Fraud Fridays: The Dirty Dentist w/ Nora McInerny

Nora McInerny
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Laci Mosley
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Nora McInerny
Get your best match in 1 minute or less with Treadwell by discount tire. What's Poppin congregation? It's your girl, Lacey Moseley, aka scam goddess. Welcome to an episode of Fraud Fridays, where we release older episodes from the scam goddess vault. That's right, Fraud Fridays is where we bring back your favorite episodes from behind the paywall.

Laci Mosley
Enjoy this episode from behind the paywall. And as always, stay stay scheming scams cun robbery and fraud scams cuns, robbery and frost. Scam goddess, what's poppin congregation? It's your girl, Lacey Moseley, aka scam goddess. And we are back for another installment of the show.

Still on Zoom, still in quarantine. Even though most of the world has decided that the corona is over. They just decided themselves and put out a memo to the world. Guys, I'm super. What am I?

Let's all say it together, guys, I'm so excited for today's guest. Right? She's saying it with me, which is amazing, guys, from the amazing show. Terrible. Thanks for asking.

We have Nora McInerney. Did I say it right? You said it flawless. That was perfect. Yes.

Okay. I didn't want to get it wrong. Okay. Awesome. I'm so excited to have you here.

How are you? You know, I'm sitting in my closet, just hiding from. Thank you. Thank you. Got some good hats back there.

Nora McInerny
We have a lot of sun hats. Okay. We live in Phoenix, Arizona. You cannot go outside. You will just dissolve into a puff of dust.

So, yeah, we got a lot of sun hats on display. This little corner is my husband's shirts, and then the rest is. Is my clothes, which is so important to have new outfits and options in this day and age. Something to spice up quarantine, for sure. Yes.

Laci Mosley
Wait, so your husband has a lot of long sleeves. I'm, like, so nosy. I'm like, oh, yeah. So we just moved from Minnesota, and he. He's built for a cold climate.

Nora McInerny
This is really, actually a really hard acclamation for him to make. And so these are all aspirational clothes that represent his best life, which is over. And it ended when he married me. But it's. Yeah, he's got a lot of flannel.

He's got. Yeah. And I just. So I don't know what he thinks will. Where he thinks he will ever be wearing these, but he is ready for when it hits, like, 60 degrees here in January.

Laci Mosley
He's gonna be giving us brawny paper towel. Okay, lukes. Okay. I can't wait. I love a lumberjack.

So, wait, what's your relationship with skims, Nora? Do you have one? Have you ever been skim? The delight in your face? I have been thinking about this since episode one.

Nora McInerny
What is my relationship to scams one? I'm constantly being scammed. I have four children. Children are the original scammers. They are the most adept at it.

Laci Mosley
Unemployed criminals. And just the speed at which they can conduct and get away with something is fantastic. Right before this call, I'm so glad that we started a couple minutes late because we discovered that a child who had a screen time ban punishment in this 21st century had a secret iPad hidden in their closet that we didn't know about, which is why they were taking the punishment so well. What? How do you have a secret iPad?

Nora McInerny
It was, like, from their. Like. It's like, an iPad mini version one. Okay. It is basically just a giant, like, old iPhone.

It's so useless. But that's why they didn't care about the punishment, because they could still text their dumb little friends on a secret iPad that we had lost track of. What a shitty first world family. That's hilarious. No, that's amazing.

Laci Mosley
I remember I got grounded from television, and I used to have a. I'm gonna really date myself here. I used to have a handheld tv that just needed, like, some batteries. Wow. So I was, like, roaming around the house like a crackhead, just looking for double a batteries so I could watch tv.

And that's how I found out that aaliyah died. I don't know why that doesn't make any sense. Cause you finally popped the batteries in, and you were like, no. That was the worst news to get. When I finally got shook, the last battery out of my baby doll back and put it into the tv, and then it was like, aaliyah dead.

I was like, what? Goddamn. And then I wasn't supposed to know aaliyah was dead. So I was like, well, I guess I can't talk to my parents about this. Cause I'm not supposed to watch television.

So then I called my cousin, and I was like, Eric, did you know aaliyah died? I don't know. What? You shattered your own childhood by trying to scam your parents. That's what you.

I truly did. God was like, okay, well, here's. Oh, you want some entertainment? Here's some news. Okay, right, right.

Nora McInerny
I can't. Here's what's going on. Hey, Arnold. And I got literally the most devastating news. And I also have very petty parents, so I couldn't even sneak and watch tv because they be rubbing on the back of that shit, like, seeing if it's warm.

Yes, yes. And kids will not ever understand that. Cause now our tvs are, like, mounted flush with the wall. They're not. There's no way to touch the tv.

They're so sneaky. They're so good at this, and we have no hope. And I also had really petty parents. My mom tied. She had a tv cabinet.

She tied a ribbon around the cabinet doors elaborately in a way that she knew our stupid kid fingers could never replicate. And that's how she knew if we were sneaking tv. She was like, uh, uh, no. It was a double bow and the ends curled this way. I know you.

I know you messed with it. I love that. Your mom was obviously a girl scout, and she was like, well, I gotta use these badges somewhere, somehow. Somehow. But I do have something to confess that I've never told anybody, which is a scam that I was a part of.

Laci Mosley
Oh, my gosh. And I do think that the statute of limitations is up, so I can say this. Okay. Okay. This is something.

It is. Okay. Yeah. It's a retired scam, so I can talk about it. Okay.

Nora McInerny
It's a retired scam. It happened in middle school. We're talking. I will date myself. This is, like, 1997.

At the time, Mountain Dew, the Pepsi company, you know, was. Was doing these promotions where in a 20 ounce bottle of Mountain Dew, you could open it up, and inside the lid, it would say if you won a free 20 ounce Mountain Dew. And so it was like, basically a buy one, get one if you could get, you know, the winning top. Right. So, obviously, you know, we're trying to peek in the bottom of the bottles.

It's. It's not possible they're shaped incorrectly. They definitely know how to. How to mitigate for that. What they did not control for is that a boy in my class would find the right font on our Apple Iie computers that said, you won a free 20 ounce do print it.

Print them in sheets over and over, trace the exact shape of the inside of a mountain Dew bottle cap, pop out the little blue plastic lid inside of the cap, and then test for what the color of the paper would need to be to appear real. Which was it needed to be colored in completely with a bright yellow highlighter placed back in the bottle cap, replaced then the little blue lens that went over it, and then bring it to the Walgreens next to our catholic middle school and redeem it. And it worked every single time we pulled this scan. We had basically, an assembly line in our art class of making fake winning Mountain Dew bottle caps, and no one ever got caught. So this is all the proof that I need that Mountain Dew is crack, because this is very crackhead or meth head behavior to sit here and man like, oh.

Laci Mosley
And then we traced it, and then we colored it in the right color. I'm like, first of all, you guys are so wholesome. This is the most wholesome scam. This is what they doing in catholic school. I thought they was over there doing drugs.

That's what I saw on Oprah. I think maybe other schools were, but we were. Nobody in our school was drinking. We were drinking Mountain Dew, and it was kind of like there was a rumor that it had more caffeine than other pops than a cup of coffee. Yeah, it does.

Nora McInerny
Yeah. Oh, good. Cause we were like, I'm so messed up. I had, like, two mountain dews, and we weren't allowed to have pop at school, so we would, like, stash them in our lockers and basically, like, shotgun cans of Mountain Dew in the hallway. But a 20 ounce was obviously the best investment, because if you were a thief and a scammer, you could just buy 120 ounce Mountain Dew and then keep redeeming free lids over and over and over again.

So I'm just glad I got that off my chest. I'm glad that you did. Cause it's very wonderful. I also love that you guys were hocked up on mountain Dews. Like, I'm on that do what that doo doo, the do.

We did the do. And we did it. We did it hard. And it also was not, you know, my parents did not allow me to drink pop recreationally. So it was like, it was.

I was breaking several rules on the family level. And then also, like, I have to believe that's some kind of crime. I have to believe that was low level fraud. Chicago or where are you from? Minnesota.

Laci Mosley
I grew up in Minnesota. Okay. Cause you say pop, so I was like. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah.

Nora McInerny
I mean, soda. Soda water. Yeah. Soda waters. Mm.

All kinds of sparkling drinks. Yes. Well, let's get into what's hot and fraud, guys. This is when I'm gonna regale Nora with one of your listener letters, and we're gonna get her opinions on your schemes and your scams. Oh, this is a little bit of a downer, but it's not really.

Laci Mosley
Cause it turns. It is a scam. So we'll get back on the upside, guys. No worries. So let's give me a name.

Nora, for this person. Debra. Debra. Oh, I love a Debra. You know, that's the cousin to Karen.

Debras are pretty cool. They're so. Every Debra I've met is, like, really, really lovely. Okay. And they make amazing bars.

So they're just constantly embarrassed by their cousin Kara. But Debra's are great. So this fraud was run recently on a family friend. Debra says. She says there are two main characters other than the fraudster.

Okay, you better break it down, Deborah. She says the mom, Naomi, is what she's calling her, and the daughter, Winona, obviously fake names. Okay, cute. So Winona gets a call from her mom, Naomi. It comes up as mom sell in her phone and her mom's pictures there.

It all seems normal. But when Winona answers it, a dude is on the phone saying he has kidnapped the mom. What? So, since you keep it light, she says, I'm not gonna get into too many details here, but a realistic effort was made to make Winona think that her mom was in danger from this kidnapper. In reality, Naomi was at home watching tv and very much fine the whole time.

Damn. So Winona's husband tried to call Naomi from his phone while this was going on to see if this was a scam. Very smart. But the texts and calls didn't go through. It's almost as her phone has been spoofed.

What? Really? Now, this is fascinating. Yeah, because you can fake a phone number. We know that.

But I haven't seen somebody, like, block calls from a number. What? It's like they tapped into, like, they hacked it. This is very cute. I mean, it also feels like.

Nora McInerny
Yeah, it's cute. It's terrible. I also feel like, oh, my God, it must not have been productive enough to do things like just call and pretend to be somebody's grandchild and be like, grandpa, grandpa, I need. Which happened to my husband's grandpa who called me and was like, he's in prison. And I was like, what?

Yeah, he needs bail money. I'm trying to get him bailed. Oh, that's the old. That's the old one. And then when.

One thing that happens often when people are widowed is they get messages from men who are interested in supporting them because their mom was a widow. And. And so this seems like the next level of scam, where it's like, we are going to stimulate your danger response. And what you're saying is actually so fucked up. So you're telling me that there's people just scrolling the funeral home obituaries looking for obitches?

Laci Mosley
Oh, no, we're looking for old bitches in the obit. Also. Young bitches, like. Cause, like, if you are widowed, you know, not to bring up the energy too much on this lighthearted comedy podcast, but high risk. Don't put it in your Facebook profile.

Nora McInerny
Don't. Don't make it. You know, don't put it out there, because people will, like, contact you. They'll try to scam you and say, like, oh, I knew your husband. Like, he owed me this money.

Laci Mosley
I knew your husband. He owed me $27 also. That's very petty to be like, damn, I'm so sorry about your husband. But also, yeah, you know, he did. We went to Chili's, and he said he wanted the appetizer, and ain't nobody else at the time wanted the appetizer.

You know how he was. And so we gonna need that. We gonna need that money. Those refills were not free, okay? He got, like, the special lemonade.

Nora McInerny
That is not a free refill. He had three margaritas, and I had a sprite. Okay. And he said, let's split the pill, rest his soul. But can you give me that money?

God, this is so. This. Honestly, this game makes me not want to have the Internet exist at all. Like, this is kind of, like, the thing where I'm like, I think we should call it. We should call it a day with technology.

Laci Mosley
The Internet is bad documentary. God, I can't remember the name, but it's on Netflix. The social dilemma. Yes, the social dilemma, which is terrifying. Which is just like, you are the product.

Yeah. Let me tell y'all that. So, basically, real quick caveat. They said that if you're on any app and it's free, quote, unquote, then you are the product. Just all the information you give, all the time you give anything you're telling them, all of it.

That's why I don't have a Ralph's car. Oh, yeah. And my dad was very into privacy and was like, no, you may not. No, you may not. You may not.

Nora McInerny
He's like, they were like, don't you want coupons that are relevant to you? And he was like, no, I actually don't. Thanks so much. Actually, don't. Thank you.

I will take this tampon coupon. Right? I know somebody who bleeds. Anyway, no, it's real. I took a marketing course by a very jilted woman who I love so much because she was, like one of those petty people who would bring her life into class, and so she would be like, you know, and just so everybody knows, completely off topic, when you marry someone, you marry their debt.

Laci Mosley
I'm still paying off my ex husband's student loans. And I'll be like, that ain't had nothing to do with the project. Okay, but it was good advice, everybody. That's the question you need to ask before you get married, is, how much debt do you have? Because your debt becomes our debt.

And that's not cute. Also, if you're on apps right now, it's like, what is a profile other than marketing for yourself? Like, you have to look beyond the key messages that people are giving you. Look a little deeper, because you might be the product. You might be the product.

Nora McInerny
I'm sorry I got us so off track. And I also wrote a chart of who Naomi and Winona are. Oh, my God. I love that. Who the players are.

Laci Mosley
I wish. I wish I saw you grabbing a pencil, and I was like, if she's taking notes, I'm going to die. Oh, my God. I love you so much, Nora. So we get sidetracked.

We come back. We're turning the train around. Here we are, guys. So back to where we were. The husband tries to call Naomi to see if this is a scam.

And Naomi's phone calls and texts are not going through, so her phone is being spoofed. Somebody's cloned her phone. So, in the end, the kidnapper, in quotes, scared the crap out of Winona. Then he sent her a link and demanded she put in her banking info, which she did to try to help her mom. The scammer wired himself all the money in her checking account.

Once he got her money, he hung up. They were able to call Naomi for real, like, so once he got the coins and they hung up, they could call Naomi for real on her phone. So he must have just cloned her phone with some kind of cyber technology. She had never been in danger and was obviously surprised that her number was being used by this guy and that her cell phone was, you know, not working. She said she was just hanging out in her house on Saturday, you know, watching young and the restless, seeing what Victor Newman was up to.

Meanwhile, everybody else thinks she's at knife point. Everybody else is ready to jump into action and save her. And honestly, I don't know. I don't know what I would do. I mean, you can't pay a kidnapper, okay?

Watch an old supermarket sweep, episodes of David Ruprecht with his press khakis. Just having the time of her Saturday. And everybody else is, like, over here, like, Liam Neeson from taking. Like, we. We have a special set of skill.

We got some skill. Can somebody neck chop? Who can neck chop? They trying to figure out who got the strongest hand to neck chop everybody. Like Liam.

And she is chilling also. It's like, well, we tried to call her, right?

That was their last resort. They were like, hey, girl, are you kidnapped or. No? Yeah, this was a good solution. I tried everything.

Nora McInerny
I called her. I texted her. I texted her. I said, hey, Naomi, you. The letter?

Laci Mosley
You. You kidnapped, or. Nah, no, I'm not clicking a link that anybody texts me. I'm just not. I'm not clicking it.

Nora McInerny
I'm not clicking it. Oh, no. Does she get that money back? Does she have to call chase and be like, funny story. I thought my mom was kidnapped.

Laci Mosley
And look, we did call her before we participated in the fraud. We did call her, and she wasn't picking up, and they're like, so you. Knowingly gave your routing and account number to a stranger? Yes, but what you are not hearing is that this was. We called, remember?

And we sent a text. Multi prong rescue operation. Okay, Mike, we were all. The money is gone. You're absolutely right.

I truly feel like now I would be pissed at my kids if they caught me with this bullshit, because I'm like, this. How hard y'all look for me, though? This is it. You called mom mom. Well, I guess she's dead.

Like, y'all come on, now. I can't even get on the news. I can't even be watching my stories on Saturday and see myself on the news. Like, also, I have to say that if. If all they want is the money that's in your checking account, like, I don't have that much in my checking account.

Nora McInerny
I would have to. I would like to believe that. I would pause and be like, wait, wait, wait. You kidnapped my mom for $643? You held a boomer, an old white boomer against her will.

Do you know what my mother would do to a kidnapper emotionally? Do you know what she would just be. There's just no way. Like, I don't know. God, I don't think it would be worth it.

I don't think it would be worth it for them if they scammed me. They'D be like, oh, they also weren't very specific kidnappers. Like, just like you're saying. You're like, $643. It's like they were like, yeah, give us whatever money.

Laci Mosley
That's like, if a kidnapper stopped you on the street and was like, I've got your mom. Give me what's in your wallet. Like, you don't want a lot, bro. Like, you don't want $10,000. You don't want a specific amount.

He was just like, what you got on you and the sneakers. Give me the sneakers or your mom gets it. Like, I took the care to find. To locate and detain your mother. Your mother specifically.

Nora McInerny
But also, I'll take whatever. Whatever you have is fine. Like, whatever you think your mom's worth. What do you think is fair? Okay.

Laci Mosley
You know, I even ask you if you really liked your mom. You know, I should have started with that. Do you like your mom? Yeah, that's a. That's a risk.

Nora McInerny
Like, I don't know, you know, depending on the day. I don't know that I would respond to that text.

I'd be like, okay, well, that's between, you know, you and God, I guess. God's plan. God's plan. I don't know why you would steal her. No, I'm kidding.

Laci Mosley
I love my mom. Anybody would steal my mom. She's great. But there is a little tidbit here that's a little scarier. But I'm gonna share a little bit of it.

Nora McInerny
Cause I think it's okay. Cause we know the end of the story. Debra says that they had a woman, the kidnapper had a woman screaming in the background and was saying all the ways that he was going to hurt and kill their mama. So that's very traumatizing. Yeah.

Laci Mosley
You know, but also, who is this woman? I've heard my mom yell, okay?

She's just doing, like, a general mom yell. Like, you know, this. Go. Sound like her. I don't know what that yell sounds like.

But you know what? If you put, like, some claw in your mouth or sock or something, if it's a muffled yell, then it could be. It could be your in which case, like, what? That's like, I just want to know the production value of this. I.

Nora McInerny
You know, you have to be somewhat impressed by this kind of stuff. This is a backstage.com job. This is when one of those voiceover work, non union works one day, it's just you screaming in the back like, they gon kill me. Come get your mama. Now.

Laci Mosley
I need you to sound more like you really are afraid that we are gonna kill you. It's not just fear. It's like you're in excruciating pain. Okay. Like, remember, and also, stop saying it's your mom.

It just really feels heavy handed. Just scream. That's all we need from you. Okay. Okay.

I respect. Remember, this is your child. Okay. Like, the emotional connection has to be there. Yes.

Nora McInerny
Although I do feel like my mom would identify herself in a kidnapping. It's your mom. Because. And also, I would, too, because I am that person who texts, and it's like, hi, it's nora. And people are like, we.

We know. We saved your contact. We know. Oh, you did? Like, okay, just making sure.

Just. I just want to avoid that moment where people are like, yeah, who is this? That's very kind of you, because most people don't do that, and I hate having to sin. I don't even do it anymore. I'm just like, who is with a dis?

Laci Mosley
Who did? Like, I used to be like, I just got a new. Listen, I was mauled by a bear. Then I had to get a new phone. Cause the bear took the phone and threw it into the lake.

So now I don't have your number saved. So who are you? I used to do a whole rigmarole. Now I'm like, who the hell? But before the bear threw it in the lake, he actually disconnected my icloud and nothing got backed up.

Nora McInerny
It's crazy. It's crazy. I lost the pictures of my paw. Paw. Anyways, who this, like, the longest explanation?

Laci Mosley
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Do you need anything?

Nor is sticking the stings herself. You are the owner of the greatest podcast theme song of all time. Period. Period. Thank you.

So good. I'm trying to remix it for the new season. Cause the way that we did that was, I was just singing. I made the song up when I was stuck in traffic on Laurel Canyon. And then I just sang it into a notes app.

And then I came into the studio and just sang all the parts myself into just a studio mic. And it's not mixed. You have such a voice. Ratchet. You're such a voice.

Oh, thank you. It's pretty ratchet. Thank you. So I'm like, I want to get it cleaned up so that it's. I'm like, can we put some auto tune on this?

Can I sound like t pain or something? Come on, somebody help me. So I'm trying to get it remixed for the new season, but I'm trying not to do too much remixing. Cause fans out there, if you watch power. I remember when power changed their theme song and everybody wrote to 50 cent personally and was like, change it back.

They were like, we don't want to hear Trey songs. We want to hear Joe. And he eventually did change it back because so many people were like, we. Don'T want to hear this. We liked the original.

Nora McInerny
People do. People do resist change. Like, they really do. They're like, no, no, no, no. Like, I found out the hard way that the number two at McDonald's is no longer two cheeseburgers.

And it was like, what? Like, that's how I know you have kids. Because I feel like this also. I went, yeah, well, I mean, at first I was like, they'll never have McDonald's, and they'll only eat organic food now. I'm like, it's Monday.

You know that means happy meals, two for one. Let's go. They're like, we're 14. I'm like, I don't care. I literally don't care.

You're getting a happy meal. There was a woman who got dragged on Twitter recently because she was saying, like, you know, I know people always say, like, if you don't have kids, you shouldn't weigh in, but when I have kids, I will never be giving them the kids meal and chicken nuggets. And. And somebody was like, oh, so you gonna be feeding your kids foie gras. Like, just you wait, sis.

Just wait till you have. You know what? I was the best parent I ever was was when I did not have children. I knew it all. I was so good.

It was so good. And I'm like, whatever, guys. Also, now there's no fucking standards. I'm like, their screen time. Oh, no.

Their screen time map is like, do you have a mom still? Do you? Are their parents at home with you? Are you okay? Should we call someone?

Laci Mosley
No, our parents are TikTok. No, I follow parents on TikTok, and they parent me in 1 minute. Oh, my God. Truly, Zachary, I will talk to you about this another time as obviously deep, close friends. There's.

Nora McInerny
I think that there's something fucking weird about kids right now where they love these TikTok videos, where it's like, hey, it's your dad. I believe in you. You're doing a good job. And it's like that weird music. There's all these weird povs.

And it's like, pov, your dad loves you. And it's like men being like, you're doing a good job, kid. You're gonna get through this. I'm like, what the fuck? Who is this perv?

Why is he making content to reassure children, you fucking weirdo? And also, who are the kids who are sitting alone in their room being like, okay, all right, thanks, dad. Like, what? It's so, so weird. There's like, so I don't know why I.

Well, I do know why I find myself in the weird, emotional versions of TikTok, but I'm always like, what the fuck? What the fuck? See, I haven't gotten over there yet, but I want to be somebody's terrible auntie. Like, yeah, baby, you deserve them. Shoes by them.

Laci Mosley
Like, it's just me telling people, giving kids, like, the worst advice. I am into a section of TikTok called borrowing, where they teach you how to steal stuff. And it's so interesting. I was like, this is good content about robbery. I love it.

But speaking of robbery, speaking of fraud, it's time for historic hoodwings. This is where I will regale Nora with a very famous caper, and we'll get her opinions all throughout. She will interrupt, she will have questions. She will have all types of things, stories. We probably get off track again, but we will come back.

Okay, you guys know this is a tangential show. You should be used to it by now. So this is about Seth Lookheart, not to be confused with Lockhart, because there are two o's. So Lookhart, he's a dentist in Alaska, and he pulled out a tooth of a sedated woman's mouth while balancing on a hoverboard. And we're actually gonna look at this hoverboard video.

I believe it's up right here. Okay, so he's going, this dentist is. Performing a tooth extraction. The patient is sedated. What is that, baby?

He's standing on a hoverboard. That's right, a hoverboard. When he's done, he rides off his dental office. He's raised in trial. See, this is what we talking about when we say black women don't be getting good healthcare.

Like, I don't. Not only are we more likely to die from damn birthday, but we also got doctors on hoverboards ripping our teeth out and yeeting down the hallway. What the hell? Also, this video is from Inside Edition. Which is.

Nora McInerny
As a senior millennial, that was a huge part of my adolescence, was getting most of my information from inside Edition. The same for me, actually. Is that also the network that had to catch a predator? Because I used to love that show. Oh, God.

I love to catch a predator. Oh, my God. Chris Hansen, he does cameos for, I think, only $200. And I might. I might treat myself to one, right, like you said.

But I would give him direction where I'm like, you have to come out of the pantry. Cause he would always open a door and be like, hey, his text messages are pretty explicit. Mind if you have a seat? The girl would always be like, okay, I'm gonna go get us some lemonade. And then they'd be sitting there waiting for their lemonade.

Laci Mosley
Here comes Chris. Has that. Or they'd like the girls. The girls who are, like, 31, would be like, oh, cool, Mike's hard lemonade. I love drinking alcohol.

Nora McInerny
I'm gonna go put these in some cups for us. It was the strangest thing. And then they'd call out from the other room, like, almost done pouring this alcohol into other cops. So ready for love making. Can't wait.

Laci Mosley
Like, what's happening? Also, that show went off the air because they got sued so many times because they were, like, some of those guys, I guess, like, weren't actually perverts. They probably. It was like, I think there was probably some entrapment happening. Yeah, yeah.

But some of them was perverts. But it's like, then you're a pervert on national television. And that was back when we didn't have that many channels we didn't have, you know, YouTube. We didn't have Instagram, so it wasn't like your memory. I think our brains probably memorize way more faces now than they used to, so.

But back then, it would be like, just certain people on television, so I'm sure that they were pretty famous. Like, we would be like, you that nasty man touch up. You're like, babies how we ruin their lives. And they were like, no, I responded to a casting call for a reality show next week. No, we knew nasty.

That happens to him everywhere. He goes to Applebee's. They're like, that nasty man nowadays. That would be such short news. He would be able to live full and he would live a full and happy life, right?

So Seth Lucard is hoverboarding and ripping out baby's teeth. It's so upsetting. He sent the video to people outside of the practice, and the footage became a part of a wide ranging case against the dentist on charges of fraud and bed an unlawful dental acts. Look. Unlawful dental acts is very funny to me.

What were you doing in there that was unlawful? It's like, look, I know you here for your teeth, but I also do wrestling lip injections. So we gonna do that during your root canal so we can really get the mileage out of this novocaine. What are you doing? I wanna know.

So I would be into that, though. I would be into that one stop shop. I heard it as like, it was a dentist practicing law briefly. And I was like, oh, no, no. He's doing unlawful dental.

Nora McInerny
Dental practices. Which, I mean, if anything, an adult man on a hoverboard is an illegal practice. Yes, that's enough. That's enough to get him, whatever, disbarred. Get him.

Laci Mosley
Get him. You lose your license for that kind of shit. You are no longer allowed in polite society if you're an adult man on a hoverboard at the doctor's office. At the doctor's office. You know, he's just going to clubs and buying bottle service every weekend.

Like, that's what this screams to me. Like, this screams, like, professional escorts and bottle service and living and also fraud. Like, when you're seeing anybody on a hoverboard, you could pretty much assume some kind of fraud. So. And what kicked it all off was this video, which makes sense, because when you see this video, you're just like, what a dick.

Nora McInerny
And so, you know, people around him probably who worked for him were like, what a fucking douchebag. And then finally they get, you know, they're like, I know he's already also probably, like, cheating people in various ways, but, like, look at this dick. And then they share that video. Like, he sends it to a friend who's like, fuck this guy. You know what?

What's his first name? Doctor? Look. Alex or Chad. His first name is Seth.

Seth. Ugh. Yeah, Seth. Okay. Yeah, wish that.

Laci Mosley
Sorry to those Seths out there. Sorry to the Seth listeners. They're probably his several good seths. But Seth Roken, I like Seth Roken. Oh, we all do.

Nora McInerny
Everyone does. He's so wonderful and he kind of fine. I had never really had noticed that he was fine. And then I ran into him at a restaurant, and that was a weird. I'm not trying to brag, but I just met with this company.

Laci Mosley
So I went up to him. I was like, hey, I just met with so and so, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, oh, yeah, what was y'all talking about? Blah, blah blah? And I was like, damn, you kinda cute up close.

Okay, Seth. Like, that's my. That's, like, historically my type of guy. Just like, really funny. Like, you can look like anything, but if you could make me laugh, I'm like, he's hot.

Nora McInerny
Okay, first of all, he's so hot. Paul F. Tompkins. I had a major crush on him in middle school when he was young. Okay, but see, Paul is cute, though, to me.

Laci Mosley
I spent a lot of time with Paul, and I could see how he be getting the women's. I mean, he married, but. Well, yeah, he's also so funny. But, like, as a middle schooler, that's a weird person to have a crush on, to, like, watch VH one, like, pop up video and be like, oh, my God. But I'll tell you what, that's a weird.

I'll do you one better just to be in solidarity with you. Bill Maher. I used to have a crush on Bill Maher. I know. See, now you have to make that face.

You ain't had to make that face. Nora. Nora over here making all the faces. Damn. Very expressive.

Nora McInerny
I also. Yeah, I don't know.

Laci Mosley
She got up and left. It's mostly about personality. Okay. It's so easy to be a guy like girls. You're like, you have to have a personality.

Nora McInerny
You have to be. You have to be smart. You have to have a face and a body. It's terrible. You have to have all the things.

Laci Mosley
And I recently, one of my good friends, Priscilla, she was like, well, I just think that, I don't know, something about those Texas girls, y'all just love to marry ugly men. I was like, what? And then she was like, think about how many ugly men you've dated, Lacey. And I was like, I did that one guy who looked like a pit bull, and I didn't like. It's like, yeah, the looks has never been a big thing for me, but I am teaching myself now to stop dating poor guys.

No shame. Everybody's got a way in life, you know? But I think Rana put this to me the best. And she has this podcast named. Called ask Rana.

But she was saying this completely out of the blue, didn't know my business at all and was like, don't date men who are 28. She was like, they have nothing to offer you. They don't know who they are. They don't have any money, and it's just a big waste of time. And I was dating someone who was 28 at the time, and I was like, oh, okay, yeah, maybe I should stop this.

It's okay to be broke, y'all. I was broke. It's okay to be broke. I mean, most of America's broke. It's all a scam.

Nora McInerny
I'm just saying, like, it's true. I can't be paying for no more dinners. Okay. Anyway, we getting too much in my personal business. Let's get back on.

Let's get back to the dental business. Oh, so this is what I was saying. People hate the dentist. So I feel like you can't be a dentist who's also being an asshole, because people already don't like dentists. There's a dentist that did a filling for me and didn't give me enough novocaine.

Laci Mosley
And I told her I needed more than normal people. I don't know why. And she was like, I know what I'm doing. And literally, she hit a nerve. I seized in the chair.

Nora McInerny
And. Have you ever had, like, tears, projectile, out of your eyeballs that happened? They flew out. They didn't even come out the corner. They came out the middle.

Laci Mosley
It just flew out. It was terrible. I'm sorry, guys. I hope this isn't to all my misophon people or people who, you know, I hope I'm not giving out the worst picture here, but, yeah, the tears flew out of my eyes, and I wanted to fist fight that bitch. I still hate her.

I'm still trying to find her practice. I want her. I'm trying to give her all the negative Yelp reviews. I think about her to this day, and this was ten years ago, so people hate dentists. So you gotta be a nice dentist.

I have a great dentist now, but that bitch, whoo. If I ever see her again. Yeah, that seems like. It does seem like a bad career to pick if you also want to be, like, crooked, right? No, you can't do that.

Nora McInerny
Be a pediatrician. Okay. Be like a pediatrician. People love them. Like, scam all kinds of pediatricians.

Yeah. And, like, I would anything our pediatrician said, if they were like, yeah, you probably need this, like, extra thing. I'd be like, that sounds great. Sign us up. We'll do it.

We'll do it. You need. I would give him my routing number. Okay, absolutely. If I was a pediatrician, I would be making my own brands for everything.

Laci Mosley
I'd be like, so I got this green juice that if you don't give it to your baby, they will die, you know, but it's up to you. If you wanted a living child, I don't know, but, like, I would be running all the scams. I'm like, I got some daily vitamins for your baby. I made them myself, so, you know, they good. You would never leave without, like, the longest bill.

So this Mister Lookard, he started out as a contractor for a local clinic before forming his own practice owned by the corporation Look Heart Dental, LLC. He built his dentistry mostly around Medicaid recipients. Prosecutors. Oh. Prosecutors said he also began offering iv sedation, an action that helped him bring in the attention of the authorities because they were like, iv's.

You ain't never supposed to have to get your veins out at the dentist. You shouldn't have to do that. Okay. Who is this? Michael Jackson's doctor.

What is happening here? So the state started investigating Mister Lecork's clinic in 2016 after a former employee contacted the authorities to report that he was performing more sedation than necessary on Medicaid patients to increase profits. Prosecutors said, here's the thing about this. Could you just have said that you was doing the sedations instead of actually doing them to people? Yeah, like, I came in for a cleaning, and now I'm in a coma.

What? Yeah. That seems like the more efficient scam, like, one you're gonna save, honestly, you're gonna save. You don't have to buy all of those drugs. You have to also waste them on a.

Nora McInerny
Also you don't have to perform a dangerous experiment on somebody who was on Medicaid and came to you for a cleaning. Right? Also, yeah, Medicaid means, like, probably maybe older. Like, what are you doing? It's like, I came to get my braces tightened, and it was like, count backwards from tea.

Rest in peace. Okay. God. Oh, my God. Honestly, also, as I don't know when this episode's coming out, maybe it will be pre.

Pre election. Post election, it'll be like, it'll be okay. It's pre election when people in your life are like, oh, no, no, no. You're gonna take away our health care choice. You already have no choices in America.

Like, people are going to doctors like this, or you go wherever your insurance will take. Like, we don't even have that many good choices. And also, of course, he's scamming people on Medicaid. Medicaid is for a low income individuals. Like, of course he is doing that.

Like, what a piece of trash. And then buying, but. And then I'm at network. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

He's like, well, I am in network. And, you know, I do this thing where I knock you out completely, then I try to make viral videos of me yanking out your teeth on a hoverboard. So I'm pretty.

I'm not like other dentists. I am a dick. And we're not stuffy around here, okay? I ride a hoverboard. It's like, I want the most.

What I want out of a dentist is someone boring. I want somebody with no personality. I want somebody who does not want to get to know me in any way. I just want a person who is going to make sure my teeth don't fall out of my head and also not hurt me. That's it.

That's the whole standard that I have. The standard is low. So boring that they're probably a serial killer, and. You know what I mean? But they really love their job, and they're really dedicated to their job.

Laci Mosley
They do also do murders. But not on the job. No, not on the job. It's like, that's an extracurricular. And they would never let that.

That was like that one Uber driver who was doing murders in between pickups, but he wasn't murdering his Uber people. He was just doing side murders. That would kill your rating. You don't need that. No, no.

Nora McInerny
It's like. So the hustle, you know, funds the passion project is what that. Exactly. The complaint accused Mister Lockhart of charging patients for unnecessary intravenous, which means in your veins, sedation, as well as billing Medicaid up to 2.5 million for those procedures between May 2015 and February 2017. Yeah.

Laci Mosley
You needed $2.5 million for. He said I needed to knock everybody out. Everybody who walked in the door. In fact, before you filled out your paperwork, we found your vein, and we knocked you out. Like, what the f.

I've never had anybody touch me. A needle to my arm at a dentist office. No, no, no. I feel like I've had outpatient surgeries where I was not given an iv. Right.

And also, like, is there an anesthesiologist there? Excuse me. Like, you just put these people out on your own. This is very dangerous. Yeah.

So, the hoverbird incident, in at least one conversation, Lookhart joked that performing oral surgery on a hoverboard was a new standard of care. It's funny because you said this as a joke, but he's being serious.

This is a new standard of care, okay? It's called lit, okay? Y'all just old. That's why y'all don't get it. Like, you know how many teeth I can rip out on a hoverboard?

I move faster. Anyways, so the lawsuit said, citing cell phone records. Right. He's just going down the hall, just yanking and walking. So Veronica Willem testified she did not consent to being filmed while sedated, nor to having her tooth taken out while Lookart was on his hoverboard.

Yeah, I'm sure you didn't. I'm sorry, baby. But did you read the paperwork? Okay, you signed a lot of things. You signed a lot, and you signed it very quickly.

Did you read. Because we actually did say we was gonna be on the hoverboard, and this was gonna be on TikTok trending. But we said that. But you showed up for your 215 appointment at 230 13. So if you didn't have time to read all of it and you just.

Signed it earlier, you would have known I was going hit that soldier boy in your mouth. Okay. Anyways, thought that made sense. So when. This is a quote.

The quote is, when did doctor lookhart get your approval to take your tooth out on a hoverboard? This is what prosecutor Joan Wilson asked. And then this is the response she says he never did. I obviously wouldn't have approved that. Dangerous.

That's what the. That's also. That's stupid. Okay? That is.

Nora McInerny
That is extremely dumb. So Lookard's lawyer apologized on his behalf. He said, I want you to know that his lawyer. As his lawyer, I apologize for what he did on the hoverboard. It's unacceptable.

Laci Mosley
And be assured, when I agreed to represent him, I got in his face and told him that I thought he was bad for doing this. Okay. I mean, yes, I will still take his money and defend him, but he got an earful. I'm gonna get him off, but I told him off, too. So justice has already been served, as you guys can tell.

So Stalker offered Wilhelm a chance to address Lochart directly. So Stalker is the defense attorney, and Willem is the person who was getting operated on while he was on a coverport. So this is what she says to him. I have empathy, so I feel for you. I don't feel bad for what you did on the hoverboard.

So weird to read. I don't feel bad for what you did on the hoverboard. Just, I think you could have made better choices, she says. Probably could have been a really good dentist. I don't have anything bad to say about taking out my tooth.

I appreciate that, but I just think that this was outrageous and narcissistic and, you know, crazy. I forgive you for all of that, but there's obviously a high pressure, high price lesson that you're going to have to learn. Wow. Very gracious, child. That's very, very gracious.

Nora McInerny
That's. That's. That's a little more than he deserves. You could have been a good dentist, but you also had to be an asshole. She was like, I mean, you did take my tooth out good.

Laci Mosley
And I did enjoy that sedation. Um, I got ripped. When you watch the video, he, like, there's a flick of the wrist to it. It just does not feel like he, you know, he was taking his time with it. It's.

Nora McInerny
It's so cartoonish. And I hope she's okay. I mean, I don't know. What are the long term repercussions of having somebody yank a tooth out while on a hoverboard? I don't know.

Laci Mosley
Right? Science doesn't. He was Migo in the stir fry video. He was like, dance with my friends in the nighttime. What are you doing?

Also, I want. If it was staged, like, maybe he had actually taken the tooth out, but then he, like, put it back so he could do the flick of the wrist and get it real cute. You know, sometimes you don't get it on the first take, and then what you gonna do? Like, you can't pull out extra teeth. She wake up with a mouthful of gums.

Like, look, we could not get that video. I'm so sorry. It took us twelve teeth. God, who filmed this for him? Like, what dental hygienist was like, cool.

Nora McInerny
This is true. Look, if I was a dental hygienist fresh off of tv school, I would do whatever. Like, whatever. What you say? We ain't learned this in Devry, but I guess.

Laci Mosley
Give me the camera. But as the youngest person on this team. Yeah, I'll shoot the video. Okay. Yeah, for sure.

4K HD. Got it. So although the hoverboard incident is dramatic, Lookheart's most serious charges alleged that he fraudulently billed Medicaid approximately, approximately $1.8 million and stole approximately $250,000 from his business partners. The judge said that he was particularly struck by the numerous text messages in which Lookart bragged to friends about his crimes. Now, I hate a messy scammer.

Look, if you go rob people, you can't tell people about it. You can't be like, hey, y'all, I did robbery today. It was great. Like, you can't share this. No.

Like, we. We kept our scamming circle in middle school. Like, the free Mountain Dew lids. We kept that circle small. The do crew, okay, it was a small group, okay?

Nora McInerny
We weren't telling everybody there were people were in if you were in, you were in if you were out. We weren't accepting. No, no. I wasn't. Like, walking into Walgreens like Weber.

Wonder how that's made. Free mountain dews did kill some kids. Yeah. They knew what they were signing up for. Bragging.

Laci Mosley
See, that's good. That means you had good friends. Yeah, you can't, because you can't text people. If you are scamming the US government, using the low income people of our society to scam the US government, you can't be texting your friends. Like, yeah, it's on me this weekend.

Nora McInerny
Cause I'm ripping off my business partners. So actually it's on them. So they all fucking up. Like, what? So what did you know?

Not to. I don't wanna use inflammatory language, but what a dimwit. Like, what is wrong with this guy? Just so he's very popular. A dentist student on Reddit explained some of his serious charges.

Laci Mosley
They said, I had heard about this guy when I started practicing dentistry. The more serious charges are that he was committing Medicaid fraud by using what he thought was a loophole. My understanding of the laws of Alaska where he practiced was that iv sedation was covered. A covered benefit only in an emergency situation. So he thought, let's make all the situations an emergency.

I love this guy. I hate him, but I love him. He said, yeah, actually, everything is. Everybody who comes. Emergency, teeth cleaning emergency.

Nora McInerny
Guys. It was wild. There was a lot of plaque buildup. We had to put her out. Yeah, had to put her out.

Laci Mosley
Cause he could have died. We had emergency gum removal. Did you see how much gum he had? The gum was about to take over his body. We had.

It was an emergency, okay? Like, oh, God, he's so rude. So how they caught him was that they had an investigator to go to him for a chipped tooth with no pain. The dentist pushed the iv sedation to make him comfortable for the filling, since his insurance would pay for it. After that, when they discovered the video and evidence of his office manager taking out the tooth.

Prime example of how greed can replace common sense. So, first of all, the person who was investigating just already happened to have a chipped tooth. Or were they like, hey, Dan, so the FBI gonna need you to chip your tooth. Yeah, no, just stand still. Gonna throw the staple at your face.

It's for the job. You wanna work for the US government or. No. Or they just like, look through everyone. They were like, yeah, your teeth are the most fucked up.

Nora McInerny
We're sending you in. You've got. Yeah, you look like you need dental work. Right. So this is your assignment.

Laci Mosley
I love it. Oh, God. Seth, at the age of 35, was convicted on the 46 felony and misdemeanor counts in January. Oh, I believe last January. Wow.

Including medical assistance fraud, scheme to defraud illegal practice of dentistry, and reckless endangerment. That means Lockhart will serve twelve years behind bars. He also cannot practice dentistry during his ten years of probation. He'd probably be a good prison dentist, though. You know, people be needing some dental work when they in the clinic.

Nora McInerny
It's good to have a skill set, right? Lookard apologized for his actions while reading from a prepared statement. He said, looking back, I can't say exactly when I began to go off course. While I do not doubt that I was able to render care and alleviate the pain to many people who were in dire need, emphasis on dire, because I said they were all in dire need. I added that said, I also know that I could have and should have maintained better discipline and focus while serving a patient base I came to love.

Laci Mosley
He also said he had changed and he asked the court to reconsider. His lawyer said that he would ask corrections officers if Lochard could served from home with an ankle monitor so he could prevent the spread of coronavirus. Oh, he's a hero. I love that. Yeah, I think he should be able.

To be at home. All right, look. Yeah, he was on the hoverboard. Okay. Yeah, he yeeted some teeth out of people's mouths.

Okay, sure. He declared dire emergencies and put people under life threatening anesthesia. But does he really belong in jail? I mean, I think there's a broader conversation to have about our prison system and the nature of it, which is, you know, rehabilitation and also, like, you know, to keep violent offenders out. And also, like, we.

Nora McInerny
We do tend to go pretty easy on white guys name Seth, so. And also, only a white guy named Seth would be like, do you mind if I just, like, do prison from home? Like, maybe on Zoom? Yeah, I'm trying to get. Yeah, I just.

You know, I'm just thinking about, like, other people. Like, corona just seems to be a big. A big issue. And also, his apology was the best non apology I've heard in a while. It's like, you know, I could have done some things better, but I also did a lot of good things.

So thank you. And again, I would love to do prison at home. So, yeah, I did defraud the government out of millions of dollars, and I did also defraud my business partners. Yes, I did dangerous things to my clientele. Absolutely.

Laci Mosley
I was doing things on a hoverboard. But, you know, at the end of the day, I'm not the bad guy here. Okay. It's like, the bad guy. What is this trial even really about?

Nora McInerny
It's hard to say. It's hard to say. It's misunderstood. Where did I go? Off track.

Laci Mosley
I'm like him. It's like every other. Yeah, he said off track. It's like, when did I go off track? Like, you were doing?

Nora McInerny
I don't know if you, like, just took one misstep as much as you created an entire system based on getting money for services that were not needed, were also dangerous. But I do. He is also the guy who cheated on his sats and was like. I mean, when it comes down to it, there are no good answers here. And I know you're in a tough spot.

I'm in a tough spot. And so I think we should just pretend like none of this happened. I'm willing to walk away from it if you are. This is. This is a guy who I.

You know, I don't think that he had petty parents, and I think maybe a little bit more pettiness. I don't think his parents were locking the tv cabinet for him. I don't think they were. Probably not. I don't think they were.

Laci Mosley
He was, like, very much a gaslighter. Cause he was like, look, I don't even know who did this. I don't. I don't know how we got here. It's like, this is what I was joking about.

It's dark jokes. Twitter is like, that's how the american government is when it comes to black history. The history is like, okay, so the Africans took an unpaid internship after they got on a free cruise ride. Okay, cruise was free. Okay.

Then they came over. They worked really hard. And then one day they were freed. I don't know who owned them. Don't ask.

And then when they were freed, yay for us, because we. Freedom. We don't know who put them in bondage. And then somebody, we don't know who made some laws. And the law said that the black people weren't equal.

And we was like, who made these? If only there's something we could do, then Martin Luther King had came with a church suit, and he was so wonderful. He's actually our favorite. And we would love it if more black people would be like him. We did also murder him.

And by we, I mean, I don't know who. Who. I don't know what motivated it. But anyway, he got murdered, and then they got freedom, and then Barack Obama, and then racism was over. And then the biggest gaslight ever, truly.

Nora McInerny
And they're always like, but the founding fathers, such good intentions. Such good intentions. It's like they owned slaves and rapists. They were insane slavers. They were.

But also, they were so nice to them. Like, you know, they were still really good people. And I think that if you. You can, you know, we can't be too judgmental. Look at, like, what would you do?

You don't know what you would do. And it's like, well, yeah, I have, like, old history books, like, from the sixties in my house, and it is. It is a mess. Like, look, everybody was wearing culottes at one point. You telling me if culottes was slavery, you wouldn't wear culottes?

Laci Mosley
Like, that's not. What is this? What is this metaphor? It's not a good metaphor. Everyone was doing it.

Nora McInerny
It's like everyone was doing it. And, yeah, every. The US government is like that. And so are people who are, like, super, super into America. People who are like, you know, quote unquote, like, you know, old navy, patriotic.

They are. They are like, guys, it's still great. It's still better than, like, desperately trying to look at a map. Yeah. Anywhere else where you might have to, you know, I heard in Canada you have to wait in line for the doctor, and you're like.

You mean like when you go to the doctor and you have to wait there's, like, a room that you wait in, but they. Otherwise you would be standing in a. Yeah, they just put some chains down. Yeah. And magazines.

Laci Mosley
Why there's so many magazines in the doctor's office. If you ain't got away, you don't have to wait. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. That's brilliant.

Nora McInerny
That's. That's good. That's good. That's good. It's so wild because America's a celebrity, you know?

Laci Mosley
And we have bad celebrity culture in America. That's why we elected one as fucking president. And we've done it before, so it's just. We've done it before. Unfortunately, with celebrity culture, you know, people are like, yeah, go, Ronnie Reagan Lord.

Nora McInerny
Don't. Don't look at the other parts. Here's the thing, is, like, hey, he was really nice to me once. And if you look more carefully, you'll see, like, America did. Also, a lot of nice things for my family, for everybody.

My family. Yeah, my family had ours. Immigrants. Oh, my God. Also, I come from a family of irish descent.

Old irish men love to be like. Well, they used to call irish people dogs. And I'm like, it's not the same. Not the same. Not the same, Uncle Mickey.

Not the same. If you want to put him in comparison. Not the same. Not the same. Well, it was also very hard for us.

I'm sure it was not that hard. Also not a competition. I think everybody thinks that black people are, like, having so much fun from being in pain. Like, I really think that there's this envy of, like, everyone is the oppression Olympics. Like, you have to show how you are all also hurting.

Laci Mosley
And it's like, you could have all of this. Yeah, you could have all of this. I don't want to march no more. I don't want to get mad when I find out what I already know is going to happen. Like, with Breonna Taylor.

Like, I don't want. I don't want to have to donate all my coins to flip in the senate so that hopefully, you know, my home girl can still get an abortion. Like. Like, you know, you can have it. You can have it.

Yeah, I would take it. Look, I told y'all, one day I will become a white lady. I don't know how it's gonna happen. I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna be a white lady a la Jordan Peele. And I don't want y'all to bother me when I become a white lady.

Okay.

And then eventually, I'll hit nirvana, which is full blown white man. My name Chad. Yeah. Or Seth, which is like, now we have a new contender. We have a new contender.

And that's a likable name. Chad is. Yes. Seth is a cool. Yeah, Seth is cool.

Nora McInerny
Seth is cool. And then also. And then, you know, you're like, oh, God. Well, Seth. Really?

He did that? Oh, God. Don't you worry about what Seth did. Seth is a nice guy. Seth is a nice guy.

You really want this to ruin his whole life? Okay. I can't believe you're bringing up the stuff that he did. It was so long ago. It's like.

And he also, by the way, he almost said sorry about it, too. He expressed that he wanted to do prison from home, which is the greatest. Like, what a pitch. What a pitch. Like, and also, I would like to do prison at home.

Laci Mosley
Hey, people are getting it. I hope Becky done swindled that, because she got two months in the clink, so I hope. But they. I think I saw an article that says she was picking out her prison where she was going to be able to do yoga and whatnot in Santa Barbara. But I would have tried the COVID home prison first.

Nora McInerny
Girl. Yeah. Zoom prison. You gotta zoom in, right? Hey, I'm here.

Laci Mosley
Lice out. You said. Okay, I'm gonna close the computer. Night, y'all.

Like, they put your. They put your camera in the. In the prison cell with a real inmate.

Can you bring me to the rec room? Girl? No. And also, when you pee, I want you to bring the laptop with you. Okay.

I want the full prison cell. There will be no privacy. Okay. Oh, God, America's correctional facilities suck so much. It's all so bad.

Nora McInerny
It's all so bad. It's all so bad. But honestly, Seth should have to go, so. Yeah, Seth should go. That's the thing about prison is, like, I don't want punitive justice anymore.

Laci Mosley
We all know it's not working, but at the same time, I'm like, but a special jail for Seth. A special jail for Seth. Okay. A special jail for R. Kelly.

Nora McInerny
Yes. A special jail for any guy who's like, but do you think I could just, like, do this, like, on my own schedule? And then we could cash in, like, 100 low level drug offenses. Men who have been imprisoned for three strikes and will just trade in one. Seth.

Laci Mosley
It seems fair. He could do an exchange program. An exchange program. All right, guys, we will be right back. After some non scam advertisements.

Nora McInerny
Robbery back in the nineties, Pepsi and Coca Cola were in a heated race to try and win loyal customers by any means necessary. But when Pepsi launched an ambitious promotion that encouraged people to buy Pepsi and redeem points for prizes, they overlooked their own fine print in a major way. On each episode of Wonderys podcast, the Big Flop, comedians join host Mischa Brown to chronicle one of the biggest pop culture fails of all time and try to answer the age old question, who thought this was a good idea? Like who at Pepsi thought it would be a good idea to advertise that people could earn enough points to redeem a military jet as a prize when they launched their Pepsi points system, they never imagined somebody might try to actually snag it. But a 23 year old did, and suddenly Pepsi owed him a jet.

Follow the big flop wherever you get your podcasts. Do you have an unemployed roommate at home? You know who I'm talking about. Children. Yes, Whitney said.

Laci Mosley
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And fraud. And we're back, and it's time for scammer of the week. Oh, and Nora, this has been so wonderful. You have such grace energy, too. Like, I really like Grace.

Nora McInerny
Oh, God, we love Grace. Did she tell you that? I texted her 10 seconds after you mentioned her name on the pod. I was like, pause. There's no way that they're too like, yes, great.

Laci Mosley
Oh, my God, I love Grace so much. I do mention her on this part a lot. I'm like, grace, can I get sued also? I'm like, grace, you probably don't do but she would. She would.

Nora McInerny
Okay. I would trust her to do my criminal. I would too. And I will be doing crimes, Grace. So just stay ready.

Laci Mosley
I'll start prepaying my legal standby because we will get. I heard that once you start making a certain amount of money, you just start getting sued. Really? Like, yeah, you have to just have money put away and lawyers are retainer because people are gonna sue you. Like, especially if, like, if you're an artist or if you own a company.

It's like Ellen gets sued a lot. But I mean, but like. But there's other people, like artists, athletes who, like, somebody in their posse may like, hit somebody at a club. Like, people try to start fights, sue you. Like, yeah.

And so it doesn't even have to be you there, but it can be somebody that works for you and then they'll sue you. Okay. I think. I think that working in public radio might insulate me from this. I don't think I'm ever gonna have that kind of money.

Nora McInerny
So that's good. That's one good thing. Sorry, Grace. You gonna have that suable money? You gonna have that sueable coin?

Laci Mosley
I'm claiming it. Everybody, y'all get your paper and pen. I'm alright. I'm gonna say Nora's full name so y'all can get it down. Say, I don't want my guests to be sued.

That's almost happened too many times.

So scammer of the week. This is the finale of the show, guys. I'm just gonna. We're gonna praise one charlatan that's just really worthy of recognition. They may be good, they may be bad.

Sometimes they're bad. Mostly I try to praise them. So today we're talking about american promoter Anthony Blakely and how he disappeared with $800,000. So police are being asked to help track down an american music promoter who persuaded Bermuda cabinet ministers to lend him $800,000 to set up a recording studio and then disappeared. What is Bermuda cabinet?

Nora McInerny
Also, who are these people who have access to people that will just give them large sums of money? Like, I don't even know who to contact to be like, I have this idea. Can I have $850,000? That's bananas, right? Why don't I have anybody in my phone that I can call right now and ask for $800,000?

Why? Why am I such a loser? Come on, Grace. I need better friends. Yeah.

Laci Mosley
Grace. Grace, give us $800,000. Your baby don't need cibilac no more. Connect us to someone rich and stupid. Yes.

This is what we need to do. We need Grace to throw a party, and then we come to the party and we just scoop out the marks. This is what needs to happen. Also, Grace, you need to find me a husband. You got Nora on my podcast now.

The next step is husband. Husband. Okay. I'll keep an eye out. You never know.

Nora McInerny
You never know. Okay. Yeah, it could really work. So he runs off with these people's money. Mister Blakely is from Atlanta.

Laci Mosley
I love Atlanta. Atlanta is not the Silicon Valley of scams, because that's Brooklyn. Nigeria is the really where scams were originated. But Atlanta is a close third for just a lot of. A lot of robbery and fraud.

And I love it. People are out there driving around their mortgages and, you know, stunting. Stuntin hard, and I love Atlanta. So Mister Blakely from Atlanta convinced David Byrd that the then minister of economic development and Tourism in Buddha, oh, in Bermuda, this is complicated. So the scammer, Anthony Blair has convinced.

Yeah, get the chart back out. David Burt, the then minister of economic development and tourism in Bermuda, along with their cabinet colleagues. So these are ministers. So it's like prime minister assumption. It's not like a church minister.

See? Okay, got it, got it. I need to read more. So he went to the. He went to the government of Bermuda and was like, I need $850,000 to make a recording studio.

Yeah. Had they not heard of Zoom? I don't even know. So he says, loan me the money so I can set up this recording equipment in a historic house. It was hoped that the state of the art studio in the renovated building owned by the Westin Development Corporation would attract celebrity musicians to the island and gain valuable social media exposure.

He told people that he. He met there, that he was a successful songwriter for music publishers Sony, BMI, and Universal, and we don't know what songwriters look like. For the longest time, I didn't know Kerry Hilson was writing songs for Beyonce. I didn't know that. I didn't know that either.

Oh, yes, it's true. God, she's an unsung record. She's an unsung star. Like, she is really. She's so great.

She's so great. It's not that she's unsung. She just did a diss record against Beyonce. That was. Yeah, that was the wrong team, too.

Nora McInerny
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we said, and this career is over. It's canceled. We went to the back and we pulled the plug. It was like, beep, beep, sorry.

Shut him down. You don't mess with Beyonce. She recently went on a podcast and talked about it. She said that her record label really pressured her to come out with the diss of Beyonce, and they were saying it was gonna affect her studio time and her releases if she didn't do. So I'm gonna.

Laci Mosley
I'm gonna go watch. I'm gonna go. I said, I'm gonna go watch that podcast. Great. Cool.

Nora McInerny
I'm a cool person. Yep. Okay, that's good. I gotta know that. I gotta know that.

I've been wondering, but this makes sense. Though, because, you know, Issa Rae recently took a trip to some island. I can't remember which one. Y'all probably yelling at the radio right now, but I don't know. Yeah, I saw that on Instagram.

Laci Mosley
She took the trip to the island and was like, oh, we on boats. Oh, we here? Oh, we got cocoa butter brown skin. And, you know, it looked lit. So I'm sure after that, people are like, I'm going to that island.

Like, I'm gonna get it popping. So Bermuda. I understand why you gave him this money, because if you could get just even one of those Yvns or those young, rich, never broke agains ASAP, Jules, you know, KKW, whatever their names are, rappers down there, you know, popping bottles in Bermuda, that's gonna definitely up your tourism. Then all the scammers are gonna pull up to Bermuda and get all up in the triangle. So I understand why I did this, and I'm so sorry that it didn't work out.

So after accepting the deal, he disappeared. Attempts to find him where he was believed to live in Georgia have failed. So Anthony Blakely is still on the large or on the large at large. So he was just like, yeah, you have to click this link. Give me your.

Nora McInerny
Your banking information. I'll transfer it out. Like, I'll take all of it. No, that's how much the studio gonna cost us. Whatever's in your bank account, that's how much it's gonna cost.

Oh, man, I feel so bad for Bermuda. That's such. All of them. That's so terrible. Also, they're such a tiny island.

Laci Mosley
Like, they need tourism. Yeah, I'll go to Bermuda. Yeah. Also, like, we're like, we're here, though, and you're not. So, like, we could just make that studio.

Nora McInerny
Oh, you need the money, though, in America, so you can order all this stuff and have it shipped to us. And it makes more sense if you buy it for reasons. So we'll just send you the money and then we'll just wait. We'll wait here for those. We'll sign for the deliveries.

Laci Mosley
Yeah, stay here. Stay here. I'm gonna go back to Ti's house. A close friend, personal Cliff Eris. He gonna get out his dictionary and he's gonna read me several words and then I'm gonna get.

He's gonna help me get the studio equipment and then we gonna take it back to Bermuda. Look, it's all gonna come out. Yeah. We'll be back. We'll be back very shortly.

Nora McInerny
Thank you. Oh, goll. Okay. We'll be back expeditiously. That's what ti just sent me is a text that says expeditiously.

Laci Mosley
No context. He does that often, so. But we will be back expeditiously. And this is. It's extremely legitimate.

Nora McInerny
Honestly. It's like, if you wanna ask me how this gets done in the United States, you send me the money and then I will. I just take care of the details. Like how boring for you to have to just pay bills. I'll do that part.

I just need 855, $50,000 to make sure this project is clipping along at the right pace. And I do need it all up front. Very chill a bit. Yeah. The US.

In the US, you cannot do things on credit. No. Look, y'all don't ask how the iPhone's made. You don't. You don't.

You know. Yeah. Yeah, you can. So this is. But this man is still at large.

Laci Mosley
Yeah. Well, this is scammer of the week. He's a scammer of the week. And, Anthony, you know, I feel bad for the people of Bermuda, but also, I really love that you saw this opportunity. And this is a very niche.

Like, you just saw such a variety and. And you took it. And for that, I'm proud. I'm pretty proud also. It's like, he did.

Nora McInerny
He did everything right. He asked for a nice round number. He referenced the right ratio of celebrities and. And then he just skedaddled, which is three steps. Three steps.

Laci Mosley
That's how you do robbery, guys, honestly, this is. He needs a TED talk because this. Was inspiring, because there's so many scammers of the week and who really. I mean, they. They push it too far.

Nora McInerny
Like, they tell. They tell too many lies. He kept it tight. He kept it just to the pitch, and then he left. And that is.

That's. That's something we can all learn from. That's how you do it. That's how you gamble, too. Like, when you gamble, you're up and you're hot.

Laci Mosley
Like, you're not gonna get hot again, at least not for an hour. So you need to take your money and leave. Like, that's how you win at gambling. So he did the exact right thing, unlike our home girl a few weeks ago that we talked about who was scamming the bridal insurance. And then she got the money, and then was like, oh, you know what?

They stole my check, so I need another 10,000. You did it once. Like, then you. You just. Yeah.

Then you got caught. Like, I'm so disappointed in you. So, you know, it's good to see a robber, a robbery, you know, really, really take off. And also, it's like, it's. It's going to be.

Nora McInerny
You know, it's going to be hard to replicate, too, because he chose such a specific thing, which I think is really important. Like, no one. I mean, I don't know. Was anyone in Bermuda on the lookout for people who are going to maybe run a scam by trying to build a non existent recording studio? No, it's like, that's a Vision.

That is. That is. That's a good vision to have. So good job. Also, I feel like they always check women's references.

Yes. I feel like they were talking over cigars at some Bermuda bar, you know, with the little hoochie waitresses walking by, like, yeah, look at her. Yeah. So, yeah, $800,000 and I'll take it back to America and make the studio. Oh, I clink, clink.

Laci Mosley
Like, you know, like, this is not something. If it was a woman, they would have been like, we're gonna need you to show us the studio.

Nora McInerny
On your own dime, and maybe we will reimburse you if we are satisfied with the product. Yes. That is how it would go. And they also be. Yeah, we need personal references, professional references, sexual references, financial references.

We're gonna need you to personally insure this entire project. Yeah. And this dude can just walk in and be like, two words. Recording studio. Right?

One more word. Yeah. He's mic drop. He was like, money, tourism. Boom.

Laci Mosley
They're like, oh, yes. This guy Anthony, we don't know who he is, but we like what he's saying. Oh, man. From Atlanta. Like, he's brilliant.

Nora McInerny
Good job. Good job, Anthony. That's our show. This is such a fun episode. Northern.

Thank you for having me. I am sweating. Congregation. This has been an honor. I am a super fan of this show.

I don't miss episodes. I walk around my neighborhood just cackling to myself like the lonely person I am, and this has just been a delight. Lacey is just as hilarious as you thought she was. Thank you. Thank you, Nora.

Laci Mosley
Now, wait. So where do you want to be found? That's. I mean, after watching the social dilemma, I want to disappear from the world, period. That's all I want to do.

Nora McInerny
That's all I want to do. I did delete Twitter, so good for me. And so I guess you can find me on Instagram. I'm Nora Borealis, and I'm sometimes on Instagram. I think that's pretty much the only way to find me.

I have a website like everybody else in the world. Would I go to it? Probably not. Probably. You have a wonderful radio show.

Oh, there we go. Yes. Yeah. This is why I'm good at my job. Also, I have a podcast called Terrible.

Thanks for asking, which is literally the opposite of this show. In every way. In every way. But if you ever have a terrible story that you need to tell Lacy Moseley, please tell it to me. Okay.

Laci Mosley
I actually do have a terrible story. I'm going to email you about it. Yeah, I want to hear a terrible. Story also, because I want to have. Yeah, I want to hear your terrible story.

Nora McInerny
We are a good place to tell it. And if you are a person who's like, yeah, I don't know, I'm just sort of in the mood to hear stories that aren't necessarily a bummer, but, you know, do you have some bummer tendencies? I'm not good at pitching my own word. Good God. It's a.

Laci Mosley
It's. Look, if you are nosy and you. Like people's business, then this is the podcast for you. Okay. Yes.

Nora McInerny
This is it. Cheese Louise. Okay, I tried. Where do you want. It's a very famous show, too.

Laci Mosley
Like, you really want to rhyme. I don't know. Just. They do have a podcast. I love it.

Yeah, more of this. More of this. As always, guys, scamgottispodmail.com. Snitch on your friends and your family. Just make sure it's retired again.

Don't want to fuck up your bags. I want you to be like Anthony. I want you to get away with it. Or the do crew, which I'm going to try to make happen now. Okay.

The do crew. Also be like the do crew. You know what I mean? Just full of energy, hocked up, chugging them. Little private school key.

Nora McInerny
Sorry to Walgreens. I'm sorry, Walgreens. Don't you apologize a faceless ass. Walgreens. I know.

Laci Mosley
Unless Walgreens wants to sponsor the show, then I love. In which case, how could you? Nora McInerney? No. I swear to God, guys, I only advertise things that I love.

But what was I gonna say? Oh, yeah. If you want to follow me, di va la ci diva lacy on all platforms. If you want to follow the show, scam got us pod on all platforms. I'm back in the instagram, guys.

And I'm posting. I'm posting entertaining things. I'm trying. In between spiraling. So trying and spiraling.

Yes, trying. Keep trying. Keep spiraling. You made it sound good. All right, congregation, stay scheming.

Nora McInerny
Gam goddess, go spread the word. When you get a fresh, hot McCrispy from McDonald's and you can feel the heat coming through the bag, don't try to wait till you get home. Always respect hot chicken. The McCrispy only at McDonald's. Ba da ba ba ba.

Meet the next generation of podcast stars with SiriusXM's listen next program presented by State Farm. As part of their mission to help voices be heard, State Farm teamed up with SiriusXM to uplift diverse and emerging creators. Tune in to stars and stars with Esa as host Issa Nakazawa dives into birth charts of her celeb guests, this is just the start of a new wave of podcasting. Visit statefarm.com to find out how we can help prepare for your future. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Fraud Fridays: The Dirty Dentist w/ Nora McInerny

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1. Introduction

2. The Hoverboard Dentist

3. Broader Implications

4. Legal and Ethical Considerations

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