There have been other cases like this in the past. My favorite scam admission story is the Princeton cowboy, who not only got into Princeton, but excelled there, both academically and socially. The Ivy referred to in this article is one of the most, if not the most, exclusive eating clubs at Princeton.
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A post was merged into an existing topic: Yale May Ramp Up Fact Checking After Removing First-Year Student
I guess James Arthur Hogue’s life story answers my question. For some people, spending their entire lives conning, lying, and stealing is preferable than trying to lead an ordinary life. I suppose conning becomes a way of life or maybe they become addicted to the thrill of getting away with ruses and tricks. He was 61 in this article, alone, living in his vehicle, and appears to never been able to maintain a normal job or relationships for any length of time and he has been in and out of prison for forty years. He managed some successful short term cons in the interim, but what a horrible life to lead.
But he gets to lead it in Aspen, and to some people that’s enough. Sort of like going to Yale, for however long it lasts.
Definitely did not do what one of his Princeton contemporaries had hoped according to what that article said, ie did not do a Jean Valjean and use his alias to start afresh and do well.
You really can’t make this about “why would someone turn over their lives to get into Yale”.
There are scams every month, ranging from people ripping off lonely singles, people pretending to be lawyers and actually showing up in court to “defend” their “client”; don’t forget Theranos and all the other VERY sophisticated lying, cheating, Ponzi schemes, and a wide range of Nigerian Prince schemes.
People run fraudulent, complicated scams all the time and sometimes the payoff seems quite pathetic compared to the time, expense, and hassle of the prep. The “lonely hearts” ones particularly- people pretending to be someone else so they can gain access to an elderly person’s bank account and steal $15K? Or someone faking a CNA license and ending up a caretaker for a dementia patient and stealing a $3K pair of earrings before they get caught?
You fake a CNA license– you’re still working as a CNA, as unglamorous and hard as that is, until you figure out where the key to the safe deposit box is, and show up with your patient pretending to be the daughter….
Yale- sure. Tomorrow it will be someone pretending to have graduated from Southern CT State with a Series 7 license and at sentencing the judge will be wondering “why”?
These can happen multiple times vs just getting one degree, though . And $15k is a fortune in some of the countries the scams are run from.
It’s still a lot of work…. the most recent one in my area– faked social security card, fake CNA license, fake background check (all the people the agency called who were allegedly family members of former elderly clients were just the scammers friends and relatives), and the scammer actually had to show up for work every day and actually provided feeding, bathing, cleaning, etc. services to the client.
The lonely hearts scammers don’t have to put in anything near that amount of effort, they just need patience and fake internet profiles.
Fake or stolen credit cards to send the obligatory flowers with the “I can’t wait until we meet in person” note; the same fake or stolen credit cards to send airplane tickets (apparently if someone can afford $1200 for an airplane ticket, it’s more believable that they live in a 4000 square foot “casita” in the Dominican Republic with full staff); etc.
Lots of small ticket expenses go into the elaborate “I’m dating a rich guy”fantasies…
The scams can be huge and well-organized but depending where you are, penalties can be quite extreme too…
Many of these lonely hearts scams are run by sophisticated criminal enterprises who compound trafficking with scams targeting the elderly.