Topic: New SGU Segment Contest

[lukebourassa]

This is a great idea and brings me back to the days when I'd watch "Dateline" just to see people cringe when confronted with the hidden camera footage!

[Eternally Learning]

I'm aware some of these are dumb, but I'm just rapid-firing:

Don’t believe everything you’re sold

Scheming Scammers

Skeptics VS Scammers

You Want Me to Pay for WHAT?!

Extraordinary Scams Require Extraordinary Jerks

Scam Tricks that They Don’t Want You to Know!

Will Scam for Money

Scam Secrets Revealed!

Scam is a Four-Letter Word

Scammers Suck

Who Watches the Scammers?

Scamming is Easy

The Scam-Man

Common Threads

The Skeptics’ Guide to Scammers

Jay Gets Scammed

Will Jay Fall For It?

[Skulker]

Are you going to limt the segment to scams where you can actually talk to the person running the scam or will you take on some of the more common email scams ? Will you keep the sgement humerous or are you going to go the 'Dateline' approach and be more serious ? That last question will help determine an appropriate name for the bit.

[Johnny Slick]

I think you should enlist your brother (not Steve, the other one), but make him not talk all that much (I know that might be hard to pull off but you'll have to trust me on this). Then what you do is you get set up to be scammed and then at the last moment reveal yourselves to be scam-reporters; "strike back", as it were. You would be able to call this segment...

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

[craig]

I liked Scam-a-lama-ding-dong.

[Miisanthrope]

Scamboozled

[Eternally Learning]

As ideas for the segment go, you could split the segment up into different steps.  It seems like this may take a lot of prep-work and it might be hard to do this on a weekly basis, so why not build incrementally each episode with different aspects of the same topic?  Week 1 could be your initial take on the scam in question where you describe it, boil it down to the tricks involved, and explain how they can be overcome (i.e. how to do the balance trick with Power Balance bands).  Week 2 could be an interview with someone involved in the scam (Either previously or currently).  Week 3 could be your jaunt into live locations (Could you ever go to a non-live location) where you could do any number of things like confronting the sales-people for these scams, pretending to sell crap products then revealing yourself, and interviewing patrons of said scams and asking them why they bought into it then presenting them with evidence for why it’s a scam and seeing what they say.  Week 4 could be a wrap-up for the topic.

I’m just providing my made-up framework based on what I suspect your segment to be like, but the basic premise of spreading a topic across multiple episodes is mainly what I’m suggesting.  Doing this will allow you more freedom to attack each scam as much or as little as you like and would not put your segment in a box of limited time (I’m assuming you’re not adding to the overall length of the show to include this) and formula.

[Green Ideas]

Scammers, in a tongue-in-cheek terror movie voice (ref. to the Cronenberg flick)

[EhJayArr]

Cool idea!

I think it would be awesome to have you visiting homeopaths, chiros, magnetic bracelet sellers, etc., and ask the questions your average Joe might ask. Let the scammers run their spiel, and right before they have you "hooked," you can pwn up on them, i.e., demonstrate in a real world environment which questions to ask such bastards.

[Eternally Learning]

Here's some more:


Fools’ Gold

You People Suck!

Don’t Scam me Bro!

Scam Hunter

Scamming is for Losers

Swindling Them Out of Your Money

Trust Fall:  Going Down the Rabbit Hole of Scamming

[Jay]

Skulker,  I anticipate the show being heavy on reporting about current scams and when possible I will go on location or phone.  I also want to mix in interviews.  I think it would be cool to interview people who ran scams.  I dont know how many I will find but Im going to look.  As usual I expect there will be a mix of serious content and me cracking jokes.  probably a lot of joking while making phone calls. 

I'm loving the variety you guys are coming up with.  Keep brainstorming!  This is a lot of fun.  Please comment on the ones you like that others came up with.

[Caffiene]

"Clown or Con"

Ooh, I know. "A Fool and his Money" (From the phrase "A fool and his money are soon parted")

[Henning]

Scam filter?

I like.




"Jay Novella: Baloney Detector"

[Moloch]

My girlfriend made me suggest: Scam-a-Saurus...

Or: Don't Make Me Vomix!

[Traveler]

Scammers Are Baffled

I'm Skeptical