Can we talk about Anna Delvey?

[bears]

This story is bananas.

www.thecut.com/2018/05/how-anna-delvey-tricked-new-york.html?utm_source=tw&utm_medium=s1&utm_campaign=thecut

www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/my-misadventure-with-the-magician-of-manhattan/amp

It's amazing how this faux socialite was able to scam so many people and institutions. I'm floored that Rachel saw her relying on wire transfers and getting kicked out of hotels and didn't question it because she was having so much fun partying on Anna's dime.

The wisest person in this story is Neff's mom.

[imojoebunny]

I read about that, and still do not understand how she pulled it all off for, as long as, she did, or why.

[mrsd2006]

I read this a while back. It's unbelievable what people can get away with.

[bears]

May 29, 2018 20:25:37 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

I read about that, and still do not understand how she pulled it all off for, as long as, she did, or why.

She was careless as hell. If she had been 10% more thoughtful, I very she's be running this scam today.

I've looked around and it sounds like a lot of the people who got super scammed by Anna were truly ashamed. I bet more will come out of the woodwork with the attention this is getting.

[rupertpenny]

My favorite part was when she was in jail and said she had made friends with some other women in for identity theft and remarked "I didn't know it was so easy!"

[Velar Fricative]

Despite being born and bred here, this is a New York scene that is just foreign to me. I hope it stays this way. The only times I see $100 bills is when I'm standing in line at Dunkin' and some asshole in front of me is trying to pay for their $2 coffee with a $100 bill.

[HRH Queen Dick I]

This girl is a psychopath but I also have a problem with her greedy shallow victims. Not to put too fine a point on it.

[goldengirlz]

May 29, 2018 20:34:18 GMT -5 rupertpenny said:

My favorite part was when she was in jail and said she had made friends with some other women in for identity theft and remarked "I didn't know it was so easy!"

Foreshadowing!

[cattledogkisses]

I fell down this rabbit hole yesterday.

I'm agog that people believed her "financial advisor" was actually emailing from an aol.com address. Maybe pulling cons really is easier than we all think.

I have no doubt that she will do this again when she's released from prison, armed with the knowledge she's gleaned about identity theft from her prisonmates.

[CheeringCharm]

Oh I read about this story before, in VF I think. It was written by the girl she went to Morocco with. What a crazy story. It's so fascinating that she could pull a con like this off for so long.

What I thought was interesting is that the story demonstrates the importance of social capital. She was able to pull this off because she hung around with other wealthy, connected people and no one thought that anyone in her social position could be broke. Her biggest investment was in other people's perception of her wealth (furthered by flinging $100 bills around) rather than in anything tangible and it worked for a long time until she got too greedy.

[eponinepontmercy]

www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/05/30/he-convinced-people-he-was-a-rich-saudi-prince-he-was-really-a-poor-street-kid-from-bogota/?utm_term=.c445852c40d3

Here's a similar story. I can't believe so man people fall for this type of thing.

[bears]

May 30, 2018 7:27:37 GMT -5 eponinepontmercy said:

www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/05/30/he-convinced-people-he-was-a-rich-saudi-prince-he-was-really-a-poor-street-kid-from-bogota/?utm_term=.c445852c40d3

Here's a similar story. I can't believe so man people fall for this type of thing.

This part is bananas: "Gignac, posing as a wealthy Saudi, contacted Syracuse University. He told the school he was interested in making a $45 million donation but first needed a $16,000 payment to cover the taxes. The school wired the money."

Didn't this seem like an obvious scam to SU? I wonder how many people lost their jobs over that one.

[wawa]

May 30, 2018 7:35:34 GMT -5 bears said:

May 30, 2018 7:27:37 GMT -5 eponinepontmercy said:

www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/05/30/he-convinced-people-he-was-a-rich-saudi-prince-he-was-really-a-poor-street-kid-from-bogota/?utm_term=.c445852c40d3

Here's a similar story. I can't believe so man people fall for this type of thing.

This part is bananas: "Gignac, posing as a wealthy Saudi, contacted Syracuse University. He told the school he was interested in making a $45 million donation but first needed a $16,000 payment to cover the taxes. The school wired the money."

Didn't this seem like an obvious scam to SU? I wonder how many people lost their jobs over that one.

I got that email...i was not fooled...

[bex]

May 30, 2018 7:44:56 GMT -5 wawa said:

May 30, 2018 7:35:34 GMT -5 bears said:

This part is bananas: "Gignac, posing as a wealthy Saudi, contacted Syracuse University. He told the school he was interested in making a $45 million donation but first needed a $16,000 payment to cover the taxes. The school wired the money."

Didn't this seem like an obvious scam to SU? I wonder how many people lost their jobs over that one.

I got that email...i was not fooled...

Right? that's like the original email scam lol. Saudi prince (or Nigerian, I feel like) wants to send you millions of dollars but you need to send him 10k or whatever to cover the transfer fee.

Come on SU.

[meli554]

May 30, 2018 7:27:37 GMT -5 eponinepontmercy said:

www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/05/30/he-convinced-people-he-was-a-rich-saudi-prince-he-was-really-a-poor-street-kid-from-bogota/?utm_term=.c445852c40d3

Here's a similar story. I can't believe so man people fall for this type of thing.

[wawa]

It's funny how the aura of wealth influences people's perceptions. My uncle used to tell a story that when he first got to NYC and was rubbing elbows with fancy people for work that people would ask where he went to school and he'd tell them - but the place he went to school was a not-well-known liberal arts college in PA. But that college in PA happened to share a name with a fairly well-to-do area near the city. And rather than admit they'd never heard of the damn school, these people who ran in celebrity and fashion circles would make a comment that made it clear that they just assumed that it was somehow connected to the fancy town and therefore also fancy and make impressed face and change the subject.

[sporklemotion]

May 30, 2018 7:59:35 GMT -5 wawa said:

It's funny how the aura of wealth influences people's perceptions.

Walter Kirn’s book Blood Will Out, about Clark Rockefeller, talks about this. It’s a fascinating read.

[thebulldog]

this reminds me of catch me if you can in a way.

[orangello]

This story is bananas, and she sounds like she has zero remorse. Who thinks prison isn't that bad?!

[Accountingcat]

May 30, 2018 6:07:58 GMT -5 cattledogkisses said:

I fell down this rabbit hole yesterday.

I'm agog that people believed her "financial advisor" was actually emailing from an aol.com address. Maybe pulling cons really is easier than we all think.

I have no doubt that she will do this again when she's released from prison, armed with the knowledge she's gleaned about identity theft from her prisonmates.

She said it was a family office (aka trust office). They usually run like that, not very professional or large. I've dealt with a few for my job and it's always kinda weird to work with them. The red flag for me was that you usually have to have ~100 million to start a family office and she was claiming 60 million net worth. You'd think others that are familiar with family offices would know that.   

Anyways this story is nuts. I'm sure she will get out of jail and move to London/Hong Kong/etc. and try it again.

[HRH Queen Dick I]

The Dick Move Family Office has 100M gifs in the bank.

[HRH Queen Dick I]

May 30, 2018 10:27:19 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

May 29, 2018 22:00:21 GMT -5 HRH Queen Dick I said:

This girl is a psychopath but I also have a problem with her greedy shallow victims. Not to put too fine a point on it.

YES. None of my thoughts about anyone involved are nice.

Pro tip: Always see the worst in people, as I do, and this will never happen to you. Lol.

[blt08]

Well, that's about a half hour of my life I won't get back. I'm just......speechless.

[msmerymac]

The cut article implied her friend who works at Vanity Fair put the whole $62,000 Morocco trip on her work AmEx and I was like "How did she not get fired?!" Also, how does she have a work AmEx like that when she appears to make about $60k/year? And if not her work AmEx, how does she have a personal AmEx with that limit that exceeds her income? Am I out of the credit card loop?

I feel kind of bad for her. Yeah, most people don't because she got to go on a $60k, 8 day vacation to Morocco. But it gives me hives to think about an unexpected $60k expense. It was too good to be true, and I bet to a lot of people Anna seemed just a bit off, which is why she only had a handful of friends at the end - other people had been burned, like the guy who paid for her Venice tickets, and people with a lot of money don't like to be burned any more than people without it.

[5kcandlesinthewind]

May 30, 2018 10:27:19 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

May 29, 2018 22:00:21 GMT -5 HRH Queen Dick I said:

This girl is a psychopath but I also have a problem with her greedy shallow victims. Not to put too fine a point on it.

YES. None of my thoughts about anyone involved are nice.

The whole time I was reading it, I thought, "these people are exhausting and terrible. WHY would you want to be around ANY of them?"

[bears]

May 30, 2018 14:24:50 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

The cut article implied her friend who works at Vanity Fair put the whole $62,000 Morocco trip on her work AmEx and I was like "How did she not get fired?!" Also, how does she have a work AmEx like that when she appears to make about $60k/year?

I don't think that's all that unusual to have an expense card with such a high limit, particularly if she had purchasing responsibilities.

[bears]

May 30, 2018 15:30:31 GMT -5 bears said:

May 30, 2018 14:24:50 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

The cut article implied her friend who works at Vanity Fair put the whole $62,000 Morocco trip on her work AmEx and I was like "How did she not get fired?!" Also, how does she have a work AmEx like that when she appears to make about $60k/year?

I don't think that's all that unusual to have an expense card with such a high limit, particularly if she had purchasing responsibilities.

It does remind me of this bananas AMA column: www.askamanager.org/2015/06/i-racked-up-20000-in-personal-charges-on-my-company-credit-card.html

[msmerymac]

May 30, 2018 15:33:37 GMT -5 bears said:

May 30, 2018 15:30:31 GMT -5 bears said:

I don't think that's all that unusual to have an expense card with such a high limit, particularly if she had purchasing responsibilities.

It does remind me of this bananas AMA column: www.askamanager.org/2015/06/i-racked-up-20000-in-personal-charges-on-my-company-credit-card.html

Yes! I thought of that too.

[goldengirlz]

May 30, 2018 15:30:31 GMT -5 bears said:

May 30, 2018 14:24:50 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

The cut article implied her friend who works at Vanity Fair put the whole $62,000 Morocco trip on her work AmEx and I was like "How did she not get fired?!" Also, how does she have a work AmEx like that when she appears to make about $60k/year?

I don't think that's all that unusual to have an expense card with such a high limit, particularly if she had purchasing responsibilities.

I also wondered how she kept her job though. Even if you have a corporate card, you still need to file expense reports (at least everywhere I’ve ever worked!)

The only thing I could think of is perhaps photogs and reporters at fashion magazines are encouraged to do this on some level (show up at fancy places and mingle with socialites) and she told an editor she might get a story out of this.

I also thought it was interesting that the only people who were willing to help her at the end weren’t the ultra-wealthy but the people who had also benefited from her scam in some way; they felt indebted to her because she had bought so many things for them. Interesting psychology there.

[bears]

May 30, 2018 15:39:42 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

May 30, 2018 15:30:31 GMT -5 bears said:

I don't think that's all that unusual to have an expense card with such a high limit, particularly if she had purchasing responsibilities.

I also wondered how she kept her job though. Even if you have a corporate card, you still need to file expense reports (at least everywhere I’ve ever worked!)

The only thing I could think of is perhaps photogs and reporters at fashion magazines are encouraged to do this on some level (show up at fancy places and mingle with socialites) and she told an editor she might get a story out of this.

In my last job, you were allowed to make personal charges on your corporate card. It was generally discouraged, since it was messy.

I think most jobs wouldn't care too much, as long as it was paid off. It wasn't clear to me how Rachel paid AmEx.