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54 stories matching scam
- The 'Perryville' Scam: How a Fake Marriage Left Two Women Broke and Broken
In a tale of deception spanning Los Angeles, Washington, and Canada, two women fall victim to the same con artist who used false matrimonial ads to extract money before fleeing with their savings.
- Pay for a Job That Wasn't There: Seattle's Employment-Agency Scam
A city council committee heard workers describe paying fees to G.W. Crane's employment office and arriving to find no jobs, with agents accused of splitting fees with contractors.
- The Bogus 'Happy Valley' Real Estate Scam
A swindler in Fairhaven has been selling plots in a 'Happy Valley' addition that exists only on paper and a mountain.
- The Gospel-Ship Scam on Puget Sound
How a pious Olympia minister raised international funds to build a missionary vessel, only to pivot it into a lucrative towboat business.
- The Great 'Puget City' Real Estate Scam
Promoters are peddling worthless 'paper towns' to investors by falsely claiming the Northern Pacific Railroad will build its western terminus there.
- The Grave Robbery Insurance Scam
A Seattle man faked his own death using a stolen corpse to collect a massive insurance payout, but a lover's confession blew the lid off the plot.
- The Ex-Congressman's Lumber Scam
How a high-stakes lobbyist used a fake canal project to strong-arm mill owners for land titles.
- The Great Port Angeles Gold Scam
How a clever land boomer used fake gold coins to manufacture excitement and swindle investors in the late 1880s.
- The Buckley Bank Scam
A town in shock as two men posing as bankers abscond with the life savings of farmers and laborers.
- The City That Wasn't: Seattle’s First Real Estate Scam
In April 1876, a man named Charles Smith claimed to own the entire town of Seattle and tried to sell it to investors. The local press exposed him as a fraud, but his audacity reveals how fragile the young city's land titles were.
- The Great Hose Heist: How a Seattle Fire Department Was Almost Scammed by a New York Manufacturer
A peculiar dispute over fire equipment reveals the cutthroat world of late-19th-century municipal procurement, where agents played cities against manufacturers and warrants were used as currency.
- The Timber Land Swindlers of Seattle
A new arrival in Seattle narrowly escapes a sophisticated land scam operating out of the Seattle National Bank building.
- The Con Man Who Conned a Town
Before he was caught, a master swindler known as 'Gen. Ward' charmed the elite of Spokane Falls and eloped with a banker's daughter.
- The Viral Panic of 1924
Washington State launches a defensive campaign against a hoof-and-mouth outbreak in California, warning citizens to watch for 'disease bootleggers' and misinformation.
- The Wealthy Pioneer Scammed in Centralia
George Washington, the founder of Centralia, loses $1,500 in a predatory legal scheme targeting his land title.
- The Great Assessment Scam: How King County Taxpayers Were Fooled by 'Blunders'
A local reporter exposes the absurdity of county tax assessments, where landowners receive notices for huge back-taxes on property they already paid off, forcing them to chase down exhausted commissioners in a cycle of bureaucratic error.
- The San Juan Island Forgery: A Soldier’s Scam and a Territorial Cover-Up
In the tense weeks of the Pig War standoff, a U.S. Army sergeant allegedly forged paymaster certificates to steal $1,604 from a local man in Olympia, sparking a legal battle that exposed corruption within the military ranks.
- The Great Tacoma Smelter Scam
A smooth-talking promoter arrives in the dead of winter, promises a mining fortune, and leaves a town holding the bag.
- The Swindled Investor and the 'Silver Mine' Scam
A Seattle real estate dealer is arrested after selling fake claims to a nonexistent silver mine, sparking a heated legal battle and a courtroom confrontation.
- The Teenager Who Swindled Seattle’s Banks
A seventeen-year-old impersonator uses forged signatures and a smooth story to walk away with five hundred dollars from city financiers.
- The Great Grocery Heist of Citizens' Market
A shopkeeper and her manager vanish after running a credit-fueled grocery scam, leaving behind a trail of debt and hollowed-out stock.
- The Unmasking of 'Julius the Fugitive'
A small-town swindler’s life of crime finally catches up with him after a string of scams across the Pacific Northwest.
- The Streetcar Decoy Scam
When the local transit company tried to goose ridership by planting actors on the streetcars, Everett's working class saw right through the performance.
- The Great Benton County Gas Scam
A complicated legal battle erupts in Spokane over who actually owns the rights to Benton County's oil and gas leases.
- The Wanted Kidnaper Who Once Walked Our Streets
A Tacoma detective identifies a notorious kidnaper as a local con man who scammed city businessmen a year prior.
Also about this, in other words
- The Evergreen 'Green Goods' Scam
A classic confidence trick that lures victims with the promise of counterfeit money.
- The Decalcomania Confidence Man
A group of Seattle women expose a predatory art instructor who used a 'transfer work' scam to swindle local households.
- The Portrait Scheme Scam
A group of Seattle women are out money after an elusive photography company vanishes from the Epler Block.
- The Snohomish Cattle Scam
A local farmer gets more than he bargained for when he unknowingly buys his own stolen livestock back from a neighbor.
- The Poultry and Pig Scam
Fly-by-night promoters are preying on Washington farmers with fraudulent 'poultry association' memberships and deceptive hog-buyback schemes.
- The Swindler Who Tried to Sell Insurance to a Ghost
A Seattle man attempts to scam his brother in California with a fake insurance policy, only to be outsmarted by a skeptical editor.
- The Whidbey Island Job Scam
Workers are left stranded and out of pocket after a hiring agent vanishes.
- The Saloonkeeper and the 'Fire' Scam
A Snohomish business owner accused of fraud faces court after a dubious claim that his saloon had burned down to escape a debt.