Scam Goddess podcast: Laci Mosley is in for the long con

All hail the Victimize Goddess

Laci Mosley's podcast celebrates the art of the grift

By Oct 30, 2020, 9:00am EDT

Photography by Alexis Hunley for The Verge

Laci Mosley picks raised the phone mid-fitting, as she preps for a show she seat't tell me or so. "Do you want to do this other meter?" I take. "Dingy, just a second," she says, then asks if we buns reschedule in an hour. I half hope that she'll trace me (this is an article about scams, after all) merely she doesn't, which is at long las lucky. She might be busy jetting betwixt Hollywood sets and podcast studios, but not too busy to turn in Louboutins and talk about her all-time favorite cons.

Mosley is the LA-based player and comedian rear end the podcast Co Goddess, where she chats with fellow comedy writers about "scams, cons, robberies, and fraud" — words that also double As her theme song. The show's Recent epoch deep dives include Lou Pearlman, a record producer turned condemned Ponzi schemer; Jessica Krug, a white professor who posed as Black; and Seth Lookhart, a hoverboard-riding dental practitioner ultimately convicted of Medicaid shammer.

To each one episode opens with a "what's hot in fraud" section, where a listener sends Mosley a recent gaolbird, which she dissects with her guest. But the best parts are the scam-adjacent digressions: In an episode almost Instagram swindler Caroline Calloway, a auditor describes a former co-worker's Tinder convict, which began with him swiping right on everyone, in order to cast a wide net. "I mean honestly, love is a numbers game game," Mosley says, pausing from reading the note. "I treat IT like the cassino ... I used to not date stamp at each." Her guest, player Jameela Jamil, responds: "I mean I didn't have my first osculation until I was 21, so I palpate like it's okay to fair-minded motility at your own pace. Why did you non particular date?" Mosley quips: "I was busy. I was trying to get to the money."

The rest of the show is dedicated to "historic hoodwinks" where Mosley walks her guest through the twists and turns of a foremost fraud, from the college admissions scandal to a circuitous woo scheme. Sharilyn Vera, her research assistant, compiles detailed notes, which Mosley reads soured during the segment. This set off is all improv — Mosley doesn't look at the notes before of time, which makes her reactions flat funnier.

What sets Mosley apart is that she doesn't look down on scam artists. As a matter of fact, she says there's very much that tail end be learned from fraudsters. "I educe a lot of authority from reading from scammers and learnedness well-nig scammers," she says. "I mean, I don't want to do full-time crime, but at the indistinguishable time, I love to see it."

On Monday, Mosley proclaimed she's taking her podcast to Team Coco, Conan O'Brien's podcast and production company. She's besides now a commentator on Whoopi Goldberg's The Con which airs Wednesdays at 10PM ET on ABC.

I wanted to start with the interrogative sentence you ask your guests — what's your relationship with scams? Why do you find them interesting?

Laci Mosley: IT kinda goes hand in manus with my life history. I used to go to nightclubs with my girlfriends and we would always find ways to sneak into VIP. One time we were at this genuinely exclusive company. Beyoncé was on that point, Jay-Z was there, all these people were there and we couldn't get into the High muckamuc section. And sol, one of my homegirls saw approximately cups and she was equivalent, "Yo, we're already dressed in pitch-black. Let's just hold these cups over our head and work like we're going in to wait on the guests." So we lay out the cups finished our heading and was like, "Okay." And they let U.S. through.

Getting over was always fun for me. I just love people WHO do that. Thither's something about con artists, they ingest this trust, usually relevant of delusion: even if you don't belong there, feeling alike you dwell there and showing the great unwashe you belong there. That's all you really need in life.

I preceptor't want to do laden-time law-breaking, but at the same time, I love to see it. I get laid to watch people.

Yeah, there's something very relatable about scammers. I Don River't think I have the confidence to do it, but I sexual love IT and understand the impulse.

Yeah. But I imagine we every last can. I think we each can rag the point where we have the confidence of scammers, because that's really what separates a lot of people who are wildly successful from other mass. We're always lied to aside capitalism. We're lied to in this way of equal, "These people who have more than you, who have more money or wealth, they're just more uncommon than you. They have something you don't." And that's simply not the verity. They just have the trust to act equivalent they were supposed to be everywhere that they were supposed to be. And even out if they didn't have the tools or the information OR the language, they just picked it up on the way. Sol I think information technology's or so feeling like you merit everything.

And we untaped in a organization that teaches US that we don't, because that's how they oppress masses. So I love doing this show, overly, because I like to liberate people from capitalism. I always say, like, everything is made up: name calling, rules, laws. They change day in and day out.

I mean, look at weed. There are so many people rotting in prison over minor drug offenses for marijuana, and at present you can attend the weed Apple Store and buy weed in some respects that looks so technologically advanced and nerveless. Everything's ready-made up. So I just deficiency people to not feel confined by rules and [laughs] laws.

Do you own a philosophy around what separates a scam-scam from say, an unjust legal system?

I think that they are a great deal the synoptic. Information technology's just that one has a different vibe to us. Like the scam of authorisation and power is that we all have to empirically follow these rules, right? We all have to adhere to these things because they are law. When in actuality, it's retributory somebody who told you that. Every last these laws were made by people and all these scams were made by multitude.

So for Maine, they kind of walk the same line. It's but that one is viewed differently than the other. And I mean this to a greater extent with scams that are conning the system. Ilk if you're conning an individual person on the street, then that's a completely different thing than the government scam. But if you're getting over on John R. Major corporations and the government, you'Re basically doing what they do every day. I mean, you look at any billionaire, you'll find dead bodies, you'll find tax evasion. Jeff Bezos exist cleaning up these Amazon murders like next-day transportation!

I guess to more understandably answer your question, I think that there are different types of scam industries, but I do think that the fundamentals of scams are so similar to the society that we've built and how it works. You know what I mean? 'Cause IT was set up by people so that they could scam everybody other. The founding fathers made a country that would be a utopia for neat white men. And it still pretty much is.

Do you have a favorite scam that you've covered in the past yr? It feels like this was a year full of scams.

It was. My preferred scam is still the first instalment of the show. And that's Anna Delvey with Paul F. Tompkins. They're doing a TV exhibit about her on Netflix. [Disclosure: The show is settled on an article by Jessica Pressler for New York Magazine, which shares a parent party, Voice Media, with The Threshold.]

And the reason I have a go at it Anna Delvey such is because not only did she have confidence, she had props, she had actors, she had a trainer Quaker, and she ready-made it look comparable she was paying him. And then beyond that in court, when she was being sentenced, she literally said to the judge in the court, she said, "I am not a good person." And I thought, wow, how liberating.

Non that I want people to be bad or whatever, merely just to fancy somebody who is and so fricking honest with themselves and what they're active, versus everyone pretending to personify good citizenry. Like Donald Trump's non a dependable person. And I would love it if he was just like, "I'm a bad guy." We could get someplace with that.

I think she's out now, also. She antimonopoly got early parole.

Really? Oh my god, I'm thusly happy for her.

How bash you choose which scams to cover?

This is a dependable con show. So information technology's look-alike true crime, except I really don't like to cover polite ladies acquiring murdered or whatsoever. I try to throw people a break from that. So I try to choose scam artists that I can radical for, for the most part with. Now sometimes the scam is so angelical that I have to deal it, but I'll be like, "Okay, I don't like this man. He's a bad man." Like for example, Lou Pearlman. Lou Pearlman was a uproarious defrauder. He was likewise an awful human. So I'll make that distinction. But I similar to foreground scammers that I really like over dastardly multitude.

And then also something that's fun. I love fun inside information. I love a wild person who's doing a lot of crazy shit.

Then look-alike, World Health Organization are they scamming? I try to stay away from stuff that feels suchlike you're a predator. But sometimes we do have to cover people who make been duped. Make out relationships and stuff comparable that. Sol, yea. But I look for stuff that's fun, nonviolent, and just a good-ass time.

That's unity of my favorite things roughly your testify — you root for the scammer in a subversive way of life. We Don't always attend scammers cloaked in that light.

Sometimes I catch shows where they're trying to take in the scammers and it just feels not fun. Cause it's like, "You're the hater, you'rhenium the hater guy that we all... we father't like you."

I congratulate myself in trying to be kind and find the good in masses. Especially if I tone like they haven't done anything that is oppressive or reprehensible to other people.

Unrivalled of the things that made me really happy was I had ane of the scammers that I covered for "Scammer of the Calendar week," this rapper Chad Focus. He was buying billboards and all this stuff with his caller charge card to promote his rap record album and his medicine was in reality rather nifty. And we played some of it on the show and when atomic number 2 got out of jail, he emailed me and was like, "Give thanks you for the call out out."

I look like both sides could listen to your present and smel understood — the scammer and the victim.

Reactionist. And now that doesn't always happen. We did have a Twitter fight with Caroline Calloway.

She doesn't seem like a true grifter to Pine Tree State, though...

Oh, she is.

Really?

She just came out with a Koran called Grifter and then had everyone preorder IT and never mailed it. It tranquilize hasn't derive impossible and she stopped posting all that.

Okeh, I bring that back.

She's a even artist. Ohio my Supreme Being, she's one of my favorites.

Can you tell me a trifle more some the Gyp Goddess team? I know you work closely with a explore assistant.

So, Sharilyn Vera is my research assistant and she's fantastic. Chelsea Jacobson is my producer. Marina Paiz is my technologist. We have an all-female squad. We're all women. We'ray pretty diverse, which is great because Chelsea is Jewish. And somehow, there's always something... like, e.g., I said that Anne Frank was the most famous Jewish girl and I was like, is this problematic? I didn't miserly information technology in a hopeless way. And then we have fun conversations like that.

I rarely read the episodes beforehand because I like to do improv on the entire episode. And IT's just more fun and undecomposed for Pine Tree State if I've non seen information technology.

At the start, the people who volition come and listen to this show are suchlike, "Laci doesn't read these beforehand?" And so they get used to us. I desire people to feel like we're happening a journey together. And we're encyclopaedism about the person together. And the only prison term I call back it's even obvious that I haven't read one is Lou Pearlman. We seriously fully didn't have it away that He died. And I was talking about him in present tense, I was like, "I hope they are beating your ass, Lou." And then I was like, "Lou dead?"

You fresh declared some heavy news — Scam Goddess is joining Team Coco [Conan O'Brien's podcast and yield studio]. How did you decide to bring your show there?

I decided to join Team Coco because I've ever admired Conan O'Brien's work and when he took an matter to in my show, I saw an opportunity to grow and learn from one of the best to ever eff. His team is so enthusiastic and hardworking and the have has been extraordinary. Team Coco produces Scam Goddess alongside Earwolf now, and I couldn't imagine a wagerer site.

I'm also a talking head happening the new Rudiment serial publication The Con hosted by Whoopi Goldberg. IT was my eldest shoot during COVID and my first time being a consultant on a documentary-style show. I feel equal I scammed my way into being an expert, but I've likewise just learned a pot roughly con artists studying them for years. I'm having a lot of playfulness with this record and it's growing in ways I certainly didn't fathom. It makes Maine so curious and excited for what's to come and improbably grateful for everything I've experienced.

Do you have any scam predictions for what types of schemes we might meet more of in the future tense?

My fraud forecast is, you're going to undergo a lot much interpersonal scams. And what I mean by that is people reaching away on a one-on-one individual basis. Either with, like, "Hey, I have this opportunity for you to make money truly easily from household," or, "Hey, I know you're working from home and I'm from your payroll and I need this info," or it's coming via text message or social media. That has gotten very large happening the scam front, besides. So you're happening Facebook and someone's tantalising you to the "circle of gold," and that's a pyramid scheme. Fifty-fifty dating apps, people are acquiring DMs that are like, "Hey, I curst this money or I just need this money for the taxes and fees, and then I'll send you back your portion."

Why do you think 2020 was such a big year on the cozenage beat? Did it feel that way to you?

I intend 2020 was a great year for scams and for scammers because this is the sentence where I think everyone across the US realized that everything we fucking knew about our government was a swindle. They have been lying to us. They are not helping us. In a time where everyone needed a stimulus, there was only indefinite check that went impermissible. You love what I mean? Outside of unemployment, we're seeing that you've been paying taxes, you've been showing up, you've been doing your part, then where's your government? Not here, right?

I think up that this really opened everyone's eyes to how much we've allowed ourselves to be scammed by authority and by people World Health Organization are non taking care of the best interests of the country. IT's been a wonderful year for us to take capitalism's boot and just loosen it on the neck a little bit, you know what I mean? It's more like a toe forthwith. It's more of a stiletto. So I opine that's really liberating.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.