When Handcuffing Yourself and Faking a Robbery Goes Wrong!

what are some of the dumbest scams people try to pull let's get right into it with number five they got me locked up security van driver Andrew meiser staged an elaborate fake robbery where he claimed he was locked up as robbers stole 1.1 million dollars Miser alleged that the robbers handcuffed his hands to the van steering wheel and that he had to use his nose to

call the police in response to the seemingly dramatic event he claimed he developed such severe PTSD that he needed to take time off from work during his time off Miser bragged to his friends that he was faking his PTSD muser handcuffed himself to the van steering wheel and placed shopping bags filled with cash he waited two hours before raising the alarm about the staged robbery calling

incident Miser faced conspiracy charges due to working with canteras to Stage a bogus crime scene it was a severe charge confronting the fact that he attempted to pervert the course of Justice by interfering with the investigation by lying to law enforcement and faking his PTSD on the day of the alleged crime these are parked his van and placed the bags of cash in the van's airlock

then a white vow Hall combo pulled up and two men got out to grab the bags easier drove away then parked and handcuffed himself to the steering wheel when Miser called for help he alleged that a man with a gun approached him handcuffed him to the steering wheel and fled with the money he also stated that he had been trying to get the attention of pastors

by but nobody paid any attention to him miser's phone records stored incriminating evidence which the prosecution presented to the court during his conviction they read texts where he bragged about milking the situation and talking about how much compensation he could receive if he kept up the ACT although Mizer denied his charges he was convicted of conspiracy to steal and conspiracy to pervert the course of Justice

he was acquitted of conspiracy to conceal or transfer criminal property first Miser was handcuffed to a truck now he's handcuffed to a prison sentence number four she's not a keeper Thelma Williams an Ohio woman took to social media to fake her own kidnapping in an attempt to catch her family's and her ex-boyfriend's attention after they recently ended their relationship Williams tied herself up Loosely to make

it easy for her to escape and she gagged herself with women's underwear hopefully they were her own after seeing Williams's photos and videos on Facebook her friends panicked and called 9-1-1 they told the dispatcher that someone had kidnapped Williams and hacked her Facebook having expressed their fear that the kidnapper would endanger Williams the 911 dispatcher triggered a full response from the police which included a helicopter

search and shutting down a highway costing thousands of dollars Williams claimed on her Facebook that a man named Tony had taken over her account and threatened her she posted as Tony making graphic comments about how he planned to torture Williams the problem was that Williams's story wasn't adding up according to her Facebook her kidnapper was holding Williams in her basement however a local McDonald security camera

caught footage of Williams in their location instead of being tied up in her basement Williams was going through a hard breakup at the time of the incident she struggled to deal with the emotional toll of the split and was seeking attention from her friends and family at the time of her fake kidnapping she claimed the Intruder used her phone to record the incident and post it

to her Facebook account Williams posed as the kidnapper and posted a series series of Facebook posts that caused her loved ones to be so concerned that they called the police authorities arrived at the scene where they found Williams in the basement Loosely tied up with her clothes they noticed in some of her social media posts that she could be seen adjusting herself for the camera after

sending an emergency response team to Williams's home detectives concluded that the incident was a fabrication Sheriff Richard Jones expressed frustration with Williams's actions as they insult real victims of such crimes officers arrested Williams and charged her with making false alarms she was held on a ten thousand dollar Bond but on the flip side she thought McDonald's crispy chicken sandwich was really good number three meter maid

lawyer an Australian parking Ranger scammed victims out of thousands of dollars by posing as Alex Stewart a criminal and civil lawyer kinnick purchased a fake law degree online and used it to lure clients it wasn't just his clients at Pennant convinced of his second identity pinick believed he was actually Alex Stewart likely due to his schizophrenia diagnosis his fake qualifications helped him gain employment in Victoria

and South Australia Pinnock created a website and social media accounts to promote Steward Services describing himself as an unconventional solicitor who would make a difference in his clients lives and it claimed to have 50 clients in three states representing them in civil and criminal cases additionally he alleged to have dealt with one million dollars in money awarded in fees to those clients while his victims paid

him thousands of dollars for representation he put the money toward a lavish lifestyle including flying around Australia multiple times a week driving a BMW and staying in high-end hotels panic's fake law degree came from Charleston State University in South Carolina but he actually purchased it from a shady website that offers fraudulent degrees for life experience before starting his legal career pinnick worked as a parking Ranger

in Sydney his daily tasks included issuing penalties for illegal parking and breaches of council regulations which was was very different from his work as Stuart rather than posing as Stewart pinnick believed he was Stewart he genuinely thought he provided helpful legal services to his clients and portrayed himself as a lawyer even after the Law Society of nsw charged him pinnick's world unraveled and he became homeless

after being exposed for his crimes no matter his mental state pinick was very deceptive with his clients he would present them with a series of fake documents such as a counterfeit Australian practicing certificate and a fake Certificate of Fitness and good standing and it also never had his law degree validated and the website where he obtained it didn't provide any study or verifications leaning on life

and job experience instead still pinnick's lack of studying didn't stop him from taking to Facebook to brag about his legal services and the lifestyle they afford he would post updates detailing false courtroom deals and talk about how much he loved his job his victims were the ones supporting his lavish expenses one of his victims Yvonne Borg paid Panic 75 500 dollars to represent her in a

case against her local government which fined her forty nine thousand dollars over an illegal shed another victim Steve Wiseman paid pennick 3 380 bucks to represent him after Wiseman found out a piece of land he owned was being used as an illegal Dumping Ground his victims weren't wealthy and often had to borrow money to afford Pinnock who advertised himself as a lawyer who would fight for

their rights over anything else the Law Society of New South Wales eventually uncovered benef's elaborate scheme and charged him with engaging in legal practice without being qualified Panic pleaded guilty and was fined three thousand five hundred dollars and given a Community Corrections order instead of serving jail time he's like that guy on split except his dangerous personality gives bad legal advice while his other just gives

you annoying parking tickets number two numbers game teenager Dennis Sue from Sydney Australia used stolen personal information to demand money via text messages so 2 gained access to the personal information of Optus customers who were victims of a massive data breach in September 2022. he sent texts to 93 Optus customers demanding them to transfer two thousand dollars into an account he controlled when authorities learned of

Sue's attempted blackmail they charged him with using a telecommunications network with the intent to commit a serious offense in dealing with identification information the charges carried Hefty fees and high prison sentences with a maximum combined sentence of 17 years Optus is an Australian telecommunications company that provides mobile broadband and Television services it has over 10 million customers and is the second largest telecommunications provider in the

country the company experienced a devastating data breach in September 2022 when a Cyber attack from unknown hackers stole customers personal information like their names dates of birth addresses phone numbers email addresses and financial information such as credit card detail although Optus warned those effect by the breach to protect their personal information Packers posted the stolen data online making it available to the public Sue use the

data to identify the customers from the breach and attempted to use the victim's information to Blackmail them into sending him money he sent a series of text messages demanding two thousand dollars to 93 Optus customers and threatened to expose the victim's personal information if they didn't comply none of the text receipts sent him money and the Australian federal police promptly tracked down Sue and arrested him

Sue wanted the money you routed to a bank account that belonged to his 15 year old brother potentially to disguise the source of the funds and avoid detection it wasn't effective unfortunately for Sue running such an unsophisticated scam made it almost impossible to avoid detection instead of paying his Ransom his targeted victims reported his texts to authorities on November 8 2022 the prosecution withdrew the charges

of dealing with identity information to commit an indictable offense and demand with Menace intending to teen game in December 2022 Sue pleaded guilty to two counts of using equipment connected to a network to commit a serious offense his lawyer argued that Sue's crimes resulted from his depression and anxiety stemming from a difficult childhood however the judge noted that Sue's actions caused significant harm to the victims

and that blackmail is too serious in offense not to receive any form of punishment the judge sentenced Sue to an 18-month Community Corrections program and 100 hours of community service Sue publicly apologized outside of Court after his hearing if you're enjoying this video be sure to stay tuned for our past release about this lady who scammed her own mom just to buy a BMW Number One

Like a Rolling Stone in an attempt to collect injury money a man in Hong Kong flexed his acting skills by dramatically pretending to be hit by a car the Absurd spectacle Drew 155 000 views on Twitter where viewers were unconvinced by his performance he planned on staging the accident to receive injury money and was a type of scam referred to as porcelain as they're so fragile

they collapse at the slightest touch the footage filmed from the driver's dash cam showed the driver turning a corner where she encountered the man sprinting toward her vehicle when she saw him she put her foot on the brake and slowed to a stop the man jumped off the hood and rolled off before stumbling away his performance was far from over he dropped to the ground and

rolled all over the road like a small overacting child it was weird he didn't break character until paramedics arrived at the scene and walked toward him suddenly his seemingly agonizing injuries were miraculously cured and he sprinted away from the scene in case the paramedic saw through his performance after all he did spend an entire minute theatrically rolling on the concrete writhing in fake pain in a

move that probably reminded many people of how soccer players dramatically flopped to the ground during a match what's worse scamming your own mom just to buy a new car to flex on social media or running a Ponzi scheme and scamming money from all the people around you let's start with number five mom's new car in 2018 Heidi Carruthers bought a shiny new BMW for 42 000

pounds with her mom's help the problem here is that the role of her mom was played by someone else the misrepresented mom didn't find out about anything until she was later contacted about the car payments falling behind Carruthers is a Serial offender perhaps she has a whopping 79 previous offenses 34 of which ended in convictions the 35 year old wasn't expected to see much Mercy from

the court when it all came to light when the case was addressed in court earlier in 2022 all signs pointed toward Caruthers having the book thrown at her then her attorney Steve Hennessy brought forth the relevant fact Carruthers had given birth to a daughter in 2019 and had since turned things around Carruthers had reportedly shown remorse and embarrassment over the whole thing and supposedly had committed

no other offenses since the birth of her daughter she was also a prior user who had been clean since the pregnancy her lawyers claim to the court that she was committed to remaining clean for her daughter this argument and Carothers own confession and testimony were enough to sway officials judge Graham Smith noted that the woman being sentenced in 2022 and the offender from 2018 were quote

two different people what was supposed to be a 16-month prison sentence was changed to an 18-month suspended sentence as part of that agreement Carruthers was subjected to a 20-day rehab program and a four-month curfew enforced by electronic monitoring in cases like this it's reasonable to expect the victim to be upset this goes double when the victim is the offender's mother seemingly showcasing poor parenting skills for

all the world to see on the contrary Crothers mom turned up in court to support her daughter the whole thing ended with poor mom on a credit Blacklist in the financing company unable to recover most of the original amount financed even so her mom indicated that she loves and supports her daughter and will stick by her number four ATM investment scammers call invoke and Amy Ploy

Pittman out of Darwin Australia racked up about 1.9 million dollars banking on ATMs that didn't exist with their first victim being Pittman's father sources say she stole almost three hundred thousand dollars from him and dear old dad had no idea he was being let on such a substantial sum should be more than enough to get a legitimate ATM business off the ground but that was never

the plan he simply told people they had a legit company and asked them to get on board the payer hooked 17 people Pittman roped in several victims from the hospital she worked at she had no problem scamming her co-workers on company time ATM ownership and the operation of the ATMs aren't at all that complicated there are several companies out there willing to help you start out

according to one of those companies all you would need to start is a suitable location and about five thousand dollars to buy the machine get it hooked up and load it with an initial payload of cash Pitman and her bow chose to skip this part because it was too complicated for them you must service the ATMs repair them keep them loaded and so on these are

all things that the pair didn't want to do for their investors they did at least one semi honest thing they shelled out around seven hundred thousand dollars to pay their investors but the money came from other investors funds AKA it was a Ponzi scheme officials estimated a figure shy of 1.9 million dollars as the ultimate take in the scam this number included the initial three hundred

thousand dollar kick in from Pittman's dad despite everything he was still willing to throw down ten thousand dollars against his daughter's bail even so the courts ultimately denied bail in the case the other victims probably didn't feel the same way and the court suspected the victims they had proof about weren't the only one ones taken in in December of 2018 the couple pled guilty to multiple

charges this netted them each a seven and a half year sentence four of which were without the possibility of parole number three party money Hannah Dickinson had the Grim task of telling those in her life that she was facing terminal cancer our story began in 2012 when Hannah went to her parents asking for cash for life-saving treatment not long after she needed another procedure that would

happen in New Zealand by 2013 Dickinson had stretched her parents paper thin they began turning to friends neighbors Associates and anybody else who would lend a hand Dickinson didn't go around asking on her own residents eventually came together to give Dickinson everything she needed this would be a heartwarming story of a community rallying around one of their own if it weren't a complete scam turns out

Hannah's Grim pass was self-imposed and totally unnecessary she had scammed everybody around her there was no cancer and none of the money that people gave to her ended up going to Medical Treatments the cancer she claimed to have it's worth noting was a rare form that has a high survival rate and is among the easiest to cure this meant she could claim to be healed and

back out of the whole deal when ever she wanted the whole thing is even more heinous because one of her victims was an actual cancer survivor fresh off his own treatment the generous guy kicked in ten thousand dollars out of the nearly 42 000 that Dickinson made off with in the end she got found out in 2018 after one of her victims saw a suspicious social

media post and contacted the police cops put out the word and others came forward in short order it was later revealed that she had been using the money to party it up with friends at home and abroad hard partying and holidays were the name of the game all made possible by money that was supposed to be paying for life-saving Medical Treatments naturally her travels included some

serious drinking and use of illegal substances both of which were a constant in her brief New Life this ended up playing into her case later on when her entire fake story shattered in 2018 Dickinson landed in court officials saddled her with seven charges of obtaining property by deception despite just how Brazen her crimes were one person saw good in her still her lawyer Beverly Lindsay the

defense brought up the case of a health blogger Bell Gibson who's ultimately saddled with a four hundred thousand dollar fine for misleading her readers and scamming whatever she could get out of her audience this was all done under the guise of putting out content to help others in similar situations which Lindsay argued make Gibson's case worse she pleaded with the magistrate not to send Dickinson to

Jail the magistrate saw things differently Court official David starvagi argued that Dickinson's in-your-face fraud to her own parents know us required Swift and decisive deterrence as such he threw Dickinson in jail for three months she also caught a 12-month community service order that amounted to 150 hours along with court mandated rehab this resulted in the scammer losing her job at little real estate as a property

manager at the same time frame as the original scam it turns out that Dickinson was engaging in a much more conventional fraud record show she attempted to get a car loan for thirty thousand dollars using fake documents and a fake identity as if that wasn't enough she nabbed over one hundred thousand dollars in disability payments using fake documents submitted to the local Magistrate's Office the whole

thing came out in 2021 and Dickinson found herself in court again officials were much less lenient this time they slapped her with a sentence of at least a year for using false documentation with more charges pending as of 2022 the car loan was reportedly not granted making it a bit less serious the disability payments however went on from 2014 to 2018 when her original case broke

number two cancer Banker Rajesh gedia of Berkshire pocketed around 1.8 million pounds from multiple scams including defrauding insurance and pension companies with claims of a cancer diagnosis the scams ran from 2016 onward and included a claim that he had been promoted to vice president at his employer Bank of America Getty a claim to have aggressive pancreatic cancer giving him a year to live the scam perpetrated

on his pension and life insurance companies allowed him to would draw funds he otherwise would have had to wait quite some time for all at once about 1.2 a million pounds of his total take came from this Avenue along the way gedia had an unnamed accomplice poses a doctor to vouch for him and he dragged many unknowing doctors names into the case the other half of

the story is that he claimed to be the vice president of Bank of America he used this position to convince victims to invest in banking product and services that did not exist two of those victims were his cousin and his own father things initially came to a head with a documentation issue found in 2019 still continued scamming with a new insurance company buying and cashing a

policy worth nine hundred thousand pounds according to officials Yeti has spent the cash on a mansion in the expense of Virginia Water Area of Surrey he also got his hands on some expensive vehicle to put the cherry on top he sent his children to an expensive private school in the area whether his primary motivation was selfish greed or providing a better life for his children he

still sentenced seven souls to financial ruin falsely representing both Bank of America and Goldman Max gideous scam 600 000 pounds from seven different victims his cousin vipula chendegra was out sixty three thousand pounds some 116 000 pounds left the pockets of her selbeck a local dad whose kids went to the same school as gedius at a party he met Wayne John who lost out on 181

thousand pounds perhaps the most tragic victims were Getty is regular taxi driver and the man's wife saeeda Ahmed the pair lost over one hundred thousand pounds to the scam part of it was taxes attached to the investment which the couple borrowed around 70 000 pounds to pay this resulted in them losing their home what makes this part of the story sting even worse is that he

faked the death of his own daughter to get out of owning up when Syeda confronted him the first time he concocted a car accident in the state that had his daughter hospitalized drawing his attention from the matter at hand when she confronted him again he Shrugged her off by saying his daughter had succumbed to her injuries when the law finally caught up with Gideon in 2022

he was saddled with 30 fraud charges the court showed him no mercy and he ultimately pled guilty to 22 of those charges judge Deborah Taylor sympathize with the victims and painted a picture of gedia as a man with no morals detective Constable Daniel Weller of London's insurance fraud enforcement judge Taylor sentenced gidea to a grand total of six years and nine months in prison authorities went

to work getting victims their money back liquidating Getty is ill-gotten asset number one Ponzi pharmacist Natalie Cochran 40 a pharmacist from Raleigh County West Virginia ran a scam that ultimately cost her victims a hefty two million dollars to use two companies that she owned with her husband to run an elaborate Ponzi scheme 2017-2019 defrauding individuals companies and even Banks along the way scams centered around investments

in her two companies technology Management Solutions and tactical solutions group the two fake companies were misrepresented to 11 people among other victims the investors were convinced by fake government contracts and other files produced by Cochrane she sold them on the experience contracts and projects her company never had to keep this game going Cochran used some of the money to pay back old investors as new ones

jumped on board the classic Ponzi scheme was peppered by personal and business expenditures some over ten thousand dollars each none of them pertain to any of the contracts or Investments That Cochrane represented however she used thirty five thousand dollars of the money to buy a sweet 1965 Shelby Cobra collector's item that could be argued as an investment the United States isn't the best place to run

a Ponzi scheme as Cochrane found out in 2020 the investigation involved multiple agencies and local and federal government branches including Secret Service high-stakes crimes were finally brought to light in September 2020 when Cochran pled guilty to charges involving money laundering and wire fraud her sentence was 11 years in prison and three years of supervised release along with jail time Cochrane has to pay back over two

and a half million dollars to her victim so far asset forfeitures have barely scratched the surface the seizure of her personal and Company bank accounts only yielded 45000 and dollars most scam stories end when the perpetrator gets their day in court in this case however things only get weirder and darker Cochran was suspected of going after her own husband Michael Cochran fell ill while all this

was happening and reportedly died in Hospice Care in February the late Michael was only 38 picking natural causes a suspicious conclusion local investigators were struck by this fact decided to look deeper into it after all if Natalie killed her co-owner husband she would no longer have to split the loot additionally that would be one less loose end Michael's body was exhumed and an autopsy was performed

the investigation is ongoing as of 2022 leaving authorities tight-lipped on the matter what's known is that Natalie was brought back into court in 2022 indicted for her husband's passing and face first-degree charges with a not guilty plea in the trial date still pending this is anybody's guess as to what will happen before it's all over click to watch one of these next videos let us know

in the comments section what you'd rather do live on the North Pole for a year or go to jail for three months