already like this ego point eventually, which is a.
00:08:53
Speaker 1: Big thing in scams. Confidence Like to a point of egomaniac is like.
00:08:57
Speaker 2: And then you won't want to admit that you're wrong later because you already have been telling people you're a genius. And but the questions on the test, like there were some that were there. There was like some math shit and some pattern shit that was like harder for me, but there was a whole section on just like do you know who this famous person is and what's their job? Like there was you had to you had there. Bill Cosby was on the test, Oh god, and I was like, I don't know what category he belongs in multiple of these categories.
00:09:24
Speaker 1: This must be an old question. Uh. But so they also aren't updating the test. It sounds like if Bill Cosby's on the test, No, it's just.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Like they're they're just I think that they're like going for uh, like ego maniacs who were like, oh, I'm probably a genius and then just kind of taking their money.
00:09:42
Speaker 1: Yo. That's actually very smart because it's like you can you have to keep the society exclusive enough that people feel privileged. But also you got to keep that shit going, so somebody got to be getting in there to they in the genius Yeah, and then and then it goes from there.
00:09:54
Speaker 2: Is like once you once you like get in and you take the test which costs seventy five dollars, then you got to pay the eighty do fee to actually join the group, and then you got to participate in your local group, and then you gotta go to Phoenix in the summer.
00:10:07
Speaker 1: Phoenix. You never had to go to Phoenix. What the fuck is in Phoenix, Arizona for geniuses?
00:10:12
Speaker 2: A lot of people that were mad at me there, there's there is. I'm like, my biggest fear is confrontation to my face, and I had maybe one.
00:10:22
Speaker 1: Hundred confrontations to my face and.
00:10:24
Speaker 2: I'm cured now and I'll never be upset about anything again. But it was just like the like level of what were they mad at you about? They were mad at me because I made fun of them in.
00:10:33
Speaker 1: My piece and they all read it because they read.
00:10:36
Speaker 2: They were all they all read it, and then they posted in this secret Facebook group and it was just like all these insults and all these like I had never posted in this group, but they were just like a stupid like she's I hate her eyebrows. That was there was some such good eyebrows, thank you so much. I was like, I just I was shocked at the low, the low, like Spencer's gift level humor bar, you guys are genius?
00:11:00
Speaker 1: Can you insult me on like an intellectual level?
00:11:02
Speaker 2: So challenge me?
00:11:03
Speaker 1: Give me an insult. I give you a word problem, that's an insult?
00:11:07
Speaker 2: Right, And then but then and then there was like a very weird death threat and I was like, oh, this is serious, like what's going on? And then it just it just like went spiraled up from there. But the but just on a base level, like a high IQ society where you have to already be like I'm special to get in. It's so easy to take money from people who believe that they're.
00:11:29
Speaker 1: Better than everyone, because that's a different type of scam. That's the ego. So you're getting the reward of feeling better than someone. That's like the whole premise of the Firefest was like that got beautiful rich models. You have to have so much money to go here.
00:11:42
Speaker 2: And once and once you're in, like you'll keep paying to keep appearances up, which.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: Is like for all the other snooty intellectuals exactly because you want to match everyone.
00:11:51
Speaker 2: And it's it's weird because I mean that group is it was, It's like more it was more diverse in like class background. It is like majority of white people, but they're there, but it's people from all classes. So I'm like, they're they're like scamming some like low income families.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: They did well on a test.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: They're like, no, come to Phoenix, buy this Deadpool shirt. We mad Like I got the dead Pool shirt.
00:12:17
Speaker 1: That sounds good.
00:12:18
Speaker 2: It says brain Pool on it.
00:12:19
Speaker 1: Lazy Wow. It's just Deadpool with a big ass head.
00:12:23
Speaker 2: It says Brainpool.
00:12:25
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you got a flex on a hoe, you know what I mean? You got to show people that you got that big ass right.
00:12:29
Speaker 2: I go out there, I wear my brain Pool shirt and people line up.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: Were there kids in the society?
00:12:34
Speaker 2: There are kids, which is which is another thing about it that freaks me out because it's like, can you imagine a worst thing to do to a kid than tell them they're better than everyone?
00:12:42
Speaker 1: Like, oh, I loved it. There personally fueled me as a child was better than everyone. I never did mensa, but I was a kid like aspiring actor.
00:12:53
Speaker 2: I always like, you know, like when you go into a mall when you're little and you're like, maybe today's the day, and it's just like, is there some perverse like that's a scam? Is like wandering the mall and then just approaching hot kids and being like, do you want to be a star? Like that could be anyone.
00:13:09
Speaker 1: That was the biggest scam of the nineties.
00:13:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:11
Speaker 1: It was like people discovering people at water fountains.
00:13:14
Speaker 2: Oh, we were all so exciting.
00:13:15
Speaker 1: It was so hot at the water fountain, just sipping that water, so so.
00:13:19
Speaker 2: Slow performing walking in and out of Claire's. It's just like somebody notice me.
00:13:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, the mall's a place for scams and for creeps.
00:13:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. True.
00:13:29
Speaker 1: My friend got inducted into a cult from being at the mall. No, yeah, they were at the mall and they got her.
00:13:36
Speaker 2: Wow. That's honestly at a mall, I'll fall for almost anything. I've done the Dead Sea salt Face scrubs.
00:13:44
Speaker 1: If you've ever bought something from a mall Kiosk, you've participated in a scam. Like those stores that are literally like a moving.
00:13:51
Speaker 2: Cart, Like I like the belts that you can program to say whatever you.
00:13:55
Speaker 1: Want big in the nineties. Yes, you get that. You wear it to the Bezu cake, give it up number one fan scam God. All right, well we're gonna move into our biggest segment here and my favorite. This is actually really dope because Jamie sent me this story and then I went on a super deep dive about it. But this is a story about Mark Luke, Mark Luke, Mark Mark or Luke Olmsted. That's the question. That's the question, Mark or Luke or both. So this is a story that happens during the AIDS epidemic in the eighties, before we had like good medication and you could actually live for a very long time, you know, and have a full life with HIV. And this is about a man who says he says that because he was diagnosed with HIV that he started doing scams because he didn't think he was going to live very long. However, when I took a deep dive into these scams, I was like, oh no, honey, you was a scammer. He was set for the long career scamm Yeah. Yes, So Luke and Mark are two brothers. So Luke was two years older than Mark, and he was like industrial and athletic. He was an eagle scout and like a good person. And Mark was you know, rumoredly very funny and quick witted and charming, but like kind of a fuck up, which is the real makers of a scammer, Like a scammer, a charismatic fuck up, charismatic as shit Like scammers, you love them, they embolden you, you feel special around them. They're fucking insane and I love it so Luke, like, just to get really into it. They were both actually gay and Luke ended up being diagnosed with HIV at the same time as Mark, because it was an epidemic in the eighties. It was insane. I actually had one of my uncles passed away from HIV and got it in the eighties and like, thank god now for modern medicine, and this is not as big of an issue, like you know what I.
00:16:06
Speaker 2: Mean, Like it's not like a death sentence.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: It's not a death sentence anymore. Yeah, it's still a big issue, but it's not a death sentence. And so but at the time it was and Mark capitalized on this.
00:16:15
Speaker 2: Mark was like scamming as if he was going to die young.
00:16:19
Speaker 1: Literally, Yeah, is that a song is That's like I think I just referenced a Kesha song.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: That's like ten years old.
00:16:27
Speaker 1: Brush your cheese with a bottle of Jack Mark Mark Luke so to just cut to the chase Luke passes away, and you know it's always the good ones, like he was sweet and lovely and everyone seemed like a really good guy at least how they tell these stories. And Mark was a shady fuck up and of course he lives forever. That's how it goes. I have one aunt alive from being a child, one great aunt, and she was the most fucking evil person and she has outlived everyone lives forever.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: Yeah. Evil really just I don't know what it does too, it really does.
00:17:01
Speaker 1: It keeps you alit.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: We were I had an evil grandma and we were just like, it's never gonna happen. She's never gonna die. She'll bury us.
00:17:09
Speaker 1: She's gonna bury you all. It's like John McCain's mom. John's mom must have done some real fucked.
00:17:14
Speaker 2: Up shit in her life, because that bit it reminds me of like Resputing from Anastasia. Make a deal with the devil and then all of a sudden you can like be dead.
00:17:23
Speaker 1: But also alive. Right, Yeah, she's literally Melissandra from Game of He's just so fucking old and petty and not going anywhere. And I stand at some point, I'm gonna have to start being evil because I would like to live that long as well. I think around fifty, I'm gonna have to just start being a real fucked up.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: Oh, we're gonna have to like renegotiate our morals entirely.
00:17:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, so that we can live longer. So Mark continues living. But Luke and Mark had been living together since they've been diagnosed in San Diego. So when Luke passes away, you know, Mark's like devastated. But then Luke's disability checks start coming in the mail, and Mark was responsible for filing his death certificate, which when the checks started coming, Mark was like, maybe I wait on his certificate. Maybe I wait on that, you know, and it's like, okay, he's grieving movies just And Luke was a physician, so his his like disability checks were.
00:18:24
Speaker 2: Checks, and his I mean his because wasn't he like researching HIV A. It's like he was looking for cures. Mark is fucked up, man. His brother was literally an angel trying to trying to save everyone, and Mark was like, well let's see disability check.
00:18:42
Speaker 1: Yes, Mark was no scruples, so uh he continues to cash these checks for forever and then Marks like, hmmm, well the.
00:18:54
Speaker 3: Fucking cash these checks? Then what about a dry license? Which I don't think is the next natural step here?
00:19:04
Speaker 2: No, he takes so many like huge risks like early into.
00:19:10
Speaker 1: This, so Luke, And this is also the eighties, so the technology is not that great. Isn't this like when Ghosts came out and everybody who's had computers with green letters on them.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, then they need like twenty minutes to turn on. Right, you could like not communicate something to someone and get it away and they wouldn't find out for a year. Yeah kind of thing.
00:19:28
Speaker 1: Literally, So this is like the era of like ghost era computers and like nobody's checking that green fought that hard. We don't got tired. It hurts your eyes, it truly does. I want to check up for scams on that green font. So a envelope arrived, so it seems like everything kind of started as opportunistic. It was like, oh, these checks are still arriving. I'm gonna cash these checks. Oh, this envelope says that you have to renew your driver's license, so I'm all renew as you. So what I didn't understand was is that Mark showed up to the DMB and took Luke's driver's license photo. Yep, And then now Mark's face is on Luke's driver's license.
00:20:08
Speaker 2: It's so hard for me to like put myself in a headspace where this works.
00:20:12
Speaker 1: I guess it's because it's the eighties, because I'm like, I guess they didn't have photos on the computer. So if you were just like, I need to renew my driver's license, they were like, great, I have like the certificate, like the birth certificate or yeah, or security card which don't have photos on them, which is also weird.
00:20:25
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess your birth certificate it'd just be you as a baby, so that doesn't count.
00:20:29
Speaker 1: Right, holding it up like is this youth could be it's just like me coming out with the photo black baby. It's me, Yes, So I guess you could just go take other people's driver's license photos. In the eighties, What a time for scam?
00:20:45
Speaker 2: Why are more people doing that?
00:20:47
Speaker 1: God, that's amazing.
00:20:48
Speaker 2: They didn't know that this is a limited time scam.
00:20:51
Speaker 1: They didn't know technology was gonna improve and you weren't gonna be able to do it. The Gateway computer comes out, this is over wrap, yo, Bill Gate's probably brewing made scams as much as we're like, oh, we love the computer, and shit, I bet there's a lot of people out there who were like, bitch.
00:21:06
Speaker 2: I bet. It's almost like when a job becomes defunct, because it's like been replaced by something automated. You have to retrain. So scammers like couldn't do the DMV scams anymore, but they could start Internet scams. They just had to recalibrate their breath.
00:21:19
Speaker 1: Yeah they did. And good scammers they rise to the occasion. Oh good scammers never die, No, and not at all. You got to keep evolving, you know. It's a great every great business place. Really inspiring when you think about it. Truly as I love scammers, I love them so much. So at this point, he now has his brother's driver's license with his face on it, and he's cashing these disability checks. Now Mark is a creative so weird turn he actually gets a screenwriting gig.
00:21:50
Speaker 2: This is crazy, which is like, okay, it doesn't it involve like Whoopie Goal.
00:21:55
Speaker 1: Yes. So Woopie went on record and said that she did not endorse this movie, but I think she had known about the screenplay because she was asked about it a few times. I was like, yeah, I did hear about it, but I wasn't involved in the project. But the way that Mark was selling it was that he had a screenwriting gig and he was working with two colleagues, and this was all abroad too, and that Whoopy Goldberg claimed that she wanted to be a part of it. Okay, but then his two colleagues die of eights. Yes, oh I forgot that. So like this is still true. It is, but not for Mark.
00:22:33
Speaker 2: Not for Mark.
00:22:33
Speaker 1: No. Mark. Honestly, I was like, is this scam too sad for the show? But Mark is so shady that I was like, no, it's a fascinating scam. Yeah.
00:22:43
Speaker 2: I mean he takes full advantage.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: He's seeking full advantage of an epidem Yeah, it's the worst. Everyone else is like having concerts and selling T shirts.
00:22:53
Speaker 2: His brother really trying to cure HIV AIDS, and he.
00:22:58
Speaker 1: Was like, I see an opportunity.
00:22:59
Speaker 2: Mark's all right, let's see if I can read a Whoopie Goldberg vehicle. That'll there, and it seems like too he's like a failed writer.
00:23:08
Speaker 1: Yeah that yeah, absolutely yikes. So he has the ID, right, he's got the disability checks. What comes next credit cards. So he starts getting credit cards in Luke's name and he's running up these bills. And he had over forty thousand dollars in credit card debt on just one card alone. So now these credit card companies are calling like, hey, Luke, Lukemark, we need our coins. So when one rep from a credit card company phoned and asked for Luke, his mind raced and then Mark was like, oh fuck, I am Luke. I just gotta say I'm Luke.
00:23:46
Speaker 2: Okay, Greig great.
00:23:47
Speaker 1: So he does it and he says, mister Ohms said, we've heard of your brother's death. So what he did was is Mark had a bunch of credit card debt and he decided instead of killing Luke, to kill himself, right, So he sit in a death certificate for himself.
00:24:06
Speaker 2: And he's like exact a knife, like forging the kim.
00:24:10
Speaker 1: He also went to Office Max, which Office.
00:24:14
Speaker 2: Max eighties probabler of chaos.
00:24:17
Speaker 1: Enabler of scamps and got a stamp that said CEE c on it okay, And he was using that on his fake death certificates to say certified copy because that's basically the exact same stamp that they would use. Now if anybody had cared to zoom in a way, would have saw that. It also said Corona Krueger's, which was a childhood little league baseball team. Oh my god. So he was using this Corona Krueger stamp to like certified documents and death certificates, which I thought was lit because stamps, like in the late eighties early nineties, like people had stamps of their signatures. My mom had a stamp of her signature that I I would use to sign off on detention documents that I got because I know I went to detention all the time for just being late. I would have like I had I think I had when I was twelve, my sixth grade year, I had thirty six detentions, and every time you got five detentions, you got a Friday night, which was like a Friday night was a three What a punishment to teacher, Yeah, just for being late, a three hour detention on Friday nights and so then I would have to do those because my detentions had added up too much.
00:25:29
Speaker 2: That's like one thing where anytime I've been punished for being late, like as a kid, it's like it has never made me more on time.
00:25:35
Speaker 1: At no adults, I continued to be late. I'm late for.
00:25:39
Speaker 2: Almost everything still, like it's it doesn't help no.
00:25:43
Speaker 1: Why you know, being late is a big scam because people who are late or tardy end up paying more over their lifetime than people who are prompt. So things like late fees, things like express Like I went to the airport and had to buy a fast pass through the airport because a fifteen dollars Jet Blue fast pass. Well, they do it like Disneyland. They do it like Disneyland.
00:26:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just had to expedite a passport because I forgot ye and they pay.
00:26:11
Speaker 1: They charge you for that so much. Anytime you don't plan, anytime you're late, that's a big scam that people are profiting off. And I want to stop, but also I can't. I kind of refuse.
00:26:20
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know what, I'll get another job so I can continue to be late right to everything.
00:26:24
Speaker 1: This is just my I drive for Lyft, so I can be late. I just drive for lift on the weekends just to be late to think oh yeah. Oh. And also, I'll never buy another fast pass in the airport because now I just know I can say I have it because no one checks. Oh wow? Is that just for Jet Blue? Is that for it? So for everyone else it could be like priority membership. So if you're first flying first class, or you have priority boarding, or if you're like one of those sparkled Diamond, silver, Sapphire blue jet guess you know what I mean.
00:26:56
Speaker 2: It's just like you just need the confidence to enter. I want to go into one of those lounges someday, you know, those like they have like the United Lounge.
00:27:04
Speaker 1: Now they check that ship, they checked that shit. Damn. I know because I've tried to just like breathe just to get in.
00:27:10
Speaker 2: Yeah damn, I won't try some day.
00:27:12
Speaker 1: I try to breeze in when I actually have the past, too, because I want to see how easy it is, exactly because I'm like, now I have insurance, but I also want to see if I can just do this whenever. So yeah, now I'll always say that I have priority boarding. No one checks. Okay, no one checks also tip for people going to LAX if it's ever crowded and there's like really big lines. I've learned as a scammer to always look for like what eighty A compliant or like handicap accessible things exist, not to get in the way of someone who actually needs them. But if they're empty, I've found that you can get everywhere much faster.
00:27:47
Speaker 2: Oh that makes a lot of sense.
00:27:49
Speaker 1: So everyone was waiting in the line for an escalator, I just took the elevator and skipped everybody. It's such a simple scam, so good, but yeah, completely sidetracked. But yes. So Mark killed himself and then used the stamp to certify his own death certificate because he had too much credit card debt. So they called Luke, who is actually Mark, and we're like, hey, we heard about your brother's death. And the thing is is it needs a raised and colored seal on this death certificate and it doesn't have that. So then Mark literally starts bannicking because he's like, I made this shit up, Like the jig is up, They're gonna catch me. All Mark did was tell the guy tell the woman on the phone that he was really sad about his brother's.
00:28:42
Speaker 2: Death, and he did the empathy and she just stopped asking questions. Wow, that would.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: Have been me.
00:28:51
Speaker 2: I would have fallen for that, so I would have Yeah.
00:28:55
Speaker 1: Shit right, it works right. So under Luke's name his death, his debt has now reached like fifty thousand dollars.
00:29:03
Speaker 2: Because he's like doing and he's like partying and like doing drugs and all this exactly.
00:29:07
Speaker 1: So he started working at a magazine and then decided to quit and collect unemployment. Okay, so he is now.
00:29:17
Speaker 2: He's working at the magazine under his own name, yes, as if he's not dead.
00:29:21
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, no, he's working at the magazine under Luke's name. Oh yes, he's full on how it started a career as Luke. No, and he gets confused, Like as much as we're confused as I'm telling this story, and I'm sure our listeners are confused, Mark Luke is gonna get very confused. Well, this is why I started with like Mark Luke, Luke Mark. So he kills Luke right next, So first he kills himself, then he kills Luke because now he has too much debt under Luke's name. So now they're both days, yes, okay, So then he goes to the DMV and says he loves the DMV. Everyone hates the DMV, but he loves the He goes there, No, actually no, not the DMV. He goes to the Social Security Office as Luke after he's killed Mark and Luke okay, and he goes there and he says, hey, I need to apply for benefits because the difference. Don remember, like he quit his magazine job and was gaining disability, but his disability is not as much as his brother's because his brother was a doctor, right, and a hero right and a good person, a good person. So he goes to Social Security office and he says, hey, I'm sick again. I really need to get social security again. And the guy the Social Security office says, Luke almos said died, and he goes but I'm right here though it gives him a huge smile, and he was ready with this story that he had been working for doctors beyond borders in Africa and lost his passport, like he had a whole story ready. But what actually happened was the guy at the Social Security office goes, these things happen and then puts him on disability. These things happened I just the eighties is such a good time for scams. It's so weird.
00:31:12
Speaker 2: Like I think now, like thirty years from now, what are people gonna say, we should have been scamming and we're not capitalizing on the opportunity.
00:31:20
Speaker 1: Oh, there's definitely got to be some stuff.
00:31:21
Speaker 2: There's got to be stuff that we should be that just future people will know better than us.
00:31:25
Speaker 1: Right. Also, some of this, I'm like, no one is most people aren't working at government jobs because it's their passion. So I'm sure if you catch somebody who's like not petty, that's the only thing that the government jobs have going for them, is like they hire petty people. I feel like they must be in the interview, like, Hey, so, Brenda, I see that you've worked in a few other administration positions and like, uh, how likely are you to keep someone's car there from a scale of one to day there have you ever worked at government? No, it is such.
00:32:01
Speaker 2: I worked in the Comptroller's office for a couple of summers in college, and it is it is full of either very petty people who will like beat a non issue into the ground, or people like Mark Luke encounters that are just like if you say, so.
00:32:19
Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck. Yeah, So those are the two types of people work there. So he got lucky. He didn't get the petty person. He got the person who's like, ah, yeah, people be dying, but they don't be dead anyway. Where do I need to stance? Here? You go? Wow?
00:32:33
Speaker 2: So he gets away with it again.
00:32:34
Speaker 1: Yes, he gets away again, probably cause he's also so charming.
00:32:37
Speaker 2: So now Luke is alive, but Mark is still dead.
00:32:39
Speaker 1: Yes, got it? Yes, Luke is back alive. He's back, but Mark is still dead. Okay, but actually Mark is alive.
00:32:46
Speaker 2: Marc is the one doing this just to keep everybody on the same canonically he's dead rat run.
00:32:58
Speaker 1: So Mark also, throughout this time period has been making pretty good money off these scams, and he's living it up. You know, he's buying drugs, he's bartying, he's having a good ass time. He also has pretty good health, considering he's not really on any like drugs right now for his actual condition, but he's in really good health. And then he realizes like a fuck amount of money again, Lucas back in debt, right, so he decided to take out a life insurance bid I guess against his policy, which basically means like you can say that you're gonna die soon and someone will buy your life insurance policy from you at a discounted rate. So he had one hundred thousand dollars life insurance policy and he basically was trying to sell it to another acquisition company that would give him fifty eight thousand dollars for his one hundred thousand dollars life insurance. So basically, they turn a profit on you wanting to use your money while your life life. Oh it's so dark, but I mean it's a whole business. Yeah. And so he tries to do this and the company's like, you're too healthy. Ooh right, and he tells them, oh, I have HIV. Like you know, this is a death sentence in the eighties. Like he's using the death sentence to get money, and they're like, you're too healthy. So he stops taking So now at this point he is on antibarral medication. Yeah, he stops taking it and drives his T cell countdown so that he can get this money.
00:34:23
Speaker 2: The mental gymnastics of this is like so alarming, insane.
00:34:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he does this and then he gets fifty eight thousand dollars. Then guess what, Mark Luke's back in good health baby, all of a sudden.
00:34:37
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, forgot, here's my medication.
00:34:40
Speaker 1: I'm living forever. So I'm sure whoever bought that policy from him like lost their job because he just did not die. They're not getting any money from him. He just got fifty eight thousand dollars for nothing.
00:34:54
Speaker 2: Nothing. Wow.
00:34:56
Speaker 1: So in August in two thousand and three, the FBI rushed into Mark's apartment and found narcotics. So this is like, Mark, whilst doing scams, also decided to part time be a meth dealer.
00:35:10
Speaker 2: Right, I forgot the whole meth dealer product.
00:35:13
Speaker 1: I can't even bring it in like like, I can't even explain it. I just have to be like. He also was.
00:35:18
Speaker 2: Good time to bring it up.
00:35:21
Speaker 1: And he had a methaden. He was making a lot of good money. He lead you around here right like yeah, West Hollywood. Yeah, so he was making in West Hollywood. Great place to be selling meth. He sells itself. You don't have to try at all. So he has a methdin. He has like lots of people hanging out there and people are in and out. He's just you know, carefree meth dealer scammer. One of his meth dealer regulars snitches on him to the FBI. Right, so, in August two thousand and three, the FBI rushes into Mark's apartment and found narcotics. Five weeks later, in court, Mark's public defender made HIV the center of his case, basically saying like, he has this horrible disease. It is a death sentence. That's why he started selling meth, because he just, you know, what else was he supposed to do? And obviously there's an outpour of sympathy for this. Right, so he ends up getting a two thousand dollars restitution fine, twenty two hundred dollars restitution fine, and three hundred hours of community service. And the article calls it a white boy special. Yes, yes, you gotta hear you, a little scamp. He was dealing meth for years. He was sad, Jamie, he was sad.
00:36:37
Speaker 2: And then they're they're like, he got a death sentence twenty years ago.
00:36:41
Speaker 1: Never mind that he's still laughed, never mind that it's two thousand and three and he had it. He got in ivy in the nineteen eighty.
00:36:47
Speaker 2: This is it is so hard to like contextualize this person in my head. You're like, yeah, I mean he is he is grieving. Like the first couple of years, you're like, he's maybe grieving. It's maybe there's some dissociation going on, but we're like twenty years deep at this point, you're.
00:37:02
Speaker 1: Like, no, you shouldn't, sir.
00:37:04
Speaker 2: You've re killed your own brother like three or four times.
00:37:09
Speaker 1: It's sir, are you are not sad? You aren't a scammer. You are king a red.
00:37:15
Speaker 2: Style at this point, So wheespecial.
00:37:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, when he got out immediately he so before he went to jail, I can't even like tell this story in an accurate way. Before he went to jail and he was selling all this math. He was on Craigslist and he was like, I should get a real job.
00:37:36
Speaker 2: Oh I forgot why this heart?
00:37:37
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, So he was gonna get a real job, but he got arrested. Like so he had an interview set up to go to this Craigslist job and then he got arrested by the FBI. So he was in jail for a little bit before they released him with restitution and three hundred hours of community service. Yeah. So when he gets out of jail. He finds the same job on Craigslist and he goes in to apply for the job. So like, hey, hey guys, yeah, sorry, I didn't show up for the first interview. I was in jail, a little meth thing, nowhere about it.
00:38:09
Speaker 2: I was sad.
00:38:10
Speaker 1: Community service gonna be fine. So he goes back and he gets this job. Yeah, so he ends up starting to sell meth agains. I wish I could like tell this in a way that like builds up to him, but no, he just starts selling meth agus.
00:38:28
Speaker 2: It's like, well, he's really not gonna learn this lesson.
00:38:31
Speaker 1: So I guess he tried to, you know, do a legitimate job when he got out of the little job. So it was like a print, like a like a marketing job for a magazine. Oh okay, yeah, which apparently he was good at. Yeah, scams are great at marketing. Yeah, we're gonna brands, we're gonna hooking people, like, we're real good at it. So he's doing that for a little bit. It's not given him enough money. He goes back to selling meth this time. The FBI raids again, yes, and they find his passport, his six passports, and they go in his wallet because they open the door and they're like, Mark Olmstead, you're under arrest. And he's like, I'm not Mark, I'm Luke. I'm not Mark, I'm Luke. I'm Luke. I'm Mark, I'm Luke.
00:39:16
Speaker 2: I'm Mark.
00:39:17
Speaker 1: I'm making hello. The FBI goes into his wallet and finds several IDs for Mark and for Luke. No, all the DMV scams catch up. Why you got him in the same wallet. You need a mock wallet. He literally had his like basically a box and just said crime on it. And they're like, I guess we should open this one. And they find, you know method he's selling ye, And they find six passports, damn certificates, and Mark and Luke's d m V identifications. Okay, sorry, why were you keeping them together?
00:39:58
Speaker 2: All? Yeah, you get various pla answerughout your house, so he know's where you hid things?
00:40:02
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
00:40:03
Speaker 2: Speaking from experience.
00:40:04
Speaker 1: So he goes to jail, but really for only like a short amount of time again a few years.
00:40:11
Speaker 2: He can't get caught.
00:40:12
Speaker 1: No, this time the judge was like, okay, we do have to send you to jail. Mark. I know you're sad, but like you gotta go to jail a little bit. He's like, okay, tarn it. So he goes to jail. He gets out of prison. He only really served less than a year.
00:40:31
Speaker 2: He's just like there for a semester.
00:40:34
Speaker 1: Honestly, he's harmless, you know what I mean. He's so a little mad. He does some fake identities.
00:40:39
Speaker 2: He's probably gonna kill his brother and sell nothing again.
00:40:42
Speaker 1: But what are we gonna do? He's so nice? You know he did you hear?
00:40:47
Speaker 2: Whi pee? Goldberg was almost in one of those.
00:40:51
Speaker 1: So he gets out of jail and he says that he had survivor's guilt and that he thanks God for being in prison because he needed to feel a little pemished, just a little, just a little now a little. So he gets out and now his latest business opportunity has been screenwriting for oligarchs. He goes back into the screenwriting stuff. Wait, what is screenwriting for ola Garks? That sounds so dark. So he has a bunch of Russian film investors and that want to produce American films, so he's helping them do so with all of his experience that he has from not producing anything ever.
00:41:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, mediocrity rains cool.
00:41:34
Speaker 1: And he's also working on a prison memoir called Ink from the Pin from.
00:41:41
Speaker 2: Less than a Year in Prison That is a scammon itself.
00:41:46
Speaker 1: He went to prison for less than a year and now he's writing oz I. Oh no, I love the title Ink from the Pin because like the pen, the penitentiary. Oh WOWK, but this is writing from the likes. That's sexy. I want to read Ink from the Pen. Uh oprah, please put it on your.
00:42:07
Speaker 2: Has fallen for scammer?
00:42:08
Speaker 1: Yeah a billion little Yeah.
00:42:11
Speaker 2: James Fry is thriving out here.
00:42:13
Speaker 1: He wrote four books.
00:42:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, he continued, and then he's like, all right, these ones are fiction, but they're sorry.
00:42:18
Speaker 1: Guys, you got me.
00:42:19
Speaker 2: I won't say I live this one, but still really compelling narratives. Damn wow. I honestly would read Ink from the Pen the same way I would read like that Mary and Williamson book. Yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker 1: I want to know.
00:42:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I am curious what you thought you went through.
00:42:36
Speaker 1: Curious what you're making up that you thought you went through for true and for fake.
00:42:40
Speaker 2: You're insulting people who are actually surfing time for far lesser crimes. But yeah, sure, Mark, tell us you only did a million billion crimes.
00:42:49
Speaker 1: You're the worst. Your only redeemable quality, I guess is that you were ill faded in a time where you know, horrible does he was wreaking havoc on our community and our world. So but that's not even redeeming.
00:43:05
Speaker 2: It's so it's like such a like I don't want to like discount like I'm sure he was in deep grief. I can't imagine like everyone around you dying from the same disease and feeling like your death is inevitable. But then it's also like what kind of person then capitalizes on that, like and and takes advantage of.
00:43:24
Speaker 1: This hor thing full advantage, like not just by like doing you know, the social security fraud and the disability fraud, but also by being in court and being like, hey, I thought I was gonna die, so I made a.
00:43:37
Speaker 2: Meth din yeah, like and just like taking advantage of like everyone's like sympathy, yeah, empathy, and just just being like, yeah, I'm dealing myths because aids And then everyone's like, oh, like no one wants to be the person to be like.
00:43:54
Speaker 1: What does that mean? But also I'm glad that something positive came out of such a horrible time. I I he did get to.
00:44:01
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure that his brother is somewhere being very disappointed.
00:44:06
Speaker 1: In him, and he is.
00:44:07
Speaker 2: He's like, he's like sober now and writing these sit So that's good.
00:44:12
Speaker 1: It's a good store.
00:44:13
Speaker 2: I don't even know. It's like, this is the kind of scam where it's like, who is Besides like the emotional drama to his family and the.
00:44:22
Speaker 1: Meth he was dealing the people and the meth he was dealing is then as a bad myth, is a bad drug.
00:44:27
Speaker 2: And the insult to everyone who was was alive during the AIDS epidemic.
00:44:34
Speaker 1: Besides that, who did he really hurt?
00:44:38
Speaker 2: He took money from the government and from insurance companies, And I like that part of the game.
00:44:43
Speaker 1: Fuck the government and fuck insurance company exactly, Like that's fun. But then it's like, but he also hurt a lot of people. Damn.
00:44:51
Speaker 2: That's a complicated one. It is as emotionally fraut Mark Luke, Mark Luke, which whichever you're identifying by these days, Poor Luke Luke literally only tried to do good and like loved his brother and brother who.
00:45:08
Speaker 1: We got the short end of the stick Yikes.
00:45:10
Speaker 2: Oh, man, I'm gonna give my brother permission to do that to me.
00:45:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. If yeah, when I die, like, please bring me back to life again and again, then just keep killing me over and over.
00:45:20
Speaker 2: Don't worry. I think it's funny.
00:45:21
Speaker 1: Make I think it's so funny wherever I am.
00:45:24
Speaker 2: But only take money from the government and insurance agencies. Don't hurt, don't hurt regular people.
00:45:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all we want. Yeah, and scammer of the week. I actually want to highlight a business oh that I really love. After the Rapture PetCare dot com. That's the longest website title in history.
00:45:47
Speaker 2: What is it?
00:45:48
Speaker 1: Http ww dot After the Rapture PetCare dot com. Okay, I'm ready slash backslash. So listen, dear fellow Christians. As the Apostle Paul described in Thessalonians that's quoted above, at some point in future, Jesus will come in the air and catch up the church from the earth and then return to Heaven with said church. This is known as the rapture, and it will be glorious. But what if our pets, who will take care of our pets when we are gone? That ain't going to have a dog's apparently. No, this is on the assumption that pets aren't included in the rapture. Yes, okay, which I don't know if there's any evidence to this conclusion. Every I've ever had is more worthy of being a part of the rapture than me the most human beings. Absolutely.
00:46:44
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:46:45
Speaker 1: Well, the after the Rapture pet care story starts because the idea came from seeing someone else as a joke. An atheist created a site in England that said that she would take care of Christian owned pets after the Rapture and ask for seven pounds as a donation. She promoted it as a joke and as it virally made the rounds amongst non believers who enjoy making fun of us Christians. My husband saw it. He's an internet geek, and he told me about it. Admittedly it did seem funny. A couple of weeks later, Carol came back and suggested that we start the Rapture pet care store together. Carol a real Christian name. Yeah, she said that she had asked several so it goes from first person to then like second person, like, wasn't this I story? I'm just gonna make all these She's eyes because I was very confused, and then it goes back to okay, oh my god. So she tells like a bunch of Christian friends about this service, saying that if you pay, I will ensure at the time of the rapture your pets get taken care of. Now here's where I'm confused. So did she not include her? Is she not gonna have it? It? She just admitted she was a scammer. She was just like, listen, there's no way I'm going to Hell, and Gasoline draws. Okay, I've been sending it since the beginning.
00:48:08
Speaker 2: It's like I'm going to Hell and I'm taking your pets with.
00:48:16
Speaker 1: Like, where are you gonna be at? Is she not say she doesn't? Oh my god. That's really what's confusing about it. Okay, so, oh god. So while they're planning the system, they thought about stories of pet rescues in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Imagine how many more pets would have been saved if there have been a database of pets and volunteers activated immediately. This is something we could do for Christian on pets, but only Christians.
00:48:45
Speaker 2: Oh, not Heathen pets.
00:48:46
Speaker 1: No, Okay. I also imagine like your owner a heathen. So now you gotta be a heathen by proxy.
00:48:53
Speaker 2: I gotta like get my dog baptized or something.
00:48:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good to go, right, So they created a database that is stored on multiple secure servers with multilocation online and offline password protected backups. While I don't intend to be here when the rapture comes, we are building a network of non Christians whoever agreed to rescue and care for our members' bets if we all disappear. So, oh, she isn't planning to be here when the rapture comes, but.
00:49:26
Speaker 2: She's she's just setting up a Google doc of people who could maybe take care of these dogs if they weren't Christians.
00:49:36
Speaker 1: Mark Luke is definitely gonna be taking care of some of these songs. Mark Luke, Mark looking in on this. Yeah, this is a good way.
00:49:46
Speaker 2: You don't got to sell meth. There's a better way. It's participating in this scam.
00:49:51
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. So they have a monthly fee to upkeep how much? Oh my god, It does not say I want to know how much the.
00:50:01
Speaker 2: So wait, so she's just saying, like, we're gonna put your pets named down so that a non Christian person will later show up after all, after we're all in heaven.
00:50:13
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, And to watch your dog, to watch your dog for you.
00:50:19
Speaker 2: That is a very generous hurt. I wonder is there any way of telling how popular this service is or it's like over I think.
00:50:26
Speaker 1: People are using it. I'm trying to get on the site right now. Wow, this is really this is a very creative. This is like a sub sub sub scam. I like a niche scam. I do too, Like we're really taking care of like religion, register your pets, Christian pet owners who believe that the rapture is coming soon? Also how soon? What if your pet dies and you've been paying this rapture?
00:50:52
Speaker 2: Is sure? Why any refund?
00:50:55
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's not. So that's so payment. We have never taken payments for our service, is what they say. We state that it is a ten dollars fee to weed out jokers who would submit fake pets thinking they are funny. That is, I mean, this is a free service, but it costs ten dollars. There's it's free, but also put your credit card information in merch shop. You got merdo merge. Oh my god. After the Rapture pet Care has you can get photos of your dog. What's okay? When you get raption, you ain't taking the shirt witches.
00:51:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is so oh oh no, it's for the volunteers after the Rapture pet Care volunteer pet So that's for.
00:51:42
Speaker 1: For the sinners.
00:51:43
Speaker 2: Wow, there's even merch for the sinners.
00:51:45
Speaker 1: That's more inclusive than I said. If you're going to hell, you might as well go impeggably dressed, get you. I don't like that. There's pictures of souls.
00:51:53
Speaker 2: Being sucked up into heaven.
00:51:55
Speaker 1: That is disturbing. Okay, so guys, it's pictures of souls being sucked up into heaven. And then it's like cats and dogs watching from the window married passively. By the way, I look like that dog look bad like for real. No, so, y'all just go go to heaven out, y'all gonna leave me down here and with no kibbles noo bits.
00:52:26
Speaker 2: He's living with a family of atheists. They got fucking Bill maher on in the background.
00:52:31
Speaker 1: Now he's gotta live with Bill maher watchers. Oh God, not fair. That's hell on Earth. That's not fair. Oh, after the Rapture pekir. I come with a ten dollar free, free donation.
00:52:45
Speaker 2: That's mandatory, and then you'll live in there, Google doc forever, whatever that's password protected on and offline.
00:52:54
Speaker 1: I mean literally anything there's like, oh oh my god, it's fine, amazing having you, Jamie, keep for having us. Where can people find you?
00:53:04
Speaker 2: You can find my podcast is the Bechdel Cast. Host it with Caitlin Durante. Uh and we bring a guest on. Lacey's been on twice and we love review movies from a feminist perspective. And you can find me on Twitter at Jamie loftus help and Instagram at Jamie christ Ruperstar.
00:53:25
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, all right, guys. As always, you can find us at Scam Goddess Pod on all the Internet's platforms, Gmail, Twitter, and it's there and yeah talk and then you can find me guys at Diva l A C D I v A l A C I on all platforms. Guys, we love you, Stay skeeping, stay shady.
00:53:50
Speaker 2: And if you're listening, Mark Luke, come on.
00:53:53
Speaker 1: Mark Luke, I need you on the show, Mark or Luke or Bo whoever's alive at the time. Dam Goddess, Scam Goddess Stars and is hosted by me Lacy Mosley aka Scam Goddess. Our producer is Jessica sis Neros and our audio engineer is Rich Garcia. Research for the show is conducted by Kate Doyle stay skim in
Speaker 1: Sca R scam come right, goddess? Oh my god. Well, hi guys, welcome back to Scam Goddess. This is a pod dedicated to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week we break down famous scams and capers and bring on hilarious comedians to tell us about their own relationships with scams as well. And today I'm so honored to have the Jamie loftest actor, stand up, one woman performer, everything in front of me. Thank you so much for doing the show.
00:00:50
Speaker 2: Of course, I'm so excited.
00:00:51
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I'm a big fan of Jamie. I love doing She has a podcast called The Bechtol Cast, which I guess you could plug later, but.
00:01:00
Speaker 2: We've already plus beloved guests on that show.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: So good. I love that show so much. Well, let's get into it, Jamie. We'll start with What's Hot in Fraud. So What's Hot in Fraud is a segment where we warn our listeners about popular scams. If you want to warn us or tell us about a scam that you have experienced in your life, please email us at Scam gooddesspod at gmail dot com. We'd love to share it on the show. All right, So We're gonna start with what's hot in fraud. So this is a segment where we regale our listeners with the hottest newest scams, you know, to protect them from getting scammed. We only want our listeners doing our scams right, and we fully support those. If we call you it's legitimate, it's right.
00:01:44
Speaker 2: Because we care. And you know, I think that podcasters really form this false sense of trust with the people that listen to them, and that's why podcasters said gray scammers.
00:01:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, but podcast podcasts are scams, yea. So enjoy. This scam came for me on Twitter and I'll just read what he wrote. Somebody called me with this phone number. I'm not going to say the phone number because I want that guy to keep scamming. Telling me he was doing some registration online and he mistakenly put my number on what he was registering. He said that my number is similar to his number, and that the password of what he was registering was sent to my phone. He was actually now appealing to me to give him a reset code that was actually sent to my phone so that he could finish his registration. I got online to find out more, only to discover that he was actually trying to reset my bank online Yahoo mail password and that he's a fraudster. Okay, So one, I just want to say, sir, why are you operating on Yahoo Male?
00:02:43
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean that's honestly not to say he's asking for it by.
00:02:49
Speaker 1: Is for scam. That's a red flag.
00:02:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:02:51
Speaker 1: Literally, like you use Yahoo Male when you go to a clothing store and they're like, we'll give you ten percent off if you give us an email, Like, you shouldn't.
00:02:58
Speaker 2: Still be using your first email. You gotta, you gotta. I still have my I have. If you ever want to email me and not and I won't see it, you should email poetry Punk eighteen at MSN dot com. That's where all the scams go from.
00:03:11
Speaker 1: I see that, and I raise you, Little Chica Bonita nine at aol dot com. Love it.
00:03:18
Speaker 2: Oh, you get the high school graduation year in there.
00:03:21
Speaker 1: It's a class and the litl It was all everyone was like lil back then, Like my cousin has an email that was a little Blue two thousand and seven. It was all about what year you were graduating and.
00:03:31
Speaker 2: Lil and what you were a little version of exactly he was a little version of the color blue and I was a little cheka Anita.
00:03:40
Speaker 1: Yes, I called myself beautiful in my own email. It was like email me at beautiful little girl, little girl graduating not yet. Maybe I should like look into that. I want to see what kind of emails beautiful little girl is getting, probably not good ones.
00:03:56
Speaker 2: I feel like that is like an email you would guess to send a scam to.
00:04:02
Speaker 1: Also like this. This intrigued me because I guess like anyone calling you with like any kind of elaborate story about how they need information from you is always a scam.
00:04:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I feel like they target people and I like I've I've come close to falling for it. I've never gone so far as to give them the info, but like when they sound like, hey, it would be really helpful if I am automatically like I don't want to disappoint anyone.
00:04:27
Speaker 1: So you're like an impath for scams, because there's different types. Because for me, I'm an incentive scammer. So if you call me and you're like, oh, you know, I'm about the why are you these this money? All I need is the taxes and fees, Like I'm more apt to do that scam than I am like can you help me out? Blah blah blah, Like nah, fuck you? What am I getting out of this?
00:04:45
Speaker 2: I fall for like the Nigerian Prince scams. I'm just like, I need It would be so helpful if you I'd be so I a stranger would be so disappointed in you.
00:04:55
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, no, I need that stranger. I need this stranger to like me. Yeah see, And I guess, like, and it's cool to kind of figure out the different strategies because there are people who I think you're a worst scammer. If you're appealing to people's good nature, I think that's more fucked up.
00:05:12
Speaker 2: I bet yeah, it's more fucked up, and I bet less effective too.
00:05:15
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:05:16
Speaker 2: I would think so too.
00:05:17
Speaker 1: But at the same time, people like to be liked. This scam is probably working for him. He's definitely resetting mad Yahoo accounts with What do you do with that?
00:05:26
Speaker 2: Do you think it's like the Yahoo people specifically he is targeting or is it? Like I guess, I'm like, how does he How do you get something like this off the ground?
00:05:36
Speaker 1: I have to admire Maybe he's like, Okay, once I get into your email, then I'll get like more information about you and then I'll use that.
00:05:44
Speaker 2: I think you just reset everything.
00:05:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right, because when you have an email, then you can really reset your whole life. That's the crazy thing is like Google is the biggest scam. My Google fucking crashed my Gmail because someone from BuzzFeed sent me a spam email and I opened it and then it set on a spam email to everyone in my email account, and they froze my account and my life fell apart, and I was like, oh my god, I've given so much power to Google. Like my calendar stopped working. I was like, where do I be? What do I do? Who am I? Like? Lose access to your bank? Raid? Yeah, couldn't send any emails, couldn't tell anybody that I was off the grid. It was like I had a full on, like meltdown, like panic attack. I think if that happened to me, I would just start over in a new city. Yeah all right, I get a stick and a bandannaut and I pack all my belongings and I would just leave this fucking skipped down. You're right, You're right. I think that's what you have to do when your email shuts down. It's like, all right, I quit.
00:06:41
Speaker 2: All right, I've been canceled for some reason, and I'll move on.
00:06:45
Speaker 1: It's been good America, not that good, but okay, now I'm leaving the country. But yeah, so that's interesting to me that, like this is one of those like can you help me out? Type scams? I am very not likely to fall for those. You A hang up. Yeah, although if guys, I call you and I meet your help like, I really care she's she means, so help me out and give me your Social Security number. I've already done it and your Yahoo password. Yes, Jamie. I told Jamie to do the show like she needed.
00:07:11
Speaker 2: To give me your social or she didn't like me anymore, and I was like, yeah, I'll do it.
00:07:15
Speaker 1: That was the only payment was my like and approval. Yep, I'll take it. Also, Jamie, Uh, what what is your relationship with scams? Have you ever been scammed? Have ever been involved in a scam? You don't have to talk about any current scams that you have going but.
00:07:30
Speaker 2: Oh no, just just retired scams at this point. Uh, there is a scam that I sort of fell for. I don't know it got murky, but I for the past year, I've been interacting a lot with the MENSA.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: Yes, I love your Messa. They're mean people.
00:07:47
Speaker 2: They're mean spirited people, so like, and it kind of goes without saying that a high IQ society that you need to pay eighty dollars to join it is a scam. Yeah, but it's also like it's so that's the one I just sort of I just had to saffronize with them because it was it just like I joined as like a joke for this piece I was writing and they're they're like, we'll pay the fee, just like go and see what they're like and stuff. And they were like, what a flex.
00:08:17
Speaker 1: She's like, I joined MENSA just to write a piece. They don't let you into MENSA because you pay a fee. You have to be a genius. I'm sitting with a genius.
00:08:26
Speaker 2: Well that's the thing is I think that even the testing is a scam, Like it was not a difficult test.
00:08:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you're a genius.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: No, Like I did it in my sleep.
00:08:39
Speaker 1: Why everyone can't do this?
00:08:41
Speaker 2: There was it was it was the thing that they were like when I was taking the test, like, I don't know, because you have to be like arrogant enough to think that you could be a genius. So there's already like this ego point eventually, which is a.
00:08:53
Speaker 1: Big thing in scams. Confidence Like to a point of egomaniac is like.
00:08:57
Speaker 2: And then you won't want to admit that you're wrong later because you already have been telling people you're a genius. And but the questions on the test, like there were some that were there. There was like some math shit and some pattern shit that was like harder for me, but there was a whole section on just like do you know who this famous person is and what's their job? Like there was you had to you had there. Bill Cosby was on the test, Oh god, and I was like, I don't know what category he belongs in multiple of these categories.
00:09:24
Speaker 1: This must be an old question. Uh. But so they also aren't updating the test. It sounds like if Bill Cosby's on the test, No, it's just.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Like they're they're just I think that they're like going for uh, like ego maniacs who were like, oh, I'm probably a genius and then just kind of taking their money.
00:09:42
Speaker 1: Yo. That's actually very smart because it's like you can you have to keep the society exclusive enough that people feel privileged. But also you got to keep that shit going, so somebody got to be getting in there to they in the genius Yeah, and then and then it goes from there.
00:09:54
Speaker 2: Is like once you once you like get in and you take the test which costs seventy five dollars, then you got to pay the eighty do fee to actually join the group, and then you got to participate in your local group, and then you gotta go to Phoenix in the summer.
00:10:07
Speaker 1: Phoenix. You never had to go to Phoenix. What the fuck is in Phoenix, Arizona for geniuses?
00:10:12
Speaker 2: A lot of people that were mad at me there, there's there is. I'm like, my biggest fear is confrontation to my face, and I had maybe one.
00:10:22
Speaker 1: Hundred confrontations to my face and.
00:10:24
Speaker 2: I'm cured now and I'll never be upset about anything again. But it was just like the like level of what were they mad at you about? They were mad at me because I made fun of them in.
00:10:33
Speaker 1: My piece and they all read it because they read.
00:10:36
Speaker 2: They were all they all read it, and then they posted in this secret Facebook group and it was just like all these insults and all these like I had never posted in this group, but they were just like a stupid like she's I hate her eyebrows. That was there was some such good eyebrows, thank you so much. I was like, I just I was shocked at the low, the low, like Spencer's gift level humor bar, you guys are genius?
00:11:00
Speaker 1: Can you insult me on like an intellectual level?
00:11:02
Speaker 2: So challenge me?
00:11:03
Speaker 1: Give me an insult. I give you a word problem, that's an insult?
00:11:07
Speaker 2: Right, And then but then and then there was like a very weird death threat and I was like, oh, this is serious, like what's going on? And then it just it just like went spiraled up from there. But the but just on a base level, like a high IQ society where you have to already be like I'm special to get in. It's so easy to take money from people who believe that they're.
00:11:29
Speaker 1: Better than everyone, because that's a different type of scam. That's the ego. So you're getting the reward of feeling better than someone. That's like the whole premise of the Firefest was like that got beautiful rich models. You have to have so much money to go here.
00:11:42
Speaker 2: And once and once you're in, like you'll keep paying to keep appearances up, which.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: Is like for all the other snooty intellectuals exactly because you want to match everyone.
00:11:51
Speaker 2: And it's it's weird because I mean that group is it was, It's like more it was more diverse in like class background. It is like majority of white people, but they're there, but it's people from all classes. So I'm like, they're they're like scamming some like low income families.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: They did well on a test.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: They're like, no, come to Phoenix, buy this Deadpool shirt. We mad Like I got the dead Pool shirt.
00:12:17
Speaker 1: That sounds good.
00:12:18
Speaker 2: It says brain Pool on it.
00:12:19
Speaker 1: Lazy Wow. It's just Deadpool with a big ass head.
00:12:23
Speaker 2: It says Brainpool.
00:12:25
Speaker 1: I mean, look, you got a flex on a hoe, you know what I mean? You got to show people that you got that big ass right.
00:12:29
Speaker 2: I go out there, I wear my brain Pool shirt and people line up.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: Were there kids in the society?
00:12:34
Speaker 2: There are kids, which is which is another thing about it that freaks me out because it's like, can you imagine a worst thing to do to a kid than tell them they're better than everyone?
00:12:42
Speaker 1: Like, oh, I loved it. There personally fueled me as a child was better than everyone. I never did mensa, but I was a kid like aspiring actor.
00:12:53
Speaker 2: I always like, you know, like when you go into a mall when you're little and you're like, maybe today's the day, and it's just like, is there some perverse like that's a scam? Is like wandering the mall and then just approaching hot kids and being like, do you want to be a star? Like that could be anyone.
00:13:09
Speaker 1: That was the biggest scam of the nineties.
00:13:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:13:11
Speaker 1: It was like people discovering people at water fountains.
00:13:14
Speaker 2: Oh, we were all so exciting.
00:13:15
Speaker 1: It was so hot at the water fountain, just sipping that water, so so.
00:13:19
Speaker 2: Slow performing walking in and out of Claire's. It's just like somebody notice me.
00:13:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, the mall's a place for scams and for creeps.
00:13:28
Speaker 2: Yeah. True.
00:13:29
Speaker 1: My friend got inducted into a cult from being at the mall. No, yeah, they were at the mall and they got her.
00:13:36
Speaker 2: Wow. That's honestly at a mall, I'll fall for almost anything. I've done the Dead Sea salt Face scrubs.
00:13:44
Speaker 1: If you've ever bought something from a mall Kiosk, you've participated in a scam. Like those stores that are literally like a moving.
00:13:51
Speaker 2: Cart, Like I like the belts that you can program to say whatever you.
00:13:55
Speaker 1: Want big in the nineties. Yes, you get that. You wear it to the Bezu cake, give it up number one fan scam God. All right, well we're gonna move into our biggest segment here and my favorite. This is actually really dope because Jamie sent me this story and then I went on a super deep dive about it. But this is a story about Mark Luke, Mark Luke, Mark Mark or Luke Olmsted. That's the question. That's the question, Mark or Luke or both. So this is a story that happens during the AIDS epidemic in the eighties, before we had like good medication and you could actually live for a very long time, you know, and have a full life with HIV. And this is about a man who says he says that because he was diagnosed with HIV that he started doing scams because he didn't think he was going to live very long. However, when I took a deep dive into these scams, I was like, oh no, honey, you was a scammer. He was set for the long career scamm Yeah. Yes, So Luke and Mark are two brothers. So Luke was two years older than Mark, and he was like industrial and athletic. He was an eagle scout and like a good person. And Mark was you know, rumoredly very funny and quick witted and charming, but like kind of a fuck up, which is the real makers of a scammer, Like a scammer, a charismatic fuck up, charismatic as shit Like scammers, you love them, they embolden you, you feel special around them. They're fucking insane and I love it so Luke, like, just to get really into it. They were both actually gay and Luke ended up being diagnosed with HIV at the same time as Mark, because it was an epidemic in the eighties. It was insane. I actually had one of my uncles passed away from HIV and got it in the eighties and like, thank god now for modern medicine, and this is not as big of an issue, like you know what I.
00:16:06
Speaker 2: Mean, Like it's not like a death sentence.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: It's not a death sentence anymore. Yeah, it's still a big issue, but it's not a death sentence. And so but at the time it was and Mark capitalized on this.
00:16:15
Speaker 2: Mark was like scamming as if he was going to die young.
00:16:19
Speaker 1: Literally, Yeah, is that a song is That's like I think I just referenced a Kesha song.
00:16:26
Speaker 2: That's like ten years old.
00:16:27
Speaker 1: Brush your cheese with a bottle of Jack Mark Mark Luke so to just cut to the chase Luke passes away, and you know it's always the good ones, like he was sweet and lovely and everyone seemed like a really good guy at least how they tell these stories. And Mark was a shady fuck up and of course he lives forever. That's how it goes. I have one aunt alive from being a child, one great aunt, and she was the most fucking evil person and she has outlived everyone lives forever.
00:16:56
Speaker 2: Yeah. Evil really just I don't know what it does too, it really does.
00:17:01
Speaker 1: It keeps you alit.
00:17:02
Speaker 2: We were I had an evil grandma and we were just like, it's never gonna happen. She's never gonna die. She'll bury us.
00:17:09
Speaker 1: She's gonna bury you all. It's like John McCain's mom. John's mom must have done some real fucked.
00:17:14
Speaker 2: Up shit in her life, because that bit it reminds me of like Resputing from Anastasia. Make a deal with the devil and then all of a sudden you can like be dead.
00:17:23
Speaker 1: But also alive. Right, Yeah, she's literally Melissandra from Game of He's just so fucking old and petty and not going anywhere. And I stand at some point, I'm gonna have to start being evil because I would like to live that long as well. I think around fifty, I'm gonna have to just start being a real fucked up.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: Oh, we're gonna have to like renegotiate our morals entirely.
00:17:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, so that we can live longer. So Mark continues living. But Luke and Mark had been living together since they've been diagnosed in San Diego. So when Luke passes away, you know, Mark's like devastated. But then Luke's disability checks start coming in the mail, and Mark was responsible for filing his death certificate, which when the checks started coming, Mark was like, maybe I wait on his certificate. Maybe I wait on that, you know, and it's like, okay, he's grieving movies just And Luke was a physician, so his his like disability checks were.
00:18:24
Speaker 2: Checks, and his I mean his because wasn't he like researching HIV A. It's like he was looking for cures. Mark is fucked up, man. His brother was literally an angel trying to trying to save everyone, and Mark was like, well let's see disability check.
00:18:42
Speaker 1: Yes, Mark was no scruples, so uh he continues to cash these checks for forever and then Marks like, hmmm, well the.
00:18:54
Speaker 3: Fucking cash these checks? Then what about a dry license? Which I don't think is the next natural step here?
00:19:04
Speaker 2: No, he takes so many like huge risks like early into.
00:19:10
Speaker 1: This, so Luke, And this is also the eighties, so the technology is not that great. Isn't this like when Ghosts came out and everybody who's had computers with green letters on them.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, then they need like twenty minutes to turn on. Right, you could like not communicate something to someone and get it away and they wouldn't find out for a year. Yeah kind of thing.
00:19:28
Speaker 1: Literally, So this is like the era of like ghost era computers and like nobody's checking that green fought that hard. We don't got tired. It hurts your eyes, it truly does. I want to check up for scams on that green font. So a envelope arrived, so it seems like everything kind of started as opportunistic. It was like, oh, these checks are still arriving. I'm gonna cash these checks. Oh, this envelope says that you have to renew your driver's license, so I'm all renew as you. So what I didn't understand was is that Mark showed up to the DMB and took Luke's driver's license photo. Yep, And then now Mark's face is on Luke's driver's license.
00:20:08
Speaker 2: It's so hard for me to like put myself in a headspace where this works.
00:20:12
Speaker 1: I guess it's because it's the eighties, because I'm like, I guess they didn't have photos on the computer. So if you were just like, I need to renew my driver's license, they were like, great, I have like the certificate, like the birth certificate or yeah, or security card which don't have photos on them, which is also weird.
00:20:25
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess your birth certificate it'd just be you as a baby, so that doesn't count.
00:20:29
Speaker 1: Right, holding it up like is this youth could be it's just like me coming out with the photo black baby. It's me, Yes, So I guess you could just go take other people's driver's license photos. In the eighties, What a time for scam?
00:20:45
Speaker 2: Why are more people doing that?
00:20:47
Speaker 1: God, that's amazing.
00:20:48
Speaker 2: They didn't know that this is a limited time scam.
00:20:51
Speaker 1: They didn't know technology was gonna improve and you weren't gonna be able to do it. The Gateway computer comes out, this is over wrap, yo, Bill Gate's probably brewing made scams as much as we're like, oh, we love the computer, and shit, I bet there's a lot of people out there who were like, bitch.
00:21:06
Speaker 2: I bet. It's almost like when a job becomes defunct, because it's like been replaced by something automated. You have to retrain. So scammers like couldn't do the DMV scams anymore, but they could start Internet scams. They just had to recalibrate their breath.
00:21:19
Speaker 1: Yeah they did. And good scammers they rise to the occasion. Oh good scammers never die, No, and not at all. You got to keep evolving, you know. It's a great every great business place. Really inspiring when you think about it. Truly as I love scammers, I love them so much. So at this point, he now has his brother's driver's license with his face on it, and he's cashing these disability checks. Now Mark is a creative so weird turn he actually gets a screenwriting gig.
00:21:50
Speaker 2: This is crazy, which is like, okay, it doesn't it involve like Whoopie Goal.
00:21:55
Speaker 1: Yes. So Woopie went on record and said that she did not endorse this movie, but I think she had known about the screenplay because she was asked about it a few times. I was like, yeah, I did hear about it, but I wasn't involved in the project. But the way that Mark was selling it was that he had a screenwriting gig and he was working with two colleagues, and this was all abroad too, and that Whoopy Goldberg claimed that she wanted to be a part of it. Okay, but then his two colleagues die of eights. Yes, oh I forgot that. So like this is still true. It is, but not for Mark.
00:22:33
Speaker 2: Not for Mark.
00:22:33
Speaker 1: No. Mark. Honestly, I was like, is this scam too sad for the show? But Mark is so shady that I was like, no, it's a fascinating scam. Yeah.
00:22:43
Speaker 2: I mean he takes full advantage.
00:22:45
Speaker 1: He's seeking full advantage of an epidem Yeah, it's the worst. Everyone else is like having concerts and selling T shirts.
00:22:53
Speaker 2: His brother really trying to cure HIV AIDS, and he.
00:22:58
Speaker 1: Was like, I see an opportunity.
00:22:59
Speaker 2: Mark's all right, let's see if I can read a Whoopie Goldberg vehicle. That'll there, and it seems like too he's like a failed writer.
00:23:08
Speaker 1: Yeah that yeah, absolutely yikes. So he has the ID, right, he's got the disability checks. What comes next credit cards. So he starts getting credit cards in Luke's name and he's running up these bills. And he had over forty thousand dollars in credit card debt on just one card alone. So now these credit card companies are calling like, hey, Luke, Lukemark, we need our coins. So when one rep from a credit card company phoned and asked for Luke, his mind raced and then Mark was like, oh fuck, I am Luke. I just gotta say I'm Luke.
00:23:46
Speaker 2: Okay, Greig great.
00:23:47
Speaker 1: So he does it and he says, mister Ohms said, we've heard of your brother's death. So what he did was is Mark had a bunch of credit card debt and he decided instead of killing Luke, to kill himself, right, So he sit in a death certificate for himself.
00:24:06
Speaker 2: And he's like exact a knife, like forging the kim.
00:24:10
Speaker 1: He also went to Office Max, which Office.
00:24:14
Speaker 2: Max eighties probabler of chaos.
00:24:17
Speaker 1: Enabler of scamps and got a stamp that said CEE c on it okay, And he was using that on his fake death certificates to say certified copy because that's basically the exact same stamp that they would use. Now if anybody had cared to zoom in a way, would have saw that. It also said Corona Krueger's, which was a childhood little league baseball team. Oh my god. So he was using this Corona Krueger stamp to like certified documents and death certificates, which I thought was lit because stamps, like in the late eighties early nineties, like people had stamps of their signatures. My mom had a stamp of her signature that I I would use to sign off on detention documents that I got because I know I went to detention all the time for just being late. I would have like I had I think I had when I was twelve, my sixth grade year, I had thirty six detentions, and every time you got five detentions, you got a Friday night, which was like a Friday night was a three What a punishment to teacher, Yeah, just for being late, a three hour detention on Friday nights and so then I would have to do those because my detentions had added up too much.
00:25:29
Speaker 2: That's like one thing where anytime I've been punished for being late, like as a kid, it's like it has never made me more on time.
00:25:35
Speaker 1: At no adults, I continued to be late. I'm late for.
00:25:39
Speaker 2: Almost everything still, like it's it doesn't help no.
00:25:43
Speaker 1: Why you know, being late is a big scam because people who are late or tardy end up paying more over their lifetime than people who are prompt. So things like late fees, things like express Like I went to the airport and had to buy a fast pass through the airport because a fifteen dollars Jet Blue fast pass. Well, they do it like Disneyland. They do it like Disneyland.
00:26:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just had to expedite a passport because I forgot ye and they pay.
00:26:11
Speaker 1: They charge you for that so much. Anytime you don't plan, anytime you're late, that's a big scam that people are profiting off. And I want to stop, but also I can't. I kind of refuse.
00:26:20
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know what, I'll get another job so I can continue to be late right to everything.
00:26:24
Speaker 1: This is just my I drive for Lyft, so I can be late. I just drive for lift on the weekends just to be late to think oh yeah. Oh. And also, I'll never buy another fast pass in the airport because now I just know I can say I have it because no one checks. Oh wow? Is that just for Jet Blue? Is that for it? So for everyone else it could be like priority membership. So if you're first flying first class, or you have priority boarding, or if you're like one of those sparkled Diamond, silver, Sapphire blue jet guess you know what I mean.
00:26:56
Speaker 2: It's just like you just need the confidence to enter. I want to go into one of those lounges someday, you know, those like they have like the United Lounge.
00:27:04
Speaker 1: Now they check that ship, they checked that shit. Damn. I know because I've tried to just like breathe just to get in.
00:27:10
Speaker 2: Yeah damn, I won't try some day.
00:27:12
Speaker 1: I try to breeze in when I actually have the past, too, because I want to see how easy it is, exactly because I'm like, now I have insurance, but I also want to see if I can just do this whenever. So yeah, now I'll always say that I have priority boarding. No one checks. Okay, no one checks also tip for people going to LAX if it's ever crowded and there's like really big lines. I've learned as a scammer to always look for like what eighty A compliant or like handicap accessible things exist, not to get in the way of someone who actually needs them. But if they're empty, I've found that you can get everywhere much faster.
00:27:47
Speaker 2: Oh that makes a lot of sense.
00:27:49
Speaker 1: So everyone was waiting in the line for an escalator, I just took the elevator and skipped everybody. It's such a simple scam, so good, but yeah, completely sidetracked. But yes. So Mark killed himself and then used the stamp to certify his own death certificate because he had too much credit card debt. So they called Luke, who is actually Mark, and we're like, hey, we heard about your brother's death. And the thing is is it needs a raised and colored seal on this death certificate and it doesn't have that. So then Mark literally starts bannicking because he's like, I made this shit up, Like the jig is up, They're gonna catch me. All Mark did was tell the guy tell the woman on the phone that he was really sad about his brother's.
00:28:42
Speaker 2: Death, and he did the empathy and she just stopped asking questions. Wow, that would.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: Have been me.
00:28:51
Speaker 2: I would have fallen for that, so I would have Yeah.
00:28:55
Speaker 1: Shit right, it works right. So under Luke's name his death, his debt has now reached like fifty thousand dollars.
00:29:03
Speaker 2: Because he's like doing and he's like partying and like doing drugs and all this exactly.
00:29:07
Speaker 1: So he started working at a magazine and then decided to quit and collect unemployment. Okay, so he is now.
00:29:17
Speaker 2: He's working at the magazine under his own name, yes, as if he's not dead.
00:29:21
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, no, he's working at the magazine under Luke's name. Oh yes, he's full on how it started a career as Luke. No, and he gets confused, Like as much as we're confused as I'm telling this story, and I'm sure our listeners are confused, Mark Luke is gonna get very confused. Well, this is why I started with like Mark Luke, Luke Mark. So he kills Luke right next, So first he kills himself, then he kills Luke because now he has too much debt under Luke's name. So now they're both days, yes, okay, So then he goes to the DMV and says he loves the DMV. Everyone hates the DMV, but he loves the He goes there, No, actually no, not the DMV. He goes to the Social Security Office as Luke after he's killed Mark and Luke okay, and he goes there and he says, hey, I need to apply for benefits because the difference. Don remember, like he quit his magazine job and was gaining disability, but his disability is not as much as his brother's because his brother was a doctor, right, and a hero right and a good person, a good person. So he goes to Social Security office and he says, hey, I'm sick again. I really need to get social security again. And the guy the Social Security office says, Luke almos said died, and he goes but I'm right here though it gives him a huge smile, and he was ready with this story that he had been working for doctors beyond borders in Africa and lost his passport, like he had a whole story ready. But what actually happened was the guy at the Social Security office goes, these things happen and then puts him on disability. These things happened I just the eighties is such a good time for scams. It's so weird.
00:31:12
Speaker 2: Like I think now, like thirty years from now, what are people gonna say, we should have been scamming and we're not capitalizing on the opportunity.
00:31:20
Speaker 1: Oh, there's definitely got to be some stuff.
00:31:21
Speaker 2: There's got to be stuff that we should be that just future people will know better than us.
00:31:25
Speaker 1: Right. Also, some of this, I'm like, no one is most people aren't working at government jobs because it's their passion. So I'm sure if you catch somebody who's like not petty, that's the only thing that the government jobs have going for them, is like they hire petty people. I feel like they must be in the interview, like, Hey, so, Brenda, I see that you've worked in a few other administration positions and like, uh, how likely are you to keep someone's car there from a scale of one to day there have you ever worked at government? No, it is such.
00:32:01
Speaker 2: I worked in the Comptroller's office for a couple of summers in college, and it is it is full of either very petty people who will like beat a non issue into the ground, or people like Mark Luke encounters that are just like if you say, so.
00:32:19
Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck. Yeah, So those are the two types of people work there. So he got lucky. He didn't get the petty person. He got the person who's like, ah, yeah, people be dying, but they don't be dead anyway. Where do I need to stance? Here? You go? Wow?
00:32:33
Speaker 2: So he gets away with it again.
00:32:34
Speaker 1: Yes, he gets away again, probably cause he's also so charming.
00:32:37
Speaker 2: So now Luke is alive, but Mark is still dead.
00:32:39
Speaker 1: Yes, got it? Yes, Luke is back alive. He's back, but Mark is still dead. Okay, but actually Mark is alive.
00:32:46
Speaker 2: Marc is the one doing this just to keep everybody on the same canonically he's dead rat run.
00:32:58
Speaker 1: So Mark also, throughout this time period has been making pretty good money off these scams, and he's living it up. You know, he's buying drugs, he's bartying, he's having a good ass time. He also has pretty good health, considering he's not really on any like drugs right now for his actual condition, but he's in really good health. And then he realizes like a fuck amount of money again, Lucas back in debt, right, so he decided to take out a life insurance bid I guess against his policy, which basically means like you can say that you're gonna die soon and someone will buy your life insurance policy from you at a discounted rate. So he had one hundred thousand dollars life insurance policy and he basically was trying to sell it to another acquisition company that would give him fifty eight thousand dollars for his one hundred thousand dollars life insurance. So basically, they turn a profit on you wanting to use your money while your life life. Oh it's so dark, but I mean it's a whole business. Yeah. And so he tries to do this and the company's like, you're too healthy. Ooh right, and he tells them, oh, I have HIV. Like you know, this is a death sentence in the eighties. Like he's using the death sentence to get money, and they're like, you're too healthy. So he stops taking So now at this point he is on antibarral medication. Yeah, he stops taking it and drives his T cell countdown so that he can get this money.
00:34:23
Speaker 2: The mental gymnastics of this is like so alarming, insane.
00:34:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he does this and then he gets fifty eight thousand dollars. Then guess what, Mark Luke's back in good health baby, all of a sudden.
00:34:37
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, forgot, here's my medication.
00:34:40
Speaker 1: I'm living forever. So I'm sure whoever bought that policy from him like lost their job because he just did not die. They're not getting any money from him. He just got fifty eight thousand dollars for nothing.
00:34:54
Speaker 2: Nothing. Wow.
00:34:56
Speaker 1: So in August in two thousand and three, the FBI rushed into Mark's apartment and found narcotics. So this is like, Mark, whilst doing scams, also decided to part time be a meth dealer.
00:35:10
Speaker 2: Right, I forgot the whole meth dealer product.
00:35:13
Speaker 1: I can't even bring it in like like, I can't even explain it. I just have to be like. He also was.
00:35:18
Speaker 2: Good time to bring it up.
00:35:21
Speaker 1: And he had a methaden. He was making a lot of good money. He lead you around here right like yeah, West Hollywood. Yeah, so he was making in West Hollywood. Great place to be selling meth. He sells itself. You don't have to try at all. So he has a methdin. He has like lots of people hanging out there and people are in and out. He's just you know, carefree meth dealer scammer. One of his meth dealer regulars snitches on him to the FBI. Right, so, in August two thousand and three, the FBI rushes into Mark's apartment and found narcotics. Five weeks later, in court, Mark's public defender made HIV the center of his case, basically saying like, he has this horrible disease. It is a death sentence. That's why he started selling meth, because he just, you know, what else was he supposed to do? And obviously there's an outpour of sympathy for this. Right, so he ends up getting a two thousand dollars restitution fine, twenty two hundred dollars restitution fine, and three hundred hours of community service. And the article calls it a white boy special. Yes, yes, you gotta hear you, a little scamp. He was dealing meth for years. He was sad, Jamie, he was sad.
00:36:37
Speaker 2: And then they're they're like, he got a death sentence twenty years ago.
00:36:41
Speaker 1: Never mind that he's still laughed, never mind that it's two thousand and three and he had it. He got in ivy in the nineteen eighty.
00:36:47
Speaker 2: This is it is so hard to like contextualize this person in my head. You're like, yeah, I mean he is he is grieving. Like the first couple of years, you're like, he's maybe grieving. It's maybe there's some dissociation going on, but we're like twenty years deep at this point, you're.
00:37:02
Speaker 1: Like, no, you shouldn't, sir.
00:37:04
Speaker 2: You've re killed your own brother like three or four times.
00:37:09
Speaker 1: It's sir, are you are not sad? You aren't a scammer. You are king a red.
00:37:15
Speaker 2: Style at this point, So wheespecial.
00:37:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, when he got out immediately he so before he went to jail, I can't even like tell this story in an accurate way. Before he went to jail and he was selling all this math. He was on Craigslist and he was like, I should get a real job.
00:37:36
Speaker 2: Oh I forgot why this heart?
00:37:37
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, So he was gonna get a real job, but he got arrested. Like so he had an interview set up to go to this Craigslist job and then he got arrested by the FBI. So he was in jail for a little bit before they released him with restitution and three hundred hours of community service. Yeah. So when he gets out of jail. He finds the same job on Craigslist and he goes in to apply for the job. So like, hey, hey guys, yeah, sorry, I didn't show up for the first interview. I was in jail, a little meth thing, nowhere about it.
00:38:09
Speaker 2: I was sad.
00:38:10
Speaker 1: Community service gonna be fine. So he goes back and he gets this job. Yeah, so he ends up starting to sell meth agains. I wish I could like tell this in a way that like builds up to him, but no, he just starts selling meth agus.
00:38:28
Speaker 2: It's like, well, he's really not gonna learn this lesson.
00:38:31
Speaker 1: So I guess he tried to, you know, do a legitimate job when he got out of the little job. So it was like a print, like a like a marketing job for a magazine. Oh okay, yeah, which apparently he was good at. Yeah, scams are great at marketing. Yeah, we're gonna brands, we're gonna hooking people, like, we're real good at it. So he's doing that for a little bit. It's not given him enough money. He goes back to selling meth this time. The FBI raids again, yes, and they find his passport, his six passports, and they go in his wallet because they open the door and they're like, Mark Olmstead, you're under arrest. And he's like, I'm not Mark, I'm Luke. I'm not Mark, I'm Luke. I'm Luke. I'm Mark, I'm Luke.
00:39:16
Speaker 2: I'm Mark.
00:39:17
Speaker 1: I'm making hello. The FBI goes into his wallet and finds several IDs for Mark and for Luke. No, all the DMV scams catch up. Why you got him in the same wallet. You need a mock wallet. He literally had his like basically a box and just said crime on it. And they're like, I guess we should open this one. And they find, you know method he's selling ye, And they find six passports, damn certificates, and Mark and Luke's d m V identifications. Okay, sorry, why were you keeping them together?
00:39:58
Speaker 2: All? Yeah, you get various pla answerughout your house, so he know's where you hid things?
00:40:02
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
00:40:03
Speaker 2: Speaking from experience.
00:40:04
Speaker 1: So he goes to jail, but really for only like a short amount of time again a few years.
00:40:11
Speaker 2: He can't get caught.
00:40:12
Speaker 1: No, this time the judge was like, okay, we do have to send you to jail. Mark. I know you're sad, but like you gotta go to jail a little bit. He's like, okay, tarn it. So he goes to jail. He gets out of prison. He only really served less than a year.
00:40:31
Speaker 2: He's just like there for a semester.
00:40:34
Speaker 1: Honestly, he's harmless, you know what I mean. He's so a little mad. He does some fake identities.
00:40:39
Speaker 2: He's probably gonna kill his brother and sell nothing again.
00:40:42
Speaker 1: But what are we gonna do? He's so nice? You know he did you hear?
00:40:47
Speaker 2: Whi pee? Goldberg was almost in one of those.
00:40:51
Speaker 1: So he gets out of jail and he says that he had survivor's guilt and that he thanks God for being in prison because he needed to feel a little pemished, just a little, just a little now a little. So he gets out and now his latest business opportunity has been screenwriting for oligarchs. He goes back into the screenwriting stuff. Wait, what is screenwriting for ola Garks? That sounds so dark. So he has a bunch of Russian film investors and that want to produce American films, so he's helping them do so with all of his experience that he has from not producing anything ever.
00:41:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, mediocrity rains cool.
00:41:34
Speaker 1: And he's also working on a prison memoir called Ink from the Pin from.
00:41:41
Speaker 2: Less than a Year in Prison That is a scammon itself.
00:41:46
Speaker 1: He went to prison for less than a year and now he's writing oz I. Oh no, I love the title Ink from the Pin because like the pen, the penitentiary. Oh WOWK, but this is writing from the likes. That's sexy. I want to read Ink from the Pen. Uh oprah, please put it on your.
00:42:07
Speaker 2: Has fallen for scammer?
00:42:08
Speaker 1: Yeah a billion little Yeah.
00:42:11
Speaker 2: James Fry is thriving out here.
00:42:13
Speaker 1: He wrote four books.
00:42:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, he continued, and then he's like, all right, these ones are fiction, but they're sorry.
00:42:18
Speaker 1: Guys, you got me.
00:42:19
Speaker 2: I won't say I live this one, but still really compelling narratives. Damn wow. I honestly would read Ink from the Pen the same way I would read like that Mary and Williamson book. Yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker 1: I want to know.
00:42:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I am curious what you thought you went through.
00:42:36
Speaker 1: Curious what you're making up that you thought you went through for true and for fake.
00:42:40
Speaker 2: You're insulting people who are actually surfing time for far lesser crimes. But yeah, sure, Mark, tell us you only did a million billion crimes.
00:42:49
Speaker 1: You're the worst. Your only redeemable quality, I guess is that you were ill faded in a time where you know, horrible does he was wreaking havoc on our community and our world. So but that's not even redeeming.
00:43:05
Speaker 2: It's so it's like such a like I don't want to like discount like I'm sure he was in deep grief. I can't imagine like everyone around you dying from the same disease and feeling like your death is inevitable. But then it's also like what kind of person then capitalizes on that, like and and takes advantage of.
00:43:24
Speaker 1: This hor thing full advantage, like not just by like doing you know, the social security fraud and the disability fraud, but also by being in court and being like, hey, I thought I was gonna die, so I made a.
00:43:37
Speaker 2: Meth din yeah, like and just like taking advantage of like everyone's like sympathy, yeah, empathy, and just just being like, yeah, I'm dealing myths because aids And then everyone's like, oh, like no one wants to be the person to be like.
00:43:54
Speaker 1: What does that mean? But also I'm glad that something positive came out of such a horrible time. I I he did get to.
00:44:01
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure that his brother is somewhere being very disappointed.
00:44:06
Speaker 1: In him, and he is.
00:44:07
Speaker 2: He's like, he's like sober now and writing these sit So that's good.
00:44:12
Speaker 1: It's a good store.
00:44:13
Speaker 2: I don't even know. It's like, this is the kind of scam where it's like, who is Besides like the emotional drama to his family and the.
00:44:22
Speaker 1: Meth he was dealing the people and the meth he was dealing is then as a bad myth, is a bad drug.
00:44:27
Speaker 2: And the insult to everyone who was was alive during the AIDS epidemic.
00:44:34
Speaker 1: Besides that, who did he really hurt?
00:44:38
Speaker 2: He took money from the government and from insurance companies, And I like that part of the game.
00:44:43
Speaker 1: Fuck the government and fuck insurance company exactly, Like that's fun. But then it's like, but he also hurt a lot of people. Damn.
00:44:51
Speaker 2: That's a complicated one. It is as emotionally fraut Mark Luke, Mark Luke, which whichever you're identifying by these days, Poor Luke Luke literally only tried to do good and like loved his brother and brother who.
00:45:08
Speaker 1: We got the short end of the stick Yikes.
00:45:10
Speaker 2: Oh, man, I'm gonna give my brother permission to do that to me.
00:45:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. If yeah, when I die, like, please bring me back to life again and again, then just keep killing me over and over.
00:45:20
Speaker 2: Don't worry. I think it's funny.
00:45:21
Speaker 1: Make I think it's so funny wherever I am.
00:45:24
Speaker 2: But only take money from the government and insurance agencies. Don't hurt, don't hurt regular people.
00:45:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all we want. Yeah, and scammer of the week. I actually want to highlight a business oh that I really love. After the Rapture PetCare dot com. That's the longest website title in history.
00:45:47
Speaker 2: What is it?
00:45:48
Speaker 1: Http ww dot After the Rapture PetCare dot com. Okay, I'm ready slash backslash. So listen, dear fellow Christians. As the Apostle Paul described in Thessalonians that's quoted above, at some point in future, Jesus will come in the air and catch up the church from the earth and then return to Heaven with said church. This is known as the rapture, and it will be glorious. But what if our pets, who will take care of our pets when we are gone? That ain't going to have a dog's apparently. No, this is on the assumption that pets aren't included in the rapture. Yes, okay, which I don't know if there's any evidence to this conclusion. Every I've ever had is more worthy of being a part of the rapture than me the most human beings. Absolutely.
00:46:44
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:46:45
Speaker 1: Well, the after the Rapture pet care story starts because the idea came from seeing someone else as a joke. An atheist created a site in England that said that she would take care of Christian owned pets after the Rapture and ask for seven pounds as a donation. She promoted it as a joke and as it virally made the rounds amongst non believers who enjoy making fun of us Christians. My husband saw it. He's an internet geek, and he told me about it. Admittedly it did seem funny. A couple of weeks later, Carol came back and suggested that we start the Rapture pet care store together. Carol a real Christian name. Yeah, she said that she had asked several so it goes from first person to then like second person, like, wasn't this I story? I'm just gonna make all these She's eyes because I was very confused, and then it goes back to okay, oh my god. So she tells like a bunch of Christian friends about this service, saying that if you pay, I will ensure at the time of the rapture your pets get taken care of. Now here's where I'm confused. So did she not include her? Is she not gonna have it? It? She just admitted she was a scammer. She was just like, listen, there's no way I'm going to Hell, and Gasoline draws. Okay, I've been sending it since the beginning.
00:48:08
Speaker 2: It's like I'm going to Hell and I'm taking your pets with.
00:48:16
Speaker 1: Like, where are you gonna be at? Is she not say she doesn't? Oh my god. That's really what's confusing about it. Okay, so, oh god. So while they're planning the system, they thought about stories of pet rescues in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Imagine how many more pets would have been saved if there have been a database of pets and volunteers activated immediately. This is something we could do for Christian on pets, but only Christians.
00:48:45
Speaker 2: Oh, not Heathen pets.
00:48:46
Speaker 1: No, Okay. I also imagine like your owner a heathen. So now you gotta be a heathen by proxy.
00:48:53
Speaker 2: I gotta like get my dog baptized or something.
00:48:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good to go, right, So they created a database that is stored on multiple secure servers with multilocation online and offline password protected backups. While I don't intend to be here when the rapture comes, we are building a network of non Christians whoever agreed to rescue and care for our members' bets if we all disappear. So, oh, she isn't planning to be here when the rapture comes, but.
00:49:26
Speaker 2: She's she's just setting up a Google doc of people who could maybe take care of these dogs if they weren't Christians.
00:49:36
Speaker 1: Mark Luke is definitely gonna be taking care of some of these songs. Mark Luke, Mark looking in on this. Yeah, this is a good way.
00:49:46
Speaker 2: You don't got to sell meth. There's a better way. It's participating in this scam.
00:49:51
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. So they have a monthly fee to upkeep how much? Oh my god, It does not say I want to know how much the.
00:50:01
Speaker 2: So wait, so she's just saying, like, we're gonna put your pets named down so that a non Christian person will later show up after all, after we're all in heaven.
00:50:13
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, And to watch your dog, to watch your dog for you.
00:50:19
Speaker 2: That is a very generous hurt. I wonder is there any way of telling how popular this service is or it's like over I think.
00:50:26
Speaker 1: People are using it. I'm trying to get on the site right now. Wow, this is really this is a very creative. This is like a sub sub sub scam. I like a niche scam. I do too, Like we're really taking care of like religion, register your pets, Christian pet owners who believe that the rapture is coming soon? Also how soon? What if your pet dies and you've been paying this rapture?
00:50:52
Speaker 2: Is sure? Why any refund?
00:50:55
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's not. So that's so payment. We have never taken payments for our service, is what they say. We state that it is a ten dollars fee to weed out jokers who would submit fake pets thinking they are funny. That is, I mean, this is a free service, but it costs ten dollars. There's it's free, but also put your credit card information in merch shop. You got merdo merge. Oh my god. After the Rapture pet Care has you can get photos of your dog. What's okay? When you get raption, you ain't taking the shirt witches.
00:51:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is so oh oh no, it's for the volunteers after the Rapture pet Care volunteer pet So that's for.
00:51:42
Speaker 1: For the sinners.
00:51:43
Speaker 2: Wow, there's even merch for the sinners.
00:51:45
Speaker 1: That's more inclusive than I said. If you're going to hell, you might as well go impeggably dressed, get you. I don't like that. There's pictures of souls.
00:51:53
Speaker 2: Being sucked up into heaven.
00:51:55
Speaker 1: That is disturbing. Okay, so guys, it's pictures of souls being sucked up into heaven. And then it's like cats and dogs watching from the window married passively. By the way, I look like that dog look bad like for real. No, so, y'all just go go to heaven out, y'all gonna leave me down here and with no kibbles noo bits.
00:52:26
Speaker 2: He's living with a family of atheists. They got fucking Bill maher on in the background.
00:52:31
Speaker 1: Now he's gotta live with Bill maher watchers. Oh God, not fair. That's hell on Earth. That's not fair. Oh, after the Rapture pekir. I come with a ten dollar free, free donation.
00:52:45
Speaker 2: That's mandatory, and then you'll live in there, Google doc forever, whatever that's password protected on and offline.
00:52:54
Speaker 1: I mean literally anything there's like, oh oh my god, it's fine, amazing having you, Jamie, keep for having us. Where can people find you?
00:53:04
Speaker 2: You can find my podcast is the Bechdel Cast. Host it with Caitlin Durante. Uh and we bring a guest on. Lacey's been on twice and we love review movies from a feminist perspective. And you can find me on Twitter at Jamie loftus help and Instagram at Jamie christ Ruperstar.
00:53:25
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, all right, guys. As always, you can find us at Scam Goddess Pod on all the Internet's platforms, Gmail, Twitter, and it's there and yeah talk and then you can find me guys at Diva l A C D I v A l A C I on all platforms. Guys, we love you, Stay skeeping, stay shady.
00:53:50
Speaker 2: And if you're listening, Mark Luke, come on.
00:53:53
Speaker 1: Mark Luke, I need you on the show, Mark or Luke or Bo whoever's alive at the time. Dam Goddess, Scam Goddess Stars and is hosted by me Lacy Mosley aka Scam Goddess. Our producer is Jessica sis Neros and our audio engineer is Rich Garcia. Research for the show is conducted by Kate Doyle stay skim in
