back to article Oz bottle shop falls for 'double your money' scam

Three Oz businesses have been taken for a total of AU$160,000 after handing over cash to scammers in the belief a wonder chemical could double their money. According to the Stonnington Leader, the twin owners of a bottle shop in Malvern, Victoria, were approached by two men who expressed an interest in buying the business. The …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No offence ?

    Other than being idiots.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    No fraud committed?

    I thought that taking people's money under false pretenses was fraud.

  3. Andus McCoatover
    Coffee/keyboard

    Hahahahahahaha...

    (etc). One born every minute.

  4. Daniel 1

    Amazing!

    "This bank note has been perfectly duplicated - apart from the fact that the new bank note has a completely different (and valid) serial number on it! truly this is a wonder chemical, you have, here!"

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oz bottle shop = UK off license

    No comment

  6. H 5
    Paris Hilton

    A fool and his money...

    .. you get the idea.

    Morons.

    That's some ballsy con-art, I mean who in their right mind would even believe you can just duplicate money - and with a 'magic potion' too.

    Paris, shes like Einstein compared to those scam victims.

  7. Alan 6 Silver badge
    FAIL

    @Juliusz

    Go back and read the article again - you may then spot that the fraudsters have been charged with just that offence.

    The "no fraud committed" comment refers to the idiots who handed over the money thinking they'd get double back...

  8. Ian 54
    Grenade

    Try reading the article BEFORE commenting...

    @Juliusz

    I think you'll find taking peoples money under false pretences IS fraud. However, the article says that the VICTIMS (those are the ones who got scammed, not the criminals) didn't commit fraud.

    RTFS

  9. Cameron Colley

    So The Real Hustle hasn't aired there yet?

    Though I suppose this disproves my theory that The Real Hustle was faked because I couldn't believe that people could be that greedy and stupid.

  10. Jon Thompson 2
    Happy

    Oh dear...

    I think Derren Brown's next "Event" has just been rumbled!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well I have a genuine opportunity for the Oz shop owner

    I can turn a title I award myself into a veritable gold mine, and he can be part of it!

    Here's how it works, he scans and distributes all the books in Australia, except any that the publisher objects to.

    I will call myself, the 'Australian Publishers and Authors Association" to give me a bit of credibility, and I will bring a class action lawsuit against him.

    He will make a lot of noise, but ultimately agree a settlement, we get some naive judge to rubber stamp the class action settlements and bingo, we get all the Australian rights to all the orphaned copyright in the world! From which we can milk expenses and interest and charges and and yachts, and company jet planes, and lots of business junkets.

    Ka- chink!

    And best of all, it's all totally legal!

  12. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    Australians.

    Enough said.

  13. Martyn Ranyard
    IT Angle

    The Real Hustle

    Sounds like a variation of the "blacked banknotes" that was demonstrated on the bbc show "the real hustle" - getting people to buy wads of black paper that when washed in a certain solution would revert to full banknotes!

    It's amazing how much greed can blind people.

    Have to point out the lack of IT angle though.

  14. Skydreamer

    Why double a lot of money, why not double a little money many times?

    Why would the scammers have needed a lot of money just to double the amount? If the duplicated notes were perfect then they would have 2, then 4, then 8, then 16 (etc) fully formed notes to continue their copying from. The scamees initial outlay could therefore be quite low.

  15. Chris Hunt
    Big Brother

    Wouldn't happen over here

    > The victims, meanwhile, will escape a legal knuckle-rap since they "had not committed an offence"

    Ah, the old "not done anything illegal" defence eh? That wouldn't do them any good in Brown's Britain - they'd get at least ten years on the DNA database up here.

  16. Jimbo W

    This is a plot from Alas Smith and Jones

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0508575/plotsummary

  17. Hans Mustermann

    People still fall for that scam?

    You know what's the saddest? This scam is described in one of O Henry's short and funny stories. I guess those who can't learn from history, really are doomed to repeat it...

  18. Sooty

    no offense?

    "The victims, meanwhile, will escape a legal knuckle-rap since they "had not committed an offence"

    isn't attempting to counterfiet money an offense? That they were unsuccessful in producing a viable copy (and complete morons) shouldn't matter that much should it?

  19. A J Stiles
    Thumb Up

    Oh, come on

    This little scam's been going as long as there have been paper banknotes.

  20. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
    Flame

    Seriously though

    I didn't believe people could actually be that stupid. A little more of my faith in the human race has just been chipped away. It astounds me that these people don't suddenly forget that they have to breathe and keel over dead.

  21. TeeCee Gold badge
    Joke

    Re: Oh, come on

    Maybe longer. I reckon the reason that Noah took two of everything that moved was that he was working on an angle for a scam selling a "big wooden thing that duplicates animals".

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Utter Fools

    Everybody knows that Bleach, Baby Powder and Hairspray is for making your knob bigger !

  23. Jamie 19
    Linux

    Yet more proof...

    that the theory of evolution is BS. If the dumb, sick, and idiotic are taken out of the genetic pool by evolution, why then is there such are large number around the world.

    FLAME ON.

  24. John Robson Silver badge

    Re: Oh, come on

    "This little scam's been going as long as there have been paper banknotes."

    But in Oz they are plastic ;)

    Don't fall apart when you suf with notes in your pockets you see ;)

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Firstly @ AC - 12:09

    hahahahaha

    Secondly, what really astounds me about these stories is when there are two or more people scammed at the same time i.e. the partners who owned the "bottle shop", I mean seriously, how could BOTH of you be that stupid? It reminds me of an earlier El Reg story about the Canadian teen who was 419'd out of all of his money, so then he got his parents to give him some more (to give to the scammers), when they stopped giving him money he went to his uncle for some instead. I still laugh at his apparent shock at not having any friends anymore.

    Aaaanyway, I have on a rare occasion had a friend tell me about some super cool, to-good-to-be-true deal they found in the very, very small print of some local rag. Midway through their explanation of said "miracle" (after offering to save them the hassle of sending their life savings and taking it myself) I politely ask them to stop and excuse me, at which point I hot-foot it the nearest fish monger, buy the largest whole fish they have, return to soon-to-be-erstwhile-friend and slap them around the face with it.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    to "Utter fools" by AC

    "Everybody knows that Bleach, Baby Powder and Hairspray is for making your knob bigger"

    No it doesn't. The casualty doctor say's I shouldn't read The Register again.

  27. Throatwobbler Mangrove

    huh, just like North Wales

    "The victims, meanwhile, will escape a legal knuckle-rap since they "had not committed an offence""

    Just like in the UK (see adjacent North Wales police story), the cops aren't always well-informed when it comes to the law. The ODPP will be facepalming right now (although tbf it probably wouldn't have been judged in the public interest anyway).

  28. 2FishInATank
    Joke

    @AC 12:09

    Bastard - I've got to go to casualty now.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Not directly relevant but...

    It's not just the greedy and stupid that scammers target.

    I know someone who fell for one of those 419 type emails. Sadly he has genuine mental health problems and the scammers took him for a lot of money that he really couldn't afford to lose.

  30. david 63

    Lock up the victims...

    ...for their own safety.

  31. Cthonus
    Grenade

    "Hadn't committed an offence"

    If we applied the same logic here that planning to do something isn't the same as actually carrying it out we'd never bang anyone up for terrorism.

    "Between the motion and the act falls the shadow," to quote the illustrious T.S. E

  32. Neoc
    FAIL

    The Victorian Police need a good reminder

    Forgery (especially of bank notes) is a Federal crime here in Oz. Attempted forgery or, in fact, conspiracy to commit forgery is also a Federal crime.

    Either way, these bozos should have been referred to the Federal Police, as it is obvious from their own admissions that they were quite happy to produce their own version of our currency.

  33. Cheshire Cat
    FAIL

    Unbelieveable

    I still have difficulty accepting that there are people with this level of utter stupidity - and I've worked in IT for almost 20 years. You'd think by now I'd have lost faith in the average person's intelligence entirely.

  34. Bill Fresher
    Thumb Up

    @Skydreamer

    "Why double a lot of money, why not double a little money many times?"

    Because thousands of notes where there are only two of each serial number is better than thousands of notes which all have identical serial numbers.

  35. AndrewG
    Alert

    I've got a sneaking suspicion thats my corner bottle shop

    I think I'll go over there tomorrow and see if they'd like to help my cousin get is 5 MILLION DOLLARS (5,000,000) out of that Nigerian Savings and Loan

  36. Dr Bob
    Alert

    How OLD is this ???

    Someone must have the dates wrong as in Australia bank notes have been plastic since the early 70's so how is it that they can produce a replication that passes scrutiny at the bank on PAPER ???

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