Legal Thriller Author Unveils Legal Banking Scam

Paulson's Law is Appropriate Here: When Anything is Used to its Full Potential it will Break. The Sub-Prime Credit Card Market is About to Follow the Sub-Prime Housing Market..Breakable...and for this Same Reason

Julius Ceaser capped interest at 12%. Our founding fathers got into the act too. Thomas Jefferson, called banks, "more dangerous than a standing army." Andrew Jackson said it to their faces. He told a delegation of bankers they were a den of vipers and thieves. Throughout history, heads of state have heaped suspicion on the money changers.

Justification? Consider today's credit card market, It's a market consisting of 2 distinct and separate tiers: Prime-Timers, the 30-day interest-free loan Users, and the Sub-Primers, the debt rollover Users who pay only the minimum each month and, by letting credit balances accumulate, slowly string a noose around their own necks. And, yes, our altruistic banking industry would have all of us believe such usurious 18%-35% interest rates are fair to all.

Their constant campaign to promote this state as acceptable logic is laugh provoking. It's like fighting, and losing, a PR battle to Daffy Duck Their strategy? Simple! Get the Haves (the Prime-Timers) allied with them, then bludgeon Congress, with these allies' aid, into every sort of credit card industry protection possible. Then you fire at the Have-Nots (the Sub-Primers), those people who slip through the cracks. Charge them through the roof, up the nose, and out the wazoo. It all comes to big profits for the credit card issuers even though in its wake it creates a whirlpool of sucking debt, with no way to get out other than through inheritance, winning the lottery, bankruptcy, or suicide.

The average American household is now carrying credit card debt of over $10,000. Not enough? Now the credit card lenders are stalking the "fringes" of their Prime -Timer market too, Average late fee has jumped from $10 to $35 in just the past 10 years.

Russian Roulette, anyone? As a Prime-Timer you are urged to take out multiple cards. The more you take out, the more confusing. Some payment cycles are missed. Borderline late payments surface. And, then, voila, you "graduate," earn your entitlement to move into the Sub-Primer classification of borrower.

If you don't pay, they won't send two thugs named Guido and Vito to your house with a baseball bat to break your knee caps. All the same, the modern credit card market is like San Francisco sourdough. It grows and kneads in all directions. How do you protect yourself? Tight-reins restraint, leery caution, and lots of common sense.

This should logically begin with limiting the number of credit cards you carry. Become a grave dancer. Bury the unneeded.

Legal Thriller Author Examines 15 Amazing Scam Artists' "Conspiracy Theory" Tricks

--On Squeaky Wheels and Grease! Scam Artists not only Squeak a lot, but Play the Court Jester as They Pick your Pockets.

The best scams are built around conspiracy theories. They afford the ultimate shell game, and read much like a legal thriller novel.

Why?

Because these give the scam artist "cover." They fortify him with an automatic defense against his critics. They exonerate him from past failures. And, importantly, they provide an excuse for future delays, give him time to run for cover when everything collapses. In other words, they create the perfect stage setting from which to operate.

The con man closely follows a sacrosanct principle: Lie in good faith. Whichever tool best enables him to distort, exaggerate, disguise, or confuse is one he wants to add to his tool kit, and, by closely following the "conspiracy theory" approach to his cons, he accomplishes this.

Overall, a well-developed conspiracy theory is a great rallying theme. It blends like minds, mutual resolve, shared purpose, goals. It breeds collective paranoia. There is, therefore, a set of basic rules the scam artist follows in producing this highly-desired atmosphere of "communal harmony" to embellish his "pitch. Accomplishing this enables him to fully exploit his scam in all of its ramifications. Hence, these are those rules-of-the-game he follows, rules to watch for, in order to protect yourself to the fullest.

1. Get your sucker-audience to focus on some elaborate conspiracy, one dedicated to stomping on courageous visionaries like yourself--you, the scam artist, being the one who is able to cut through the enemy's monopoly and use his investors' funds wisely to bestow benefits upon them--earn money, save money, attain awards, merits, fame--never before dreamed possible. If the victims fully subscribe to your hogwash, they will earn Brownie points along the way. Good mind game.

(The con man has a different view of people in general than you might: If you feed a man a fish, you will feed him for a day; if you teach a man to fish, he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.)

2. Now, get your foot in the door. Light a fire under your sucker-audience. Get them, as a group, so excited that they would be ready to go bear hunting with a stick, should you so command. Talk about your valiant battles with some government bureaucracy or private organization. Get them stomping mad and eager to join you in your crusade against "them."

3. Dispensing learned counsel in rapid-fire bursts, talk bravely about your battles with the bad guys trying to steal, or bury, your ideas. Fearlessly claim that you will shred,
obliterate, destroy your records before you will permit the indignity of allowing these to fall into "their" hands. Whip your flock into a frenzy, figuratively ready to chase a tornado in a convertible with the top down.

4. In addition to your "base" enemy, faceless government agencies of many types also make good whipping boys. These must also be made out to be "the enemy" you must bravely fight. Cite examples of their misdeeds. Cite the Law of Bureaucracy they follow: Nothing is ever accomplished by being reasonable.

5. Don't fear investors who defect. There will always be some. Most will feel they've been suckered, and be too embarrassed to make a lot of noise about their misfortunes (of dealing with you). With the few who will protest too loudly, call them agents of the "Big Conspiracy" operating against you.
("Do you see how they infiltrate?" you will ask of your loyal followers.)

6 Bury all attacks against you in a wave of minutia. Create enough distractions to mesmerize these people, put them to sleep over endless, meaningless detail. Tire them to the point where they will do anything to avert further debate, if only to stay awake. (Here you can well adapt another Law of Bureaucracy, this one to your own advantage: No amount of genius will ever circumvent management's preoccupation with detail.)

7. Freely and frequently threaten your detractors with lawsuits. It will make a high percentage of them run for the tall grass, shut their mouths in fear. To many of your suckers this would be equally as shocking as watching the news on TV and unexpectedly seeing their attorney being accompanied from the court house steps in
handcuffs.

8. Be the true crusader in every way. Stick closely to the Scam Artist's Parable: To thine own self be true, and lie like hell to everyone else. Say you are not in this for the money. Piously proclaim your altruistic intent: to save humanity.

9. Make your pitch to groups of people who have had faith, trust, and American Way values instilled in them from birth. Many groupings of senior citizens, religious types, family farmers fill this bill. These are your primary targets.

10. Among other preferred groups are those already pre-conditioned to accepting conspiracy theories, like those who believe in the Flat Earth Society, in UFO cover-ups, and in JFK assassination plots.

11. Always get your victims to focus on theory and abstractions. When their minds stray from this, fog their attention, get it away from any kind of evidence which can be measured. (This is especially important when trying to pawn off worthless, hi-tech junk.)

12. Be bold, loud. Make your claims and proclamations to all who will hear. People tend to think something so transparently out in the open could not possibly be a fly-by-night operation.

13. Shoot for only a small, initial amount of up-front money. Maybe $69, say, for a tape, DVD, and / or an information kit of some kind.. This, on the premise that, once the sucker has paid a bit of his required dues,, it's easier to squeeze more out.

14. You must get your investors to forfeit their rights to legal action any way you can. Give them a--"ho hum, just routine"-- document to sign. Pull this out from under a pile of documents, as if it is so insignificant it almost got lost. Or, hide your disclaimer in a nondisclosure agreement, in the smallest of small print you can arrange with your printer to crank out. Object being to make your victim think his eyeballs would bleed if he tried to read it.

15. Enlist a small sub-group of the most gullible to help you recruit more suckers. (If you, as a potential participant, pay heed to the urgings of these discombobulated people, it would be like listening to a rap group which could easily be named, Insane Clown Posse.)

It's all a head shaker. Trying to cut through the haze and figure the con man's' psychological approach is much like being forced into making a choice between having double vision and hearing a constant echo. But, it's worth the effort. Once you do sort it out and finally understand how to zero in on all of these traits and mannerisms, the working pattern of the scam artist will be clearly spelled out for you. It is only then that you will be in the best position to protect yourself from any kind of curve ball he will throw your way.

If you'd like to have more self-esteem, but don't think you deserve it, look at it this way: This is a circumstance under which there is never a better time to procrastinate.

Con Man's Legal Phone Scam: 900 Phone Line Offer

--How to Become your Community's Lonely Hearts Matchmaker, Resident Psychic, or Neighborhood Horn Dog.

Several of the 900-phone line operators are now offering to share the wealth: give you a chance to be just like them.

And, they don't care how old, or young, you are. To them age is important only if you are wine or cheese.

They will set you up in a con man-style business for yourself, the easy way: they will do all the work, and you will only sit back and enjoy the profits.

Being very successful at seeking out people who have delusions of adequacy, they know that acceptable thinking is: If you eat a live toad at breakfast, nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day and that enormous profits will follow such a swallowing of pride.

They already have the con man facilities, and the phone operators / answerers / counselors--or whatever you would call these people--and are now extending the hand of friendship toward your wallet. "Sharemanship" you might otherwise call it. (If at first you don't succeed, try management.)

For a little under $500 you can offer all the same "services" they do. They will set you up with your very own con man 900-phone number turnkey-package business.

The 3 best model packages from which you can choose, as the offering of your very own 900 service, are: 1. Matchmaker. Access their excellent staff of Dear Abby-type advisors to find kindred spirits of all kinds--from lovelorn to lovesick to love makers. 2. Psychic. Tap their mystic stable of Twilight Zone gurus--their version of Rod Serling in their vending of astrophysical counsel. 3. Adult. (Read, porno.) Self-explanatory. Or you can choose to manage a multiple of these offerings (Remember what Confucius say: Man with one chopstick go hungry.)

You will be pleased to know that these lines will work for you 24 / 7. And, that their con man counselors are very skilled in piling up chargeable minutes for you-- that;s the primary goal, the average now being 10 minutes per call, on which they collect $2.99-$5.99 per minute, of which they will dispense $1.00 per minute to you for the use of your lines. You will have no worries to concern yourself with over maintenance, operations, management, of any kind. Your only function will be to--out of your own pocket--advertise. This is their idea of serving up a 7-course meal consisting of something like a hot dog and 6-pack.

Why such generosity?

Simply because this sponge is nearly squeezed dry. These people have already tapped out their primary advertising media--underground newspapers, Howard Stern-type radio shows, and whacko internet sites--and are now beating the bushes for every last scrap of business to be had.

Hence, they would now like to invite you aboard their profit train, if you will bring with you, please, whatever new business you can drum up from your local newspaper classified ads, Kiwanis Club and high school year book associations, and shopping mall billboard postings.

Conversely, if you don't, so what. At this point they've already got your up-front money. These con men can now merely ignore you and solicit the next candidate from their sucker list for this glorious no work / all play turnkey package business setup.

Learn from the mistakes of others; you won't live long enough to make them all yourself.

Would you have anything at all to gain from such a business association? If you don't mind becoming known as a weirdo, con man, or pornographer, maybe. Though doubtful. If you feel such a new identity added to your name in your community might be offensive to you, no. Remember a fundamental Law of Bureaucracy, which applies closely in this case: The solution to a problem creates a new problem.

Even singularly, based on its earnings potential alone, such "opportunity" just seems to not be there. A clear look proves that the only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

You'd probably go about as far in life, with the same social acceptance, if you took a hit of acid, smoked a joint, and bummed some money from your mother.

Legal Thriller Author Dissects Con Man-Inspired Courtroom Scam

In bankruptcy, a competent judge will frown mightily on a con man style shell game, any spending pattern that does not add up.

How often have you thought: If I didn't have bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all?

You go to the track to play the horses. Bad day. You lose $5,000. You try to recoup by buying 1,000 lottery tickets. With the 100,000,000 to 1 odds against you so drastically reduced, you now have an excellent chance of winning, don't you? Wrong. Next you clean out your bank accounts, borrow on your insurance policies, take a second mortgage on your house, and go to Las Vegas. Ignoring how storm clouds form, you know you can turn your run of bad luck around and come out of your mire smelling like a rose garden. You drop $10,000 at blackjack, then your last $30.000 shooting craps.

Woe is you. You now can't pay your bills. Where do you go from here? Eenie, Meanie, Miney, Moe--whoever screws you up the most, that's the way you go.

To a credit counselor, of course. After all, the ad, "Bad Credit? No Problem!," assures you of a way out, right? You must placate your base instincts, because your faith in human nature is all-consuming.

The counselor says, let's consolidate. You reconsider. You feel you've been suckered. You should have known that the "No Problem" part of the ad really meant, "Big Problem."

Life can only be understood looking backwards; unfortunately, it must be lived forwards. So, next you visit a bankruptcy lawyer. She says file for same.

You sigh, agree, and decide on one last fling before doing so. You apply for 2 additional credit cards, max them out, and go skiing in Aspen for 2 weeks.

Then you come home and file. Docket day comes and the judge says, hey, wait a minute, there are a few questions. Have you applied for any new credit cards lately? How many charges? What amounts? Over the limit? Did you consult an attorney before filing? Did you make multiple charges on the same day? Was there a sudden change in your buying habits? Were the purchases for necessities or luxuries? What's your current income and prospects? How many changes, and of what nature, in your lifestyle? Gambling? Luxury vacations?

Holed. Cornered. Trapped. You now realize that--while you are an exaggerated case--yours is somewhat typical of today's "no way out" path to Debtors' Prison, and the only thing left for you is to throw yourself on the mercy of the court. And, sadly, the newest bankruptcy law is little more than the "Credit Card Issuers' Relief Act" It tightens the screws on credit card debtors to the point many will wish for the blessed relief of a Debtors Prison.

You suddenly come to grips with your missteps. You ask yourself, is too stupid to live justifiable suicide?

How do you compensate, reform, adjust?

Work hard, long hours. Economize. Budget. Honor thy debts. Pray.

What else?