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TIL one of Frank Abagnale’s first cons included, disguising as a security guard, hanging a sign above a bank drop box that read, “Out of service, leave deposit with security guard”. Later he commented how he could not believe it worked, “How can a drop box be out of service?”

via reddit.com

Apparently Catch Me If You Can was going to include this con but they had to cancel the scene because when they tried to film it people kept walking up and trying to give Leo their money.

So a professor of mine used to work at a bank back in the day. She says one day a guy in professional attire and a clipboard shows up in a big moving truck. He says he’s from the home office and they’re changing all the chairs. He’s needs them to just load all their old chairs into his truck and later he’d be back with the replacements.

And that’s how they gave away their office furniture to a conman whose master plan was “Wear a tie and carry a clipboard.”

Looking professional is just a pass to do whatever the hell you want.

Put a suit on and you can get almost anywhere.

there’s more to it, look nice and ACT LIKE YOU BELONG. If you don’t look like you belong there, people will stop you.

this smacks of a chef i heard of that was tired to death that every single person ordered their eggs ‘over easy’, so asked the waitress to say ‘were out of over easy, we have plenty of scrambled’ and nobody questioned it

How low must your self image be to plan to rob a bank and all you take is some second hand chairs?

I 100% believe this was a former employee with a grudge.

Kid you not, this is how a sister store of mine got their entire dog treat bar stolen.

A couple of guys said they were with maintenance and they were there to replace the old bar with a new one and the employees were like “Seems legit” and they wheeled them out.  The staff even helped them do it.

This is called a “Bavarian Fire Drill” and the trick to pulling it off is to have absolute confidence that it’s going to work. If you seem even the slightest bit nervous or hesitant, everyone will see right through it.

Case in point:

In 1906, a German con man named Wilhelm Voigt dressed up in a German Army captain’s uniform and entered the town of Köpenick claiming to be an “inspector” (inspector of what, he never specified). He managed to wrangle ten German soldiers and a sergeant into assisting him, ordered the local police to halt all telephone calls to Berlin for an hour, arrested the mayor and treasurer for nonexistent charges of crooked bookkeeping, and confiscated the town’s entire treasury complete with a receipt which he signed with his former jail director’s name. He only got caught (two weeks later) because his former cellmate blabbed, and was later pardoned by Kaiser Wilhelm II who found the whole thing hilarious.

That Kaiser is a definite bro.

This is why slytherins like to be fancy and professional looking

When you’re a trickster, it pays to be … low key.

I was hired to help test a security system once. I was sent in to a semi-large company and had to go through a list of certain objectives. My favorite one was “take something out of the building that is too big to hide on your body.“ I paired it with “get into a secured facility within the building.”

I walked in in my general business getup. Shirt, tie, jacket, nice pants, not quite “suit” because it was all just a little bit shabby and not exactly matching but not clashing. Nice briefcase. Clipboard.

Getting into the secured part was easy. Learned the name of the supervisor, told the security guard that “Cindy said they’d let me in without a problem on my first day. Something about the badges not being made fast enough.” Sure, no problem, go ahead.

Walked in, unhooked a PC tower, walked to the bathroom where I’d hidden a dolly earlier, went into a stall and changed into the outfit I’d had in the briefcase. It was what I’d consider workman’s clothes but a worker in an office, not like a construction worker.

Blue jeans, t-shirt, worker’s vest (low key), hat, good boots but 2nd hand.

Threw the tower on the mover’s dolly with a couple other things, stacked very slightly precariously but not likely to fall, walked over to the stairs leading down, and started going down to the way out, which I knew had a security guard on it.

As soon as I saw him see me I stumbled and yelled out. He came running over and helped stabilize everything. Helped me down the stairs. Held the door open for me and told me to “have a nice day” as I left. Never asked for my badge or even where I was going with the stuff.

Act like you know what you’re doing. Look like you belong. Be confident.

That’s 75% of it right there.

That is some Moist Von Lipwig bullshit right there and I am fucking delighted.