History Main / ViolinScam

* In ''Discworld/GoingPostal'', this is mentioned (as part of his {{Backstory}}, of course) as one of [[ConMan Moist von]] [[BoxedCrook Lipwig]]'s ways of keeping in practice.
** Moist also practices a variation, intended to soothe the suspicions of people who have heard of the common form of the scam: he pretends to be down on his luck, generally trapped in a poor village where he doesn't have ready access to cash, and generously offers to sell a ring to a passer-by for, say, $50, claiming it's worth ten times as much. To assuage the fears of the prospective buyer, they nip down to the local jeweler or smith, except the ring that gets valued isn't the one that gets sold, because Moist is very good at sleight of hand.

* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' used a variation with horses - although they had to actually steal a good one to demonstrate the speed. Then they just swapped it out for a similar looking but much less valuable animal and trusted the man wouldn't notice. And of course the ultimate object of the con wasn't to steal his money, but have him accused of insurance fraud.

* One episode of ''Series/{{Lovejoy}}'' was spent modifying a motorbike to convince a collector that it was the one [[LawrenceOfArabia T.E. Lawrence]] had been riding when he died. Varied chiefly in that the "authenticating expert" role was left to ''TheMark himself'' to play: all the "evidence" was circumstantial and never mentioned explicitly by the cons, and in some cases (a bent handlebar, a rattle in the gas tank), they even tried to hide it for fear of devaluing the bike - which, in a smaller variation, was not completely worthless on its own merit, just not worth quite so much.

** This is also possible in ''FinalFantasyXI'', thanks to its variety of market outlets. But note that, since a large number of players watch the auction houses like hawks, they will probably cry foul and refuse to be conned.

* In ''Another Midnight Run'', a MadeforTVMovie based on the original ''MidnightRun'' film as part of the Creator/ActionPack, a pair of [[ConMan grifters]] Jack is trying to bring in use the wedding ring variation to score some cash in order to buy a car when they & Jack are stranded in a small town. The male of the two narrates the ploy to Jack while she sets up the marks, telling them she lost her ring. He explains that the heart of the con is the greedy nature of the mark. "You can't cheat an honest man."

* ''{{Hustle}}'' has featured a variation on this known as "dog in a bar", where a supposedly valuable dog stands in for the violin (the clip can be found on the BBC's YouTube channel [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmZHpgFulG0 here]]). The song "Can't Con An Honest John" by ''TheStreets'' details the same dog-in-a-bar variation.

* Done in an early scene in the movie ''Shade''. Woman loses ring, promises gas station attendant $1000 to anyone who finds it. Bum finds ring, gas station attendant buys it from bum for $300, bum goes around a few corners and gets into car of woman...

* DjangoUnchained has Dr Schultz planning something somewhat similar to the greedy customer in the Oral Tradition story below, except with a slave (who he's trying to free,) as the property in question. He and Django discover that Django's wife Hildie is currently owned by Calvin Candie, but rather than simply trying to buy Hildie (which Candie might refuse, or demand an obscenely high price,) Schultz asks to buy an extremely expensive BloodSport fighter named Eskimo Joe, and puts on an extended performance with Django to sell their story. After being wined and dined at Candie's estate and eventually agreeing to buy the fighter for $12,000, Schultz tells Candie that he can't possibly part with such a sum until he's had a chance to draw up the paperwork with his own lawyer, have Eskimo Joe checked by a doctor etc. but will be happy to return with the necessary people in five days time to pick up Eskimo Joe and pay Candie. However, in the mean time, he's taken quite a liking to a certain other (much cheaper) slave named Hildie, whom he would be very happy to pay for right now... [[spoiler: Candie falls for it hook, line and sinker, but his own slave sees through it and turns the tables, making Schultz play the part of the greedy customer right to the end and pay the full $12,000 for Hildie instead of Eskimo Joe]].

* Pulled more-or-less literally on you in {{Summoner 2}}, with a different instrument. You can either walk away with the loan interest and not fall further into the scam, or follow the scam to its conclusion and end up with a magic ring.
* This happens quite often in World of Warcraft. Typically it is a single con man in this case, but it requires either 2 separate characters or 2 separate accounts (separate accounts make it more convincing). On one account/character, he posts an item on the auction house for significantly more than it's worth. On the other account/character, he says in trade "WTB <item>" for twice the amount that he posted it for on the auction house. The unsuspecting mark will buy the item on the auction house (paying way more than it's worth), then when he turns around to sell it to the person in trade, he finds they're gone.

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* In ''[[{{Discworld/GoingPostal}} Going Postal]]'', this is mentioned (as part of his {{Backstory}}, of course) as one of [[ConMan Moist von]] [[BoxedCrook Lipwig]]'s ways of keeping in practice.

* A variant was done in ''{{Only Fools and Horses}}'' episode "Cash and Curry" where the conmen were of Indian descent and the supposedly valuable object was a statue of a Hindu god. The con was played with a variation, where the two conmen claimed that they were unable to talk to each other because they were of different castes; and of course, the episode ended with a thoroughly Anvilicious scene where the conmen pointed out that [[AuthorTract only a prejudiced person attempting to swindle clueless immigrants would fall for such a scam.]]
* One episode of ''Series/{{Lovejoy}}'' was spent modifying a motorbike to convince a collector that it was the one [[LawrenceOfArabia T.E. Lawrence]] had been riding when he died. Varied chiefly in that the "authenticating expert" role was left to ''{{the mark}} himself'' to play: all the "evidence" was circumstantial and never mentioned explicitly by the cons, and in some cases (a bent handlebar, a rattle in the gas tank), they even tried to hide it for fear of devaluing the bike - which, in a smaller variation, was not completely worthless on its own merit, just not worth quite so much.
** An earlier ''Series/{{Lovejoy}}'' episode featured a Greek antiques dealer (played by ''[[BrianBlessed BRIAN BLESSED!]]'') who conned a Japanese business man into purchasing a Satsuma tea-bowl for millions. The tea-bowl was authentic, but the provenance stating that the bowl was once owned by Emperor Hirohito and that the Emperor had drunk from it just before signing the Armistice that ended World War II was forged. Lovejoy and the businessman (along with a wealthy and attractive American widow whom BRIAN BLESSED had scammed earlier) got back at him with an elaborate scam involving a forgery of a Russian religious icon (a market {{the mark}} was attempting to corner) that the businessman had in his possession, complete with an authenticating expert, and a trick where Lovejoy hand-sewed two bags, one for the fake icon and one for the real icon, from antique velvet spritzed with incense (so it would smell like it had been left inside a Russian church for decades) and sprinkled the interiors of the bags with paint chips from destroyed antique paintings so they could provide {{the mark}} with all the "paint samples" he would require to authenticate the icon.

* This scam is quite possible in ''{{EVE Online}}'' and it does not even have to be a two man con! First you have to find a cheap item with very low supply in market and buy majority of them. Once you cleaned the market create a sell order with very high prices and sell your goods in a different system with slightly lower prices (prefably with different account). It looks like easy money for the prey: buy the goods, move them to other system and sell them for higher prices. Of course you will cancel your buy order before he can sell them back. Tricky part is finding the right violin.

* An amusing variation happened in ''TopCat'': a pair of con artists trick an immigrant hot dog vender from the neighborhood into buying worthless stocks in a floundering Nova Scotia oil company. T.C. then [[MockMillionaire tricks the scammers into thinking he's a Texan millionaire]]. While they are meeting in his "office" (the alley, only spruced up), T.C. leaves for a moment only for the "teletype" (the output of which actually comes from Benny hiding under a table with a typewriter) to state that the well struck oil and the value of the shares skyrocketed. The scammers then rush to the hot dog vendor and buy back the shares at triple the price. In other words T.C. managed to pull the violin scam for a worthless item ''the marks had previously owned!''

* An amusing variation happened in ''TopCat'': a pair of con artists trick an immigrant hot dog vender from the neighborhood into buying stocks in a floundering Nova Scotia oil company. T.C. then [[MockMillionaire tricks the scammers into thinking he's a Texan millionaire]]. While they are meeting in his "office" (the alley, only spruced up), T.C. leaves for a moment only for the "teletype" (the output of which actually comes from Benny hiding under a table with a typewriter) to state that the well struck oil and the value of the shares skyrocketed. The scammers then rush to the hot dog vender and buy back the shares at triple the price. In other words T.C. managed to pull the violin scam for a worthless item ''the marks had previously owned!''

A variant is the "lost ring" scam, in which a customer approaches the mark (in this case an employee or manager) with a ring he claims to have found. The con man's accomplice will then phone the store, anxiously claiming the ring and offering to come directly to the store with a huge reward for its return. If the employee is dishonest, he keeps this information to himself and buys the ring from its finder, gleefully imagining how small a price to pay it is compared to the thousands that will soon be his. If the employee is honest, he will tell the con man about the reward, but the con man will insist he can't stay. In those cases, the hope is that the employee will offer him a 'share' in the reward, possibly straight from the till. Needless to say, the ring is useless and no reward is forthcoming.

** Moist also practices a variation, intended to soothe the suspicions of people who have heard of the common form of the scam: he pretends to be down on his luck, generally trapped in a poor village where he doesn't have ready access to cash, and generously offers to sell a ring to a passer-by for, say, $50, claiming it's worth ten times as much. To assuage the fears of the prospective buyer, they nip down to the local jeweler or smith -- who, unbeknownst to the mark, has been promised a cut of the proceeds to "verify" the ring's value. Needless to say, the actual ring is a bit of cut glass and brass and worth about fifty cents.

* This happens quite often in World of Warcraft. The con man has 2 accounts. On one account, he posts an item on the auction house for significantly more than it's worth. On the other account, he says in trade "WTB <item>" for twice the amount that he posted it for on the auction house. The unsuspecting mark will buy the item on the auction house (paying way more than it's worth), then when he turns around to sell it to the person in trade, he finds they're gone.

A variant is the "lost ring" scam, in which a customer approaches the mark (in this case an employee or manager) with a ring he claims to have found. The con man's accomplice will then phone the store, anxiously claiming the ring and offering to come directly to the store with a huge reward for its return -- but the good Samaritan who found the ring can't stay to meet him. The con relies upon the employee giving the finder real money for the ring, perhaps straight out of the till. He isn't worried; he expects to receive a much larger sum once the owner returns to claim the ring. Needless to say the ring is worthless and the "owner" -- and his reward money -- never appear.

* ''Literature/AmericanGods'' features a detailed description by Mr. Wednesday. It's a plot point later.

Now the mark's greed comes in. If he's a good man, he gives the old violinist his instrument and informs him of his good fortune, and the scam has failed (the cons have lost nothing, however). If he's a lowlife, however, the scam may succeed. He offers the old man a thousand dollars for his violin -- the old man clearly has no idea of its actual value, but loves it like a family member. The price goes up and up, and eventually the con artist gives in, selling his beloved violin for ten thousand dollars. He walks out with the money, and the new owner waits a bit, then calls the number on the card. It's a false number, of course, and any professional will immediately recognize that the violin is worth perhaps fifty dollars, and the old man and the "dealer" meet up to split the take and get another cheap violin.

* A variant using a "winning" lottery ticket (of course a faked one) is used in the movie ''Matchstick Men''.

* In ''Another Midnight Run'', a MadeforTVMovie based on the original ''MidnightRun'' film as part of the ActionPack, a pair of [[ConMan grifters]] Jack is trying to bring in use the wedding ring variation to score some cash in order to buy a car when they & Jack are stranded in a small town. The male of the two narrates the ploy to Jack while she sets up the marks, telling them she lost her ring. He explains that the heart of the con is the greedy nature of the mark. "You can't cheat an honest man."

A scam in which the mark gives the con artist real money for a worthless item in anticipation of a much larger return in the near future. The trick to this scam is to make the mark believe he knows the "real" value of the item and can thus take advantage of the seller's ignorance.

A worthless item is sold as being of much higher value than it actually has. The key is to convince the mark he has information about the item that the seller doesn't.

Like this: One of a pair of con artists, posing as a retired violinist, leaves his precious violin as collateral against some small debt while he goes and fetches the cash. While he's gone, the other con man presents himself to the mark as an instrument dealer -- business card and everything. He wants to have a look at the violin he saw in passing, and as soon as it's produced, he's delighted -- as he thought, it's an original Stradivarius! It's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars! He must have it, but he has a plane to catch and can't wait for the old man to return -- Dear sir, would you please give him my business card?

A variant is the "lost ring" scam, in which a customer approaches the mark (in this case an employee or manager) with a ring he claims to have found. The con man's accomplice will then phone the store, anxiously claiming the ring and offering to come directly to the store with a huge reward for its return -- but the good Samaritan who found the ring can't stay to meet him. The con relies upon the employee choosing what looks like a practical solution: offering the finder a small percentage of the promised reward, perhaps straight out of the till. He isn't worried; after all, he expects to receive a much larger sum once the owner returns to claim the ring. Needless to say the ring is worthless and the "real owner" -- and his money -- never appear.

* An old joke[=/=]urban legend about an antique dealer, a cat, a saucer, and a greedy customer involves this. The customer is shopping in a crowded antique store. He sees the store cat eating from a saucer, and recognizes the saucer as very valuable example of Ming porcelain. Assuming the dealer doesn't know what it is, he offers to buy the saucer for $5.00. The dealer declines. The next day, the customer comes back, and this time, offers to buy the ''cat'', offering a much higher price. The dealer agrees, and as the customer is leaving with his new cat, he says "I expect he's used to eating out of that saucer. Let me take it as well." The dealer replies "Give you that saucer? Never! Do you have any idea how many cats I've sold with that saucer?"

** An earlier ''Series/{{Lovejoy}}'' episode featured a Greek antiques dealer(played by ''[[BrianBlessed BRIAN BLESSED!]]'') who conned a Japanese business man into purchasing a Satsuma tea-bowl for millions. The tea-bowl was authentic, but the provenance stating that the bowl was once owned by Emperor Hirohito and that the Emperor had drunk from it just before signing the Armistice that ended World War II was forged. Lovejoy and the businessman(along with a wealthy and attractive American widow whom BRIAN BLESSED had scammed earlier) got back at him with an elaborate scam involving a forgery of a Russian religious icon(a market {{the mark}} was attempting to corner) that the businessman had in his possession, complete with an authenticating expert, and a trick where Lovejoy hand-sewed two bags, one for the fake icon and one for the real icon, from antique velvet spritzed with incense(so it would smell like it had been left inside a Russian church for decades) and sprinkled the interiors of the bags with paint chips from destroyed antique paintings so they could provide {{the mark}} with all the "paint samples" he would require to authenticate the icon.

* One episode of ''{{Lovejoy}}'' was spent modifying a motorbike to convince a collector that it was the one [[LawrenceOfArabia T.E. Lawrence]] had been riding when he died. Varied chiefly in that the "authenticating expert" role was left to ''{{the mark}} himself'' to play: all the "evidence" was circumstantial and never mentioned explicitly by the cons, and in some cases (a bent handlebar, a rattle in the gas tank), they even tried to hide it for fear of devaluing the bike - which, in a smaller variation, was not completely worthless on its own merit, just not worth quite so much.
** An earlier ''Lovejoy'' episode featured a Greek antiques dealer(played by ''[[BrianBlessed BRIAN BLESSED!]]'') who conned a Japanese business man into purchasing a Satsuma tea-bowl for millions. The tea-bowl was authentic, but the provenance stating that the bowl was once owned by Emperor Hirohito and that the Emperor had drunk from it just before signing the Armistice that ended World War II was forged. Lovejoy and the businessman(along with a wealthy and attractive American widow whom BRIAN BLESSED had scammed earlier) got back at him with an elaborate scam involving a forgery of a Russian religious icon(a market {{the mark}} was attempting to corner) that the businessman had in his possession, complete with an authenticating expert, and a trick where Lovejoy hand-sewed two bags, one for the fake icon and one for the real icon, from antique velvet spritzed with incense(so it would smell like it had been left inside a Russian church for decades) and sprinkled the interiors of the bags with paint chips from destroyed antique paintings so they could provide {{the mark}} with all the "paint samples" he would require to authenticate the icon.