You might be surprise to the lengths that some people will go to for making money.
I guy of unknown name passed himself of a a business exec supposedly in the process of moving a new into the local region here near where I live. And as such this guy was looking for a temporary point for which telephone calls and mail could be sent until the rest of the business was fully up and running. This guy happened to walk into my mum's office and payed for access to the offices admin services while this 'company' was sorting itself out (since this is technically what my mother does, payed admin and secretarial work for clients).
At first everything went smoothly, but as time went by 'tish' as we knew him kept popping by less and less. And roughly around this same time (about 12 months after he first walked into the office) we started to get the odd 'tense' call from people who tish owed money to through this company (which was still being set up). Eventually it got to the point where we had threatening calls and one guy actually travelled all the way down from somewhere up north (near newcastle upon tyne) and barged into the office to give to give us a 'piece of his mind'. He left with a broken arm after myself and kevin threw him back out just before the police arrived.
Shortly following that I was informed that 'tish' was under investigation by the inland revenue for something like 2 dozen counts of known fraud. We never saw him or hear from him again, and fortunately for our selves the IR understood the situation and that we'd basically been con'd.
But at the time no one suspected anything, it seemed that... normal.
A good con artist doesn't leave any visible tracks during the time at which you are being con'd, it's not until after that you realise just how stupid you had been. The same has and always will be true. The was said to be something like 8 million US dollars made collectively by con artists in the first month alone following September 11th (2001)
