How to Win at Life by Cheating at Everything

by Mark Perez

  And don’t go feeling bad for your new tenants, you pussy. They didn’t intend to occupy a house illegally and aren’t going to be charged with a crime or anything. But they are going to have to move on short notice and are unlikely to see their security deposits again, mainly because they’ll be in your pocket. And you’ll already be on to the next house in a different city. Clever shit, right? I know.

  DON’T PAY RENT

  We all know, from watching way too much TV, that possession is nine-tenths of the law, so really all you need to do is falsify your identity when you turn in your rental application (see earlier). And then, once you get the keys to your new place, just don’t pay. That’s it. That’s the entire hustle. Just. Don’t. Pay. With the way our dysfunctional government works, it takes about a full year for somebody to legally get you the hell out of the dwelling. Other than that, the best they can do is wait you out. And because you’re doing this on purpose, this is a stare-down they’re bound to lose.

  The only valid recourse they have is to ruin your credit. But since you’re not the person they think you are, there’s really no worry about any of that nonsense, now is there? Oh, and make sure to pick a building with a high volume of residents. The bureaucracy moves even slower in these places.

  BECOME A DOCTOR BY DOCTORING YOUR MEDICAL BOARDS

  Remember when you were little and grownups would tell you that you could be anything you wanted to be if you just put your mind to it? And then, do you remember the moment when life kicked you directly between both of your nuts and said, “You don’t actually get to be an astronaut with a D+ average, Alan”? It’s a big, fat lie told to every kid growing up so they don’t eventually plot to overthrow the government or go on a shooting spree at their local Olive Garden. The fact that anybody remotely believes it in the first place is the real joke, child or not. Let’s be honest, if you’re born with achondroplastic dwarfism, there’s no way in hell that you’re gonna ever play power forward for the Knicks.

  And conversely, there’s zero shot that if you’re born black, you could end up as president of the United States.

  Okay, that one is admittedly an outlier. But for what it’s worth, a majority of the residents of Hickistan don’t think that he actually is. (See the earlier section on fake identities and forged birth certificates.)

  Anyway, I am here to tell you that while the notion of being whoever you want to be is indeed the ultimate con perpetrated on all of humanity, if you follow the instructions of this book, in certain circumstances you can be anything you want to be, if temporarily. Like, say…

  A DOCTOR

  I can again imagine the gasps of disgust coming from those of you reading this particular section. Yeah, well, suck on it. Read the title on the cover again—it’s a book about cheating at life. I’m not suggesting you become a cardiologist or brain surgeon or anything; I’m talking about becoming one of the shittier, less impressive types of doctors. You know, the ones that charge you $1,500 a pop for checking your blood pressure and putting an index finger inside your butthole. If you want to become one of these C-level-type physicians, you can either waste the entirety of your youth reading a thousand mind-numbing books about glands and viruses and the like, or you can just make believe that you already are one.

  I don’t know about you, but of all the times I’ve been to a doctor’s office, I’ve never once checked his or her credentials. I’ve never checked their grades or their boards. Or where they ranked in their med school graduating class. Aside from quickly glancing at their wall of degrees and licenses, I never once thought to vet the person who was in charge of me not dying. This is another very important life lesson: people don’t really want to fucking know. Their lives are already hard enough as it is. The last thing they need to worry about is what their general practitioner’s undergraduate GPA at state college was.

  Things you will need for this scam:

  A stethoscope to hang around your neck pointlessly.

  A white lab coat that makes you look like you’ve spent the morning “reading charts.”

  A framed medical license from any non-Ivy university. You’re an idiot, remember? So, don’t overdo it.

  After obtaining these items, go to a place where they need volunteers. A place where they can’t be too picky about who shows up to help. Like a third-world country. Or a struggling senior center. Or Cleveland. Somewhere they’ll be happy just to have you there, even if you flunked out of high school and the only state-run board exam that you passed had the letters G, E, and D in it. Most likely you’ll only be taking people’s pulses, looking down their throats, and prescribing antibiotics. (That’s all most doctors really do 95 percent of the time anyway.) Make friends with some of the other volunteer doctors. (Generally speaking, they’re do-gooder types, who are always the most trusting and naive.) Then use those connections to help you join a local practice, and similar to any other line of work—just learn on the job. It’s kinda like working at Subway.

  “The phony doctor will see you now, shithead.”

  A PILOT

  If 9/11 taught us anything, it’s that (1) our own government planned it (Hello, obvs!), and (2) any highly motivated inbred, religified lunatic can learn how to fly a fucking plane. It’s actually a lot easier than one would think. The whole “ten thousand flying hours” is total horseshit in this case. If you want to be a pilot, and more importantly, fly for free all over the world, in business class no less, all you really need is the following:

  A pilot’s uniform. A discreet one. Don’t try looking like a Blue Angel.

  A forged FAA license. Again, the Internet is a dangerous place.

  Twenty hours in a flight simulator. Just for fun, mostly.

  These days, planes basically fly themselves. You just need to know the basics, and that’s only if you are called on in an emergency to actually fly the plane. Which you never will be. You’ll be too busy joining the mile-high club with some hot stewardess based out of Houston (if you’re as lucky as I was).

  A LAWYER

  This is a no-brainer. There are so many lawyers out there nobody gives two shits to check if you’re legit or not. I mean, who would pretend to be a lawyer, anyway? That would be like impersonating a known child molester or boasting at a Tea Party convention that you’re starting your own ISIS splinter cell. Almost everybody on earth hates lawyers. They’re the true soulless, unethical con men out there. Thus it’s very easy to profess to be one. Things you will need for this con:

  A suit that makes you look physically greasy.

  An ad on the back of a bus in mostly Mexican neighborhoods.

  A week’s worth of law shows on TV, tops.

  I’m aware that all the law shit you see on television usually consists of long, drawn-out cases where the attorneys use a very obscure vernacular, competing to see who can act more dramatic in some closing-argument showdown. But that actually resembles only some 2 percent of the cases that are filed in the United States of Lawsuits. If you want to make money, real money, look for marks that were injured at their miserable jobs, then take their employers to the cleaners without ever having to get in front of an actual judge or jury. Here’s what you do: First, find out exactly what happened. Send the company in question a threatening letter with your fancy letterhead (you’ll need some of that, too). And then wait for the money to come pouring in. It really is as simple as that.

  Trust me, I know from personal experience that these rackets work. Because I’ve tried them all. I was a doctor, a pilot, and a lawyer. I was also a priest, a federal agent, and a psychiatrist. I lived more lifetimes in my one life than a hundred people will ever live in theirs. I made money. I gained prestige. I scored with more hot women than anybody not named Wilt. But there was always something missing in my life. An emptiness. Maybe it was all the moving I did as a kid. Or not having my dad around. Ever. At all. And even though I was able to become a chameleon in each environment, I never truly felt at home anywhere. And I guess that’s what I was longing fo
r. What something was drawing me toward.

  I’m sure you’re thinking, well, we’re more than halfway through the book, so this must be the part where I tell you I changed my ways, right? Quite the contrary. This is the part where I tell you how uninspired I was. That I had done it all and there was nothing left to conquer in The Game. I was honestly surfing the web looking for somewhere to retire. And not because of a newfound conscience or maturity…but rather from a general indifference. Then at that moment, that exact moment, a pop-up appeared on my computer screen. It read…

  Famed analytic psychologist Carl Jung defined synchronicity as: the occurrence of two or more events that appear to be meaningfully related but are not actually related. For instance, Lincoln and Kennedy being elected exactly one hundred years apart, assassinated by Southerners, and succeeded by men named Johnson. Or the fact that literally every single one of Hugh Hefner’s hostages/girlfriends looks identical to the last. This synchronicity shit basically makes the case that there are actually such things as “meaningful coincidences.” I’d never really bought into any of this kind of hippy-dippy stuff until a certain line in that particular ad jumped out at me…

  Can you even believe that in this day and age, such a place exists?! And if there were such a place, why would you advertise it to the entire fucking world? A world filled with degenerates and criminals and con men like me? It’s the equivalent of putting your Social Security number on Facebook and then Friending a bunch of Nigerians. #Dumb.

  This was it! This was my calling! This was the moment that I had trained my entire life for. So for the next half of this book, I will focus on what’s called the long con. These are always the most difficult cons, but also the most rewarding. For a full year, I did my research on this miracle of a town, all the players there, and the power structure that runs Honest, Indiana. (Obviously not the real name of the city. I’ve changed the name to protect the innocent, and more importantly, the guilty—me.) Organizations big and small, from grade school to the White House, always have a power structure. There are the important people and then there’s everybody else. And if you can crack that first part, whoever and whatever it may be—ingratiate yourself with the folks that make things tick—you too can be running things. Which was precisely what I planned to do.

  Social media has changed The Game more than any other innovation out there. Ten years ago, I would have had to move to and stake out that turd of a town for a good six months or so. But these days, I did it all on a laptop (which I stole at my local Starbucks from some asshole writing a terrible movie script about bisexual zombies—super easy, too. You just need a white cup and a Sharpie).

  I found out everything I could about that place, like…

  How many goofy cops they had (eleven)

  How many pathetic banks there were (two)

  How many unfortunate minorities lived inside the city limits (one)

  I know that last one sounds a splash racist, but it’s a good sign in this particular situation. The fewer minorities and the more lily white and homogenous the population, the more foolishly trusting the people there inevitably are. They can’t help it. It’s part of their DNA. These dopey fuckers don’t know any better. They think all the bad stuff happens “out there” to “those people,” but not in Honest, Indiana. Shit, in that place, even the landscapers are Caucasian.

  I got to know the important “movers and shakers” of the place, from the president of the Kiwanis Club to the newly elected mayor, who, believe it or not, was a total douche-nozzle.

  What is he? Nine? This is the “elected leader” of this town? Can you imagine? He looks like a hillbilly Kim Jong Un. It was almost gonna be too easy. And like I told you earlier, I had already played out the end, before I ever thought about the beginning. So for me, there would be no surprises. Or so I thought.

  As you’ll come to see, synchronicity, as it turned out, can sometimes be quite the motherfucker.

  PART 2:

  VICTIMIZING

  PEOPLE ON THE

  MACRO LEVEL

  HOW TO BE AMBITIOUS IN YOUR DEPRAVITY

  Everything I had learned and experienced so far in my life was leading me to this moment. This one grand opportunity to stake my claim. To leave my mark. To give more to The Game than I took from it. (Okay, maybe that last one was a bit hyperbolic.) I was about to embark into uncharted territory. My own Apollo 11. My personal 1492 (sans the mass extinction of indigenous peoples). I was about to take an entire town for a ride. And, in the end, go for quite the ride myself. But I’m getting ahead of myself again, so let me first explain that…

  A long con is exactly what it sounds like. It refers to a variety of scams which require more planning, preparation, and/or a longer window of interaction with your mark or marks. A longer span of time is needed to accomplish all this. The long con may also require a larger crew and/or a greater number of people involved. Unlike a short con, the long con requires time to slowly draw the John into your hustle. So, by definition, LCs are more of a pain in the beanbag—but they’re worth it because they almost always result in larger payouts than your average SC does. Due to the high levels of difficulty in organizing and executing, LCs are for experts like me. But because you bought (or hopefully stole) this book, I’m going to walk you through the best, baddest, and most surprising long con ever attempted in the history of The Game.

  Traditionally, the term long con has referred to an elaborate scam of one or more suckers that ends with an enormous payout, in which the victims unwittingly surrender their cash, homes, companies, even countries, in some cases (take a quick peek at US history if you don’t believe that last one). Long cons play on two basic human frailties: greed and desperation. A few classic examples of traditional long cons:

  THE WIRE SCAM

  The central idea is the grifter convinces the dupe they have advance knowledge of the outcome of some race results before they reach the off-track betting sites (which the grifter has created). As seen in that old movie The Sting, this is accomplished by having a roper (the member of the crew that lures in the sucker) with the ability to briefly delay results coming from a race, game, fight, etc., allowing the grifter and the dupe to place a bet before the results are released. The dupe is allowed to win some small bets early before placing a significantly larger one that will, of course, lose.

  THE BOILER ROOM

  Boiler rooms are often set up in inexpensive office spaces, where armies of telemarketers make high-pressure cold calls. While the stock they sell may be real (most likely an unknown microcap stock), the information these salespeople use to hype their product, like a pending patent or some blockbuster acquisition, is most definitely bullshit. (Remember the classic “they’re just weeks away from FDA approval of Viagra for women” scam was a big one for a while.) The only purpose of the army of automatons doling out totally misleading “insider speculation” is to sell the stock and claim their commissions. They’ll often tout stocks that trade on the Pink Sheets or the Over-The-Counter Bulletin Board, as both of those exchanges don’t have to meet the minimum requirements to file with the SEC. I know, I know. You’re too dumb to understand what the hell I just said, right? Then just Netflick that Ben Affleck movie Boiler Room. It’s basically that, only with shittier acting.

  THE SWEETHEART CON

  Also known as a lonely hearts scam or sweetheart swindle, this is literally one of the oldest tricks in this book. The con artist gains the affection of the mark, uses that affection to gain access to their money, and then makes off with the loot, never to look back. It’s as elementary as that. Now, there are always variations of this baby, but the basic premise is the same: the mark falls in love with somebody way out of their league and will do anything for the sexy swindler—and then the sexy swindler bleeds them dry like the fool that they are. Sometimes it’s money, sometimes it’s citizenship, sometimes it’s identity, but the end result is always the same—some rube getting rolled like pizza dough by a person far too attractive to be
interested in them in the first place. “Svetlana and I are so in love we decided to get a joint bank account.” Well, Das Vidania, Svetlana! Enjoy that ugly asshole’s money back in the Ukraine!

  THE PONZI SCHEME (SEE EARLIER)

  To reiterate for those of you with ADD, a Ponzi scheme is a sham investment operation where the operator, an individual or phony organization, pays “returns” to its investors from new capital paid to the operator by new investors, rather than from profits actually earned by the operator. The masterminds of Ponzi schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than are mathematically possible or short-term returns that are abnormally high or unusually consistent. Basically, it’s the old adage that if something sounds too good to be true, it invariably is.